Long before these slight attempts were made to establish as a science
what is at present called animal magnetism, always, in fact men were
occupied more or less with this vital principle, principle of flux and
influx, dynamic of our mental mechanics, human phase of electricity.
Poetic observation was pure, there was no quackery in its free course,
as there is so often in this wilful tampering with the hidden springs of
life, for it is tampering unless done in a patient spirit and with
severe truth; yet it may be, by the rude or greedy miners, some good ore
is unearthed. And some there are who work in the true temper, patient
and accurate in trial, not rushing to conclusions, feeling there is a
mystery, not eager to call it by name, till they can know it as a
reality: such may learn, such may teach.
Subject to the sudden revelations, the breaks in habitual existence
caused by the aspect of death, the touch of love, the flood of music, I
never lived, that I remember, what you call a common natural day. All my
days are touched by the supernatural, for I feel the pressure of hidden
causes, and the presence, sometimes the communion, of unseen powers. It
needs not that I should ask the clairvoyant whether "a spirit-world
projects into ours." As to the specific evidence, I would not tarnish my
mind by hasty reception. The mind is not, I know, a highway, but a
temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open. Yet it were
sin, if indolence or coldness excluded what had a claim to enter; and I
doubt whether, in the eyes of pure intelligence, an ill-grounded hasty
rejection be not a greater sign of weakness than an ill-grounded and
hasty faith.
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