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THE 
 
 PROBABLE EFFECT 
 
 OF 
 
 SPIRITUALISM 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 Social, Moral, ai^d Religious Condition 
 OF Society. 
 
 PRIZE ESSAYS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Published by The British National Association of Spiritualists, 
 38, Great Russell Street ; 
 
 And by E. W. Allen, ii, Ave Maria Lane. 
 
 1876. 
 
 S 
 
LONDON : 
 
 rniXTED EY THE XATIOKAL IRESS AGEXCY, LIJUITED, 
 
 106, SnOB LANE, E.C. 
 
'REFACE. 
 
 The publication, 'in their present form, of the ,two Essays 
 oontained in this volume is due to the following circumstances. 
 
 In the year 1875, througn the liberality of two Members of 
 its body, the Council of the British National Association of 
 Spiritualists was enabled to ofEer two prizes, the first con- 
 sisting of a Gold Medal, or £20 ; the second of £10 ; for the 
 best and second best Essays on a selected subject, which was — 
 
 " The Probable Effect of Spibitualism upon 
 
 THE Social, Moral and Religious 
 
 Condition of Society." 
 
 The conditions were that the competition should be open to 
 all British born, or naturalised British subjects, and further 
 to all Foreign Members of the British National Association of 
 Spiritualists, provided the Essays were written in English. 
 
 The following gentlemen were kind enough to consent to 
 adjudicate upon the merits of the competing Essays : — MR. 
 Alfred Russel Wallace, the well-known naturalist and 
 F.E.G.S. ; a gentleman known to a large circle under the nom 
 de plume of "M.A., OXON"; Me. J. M. GULLT, M.D.; and 
 Mb. Martin R. Smith. 
 
 the Essays sent in, the two which are here printed were 
 ^selected by the Judges as worthy of the first and second 
 prizes respectively, by reason of their logical and literary 
 merits ; and, in accordance with the conditions of candidature, 
 the copyright of the Essays vests in the Association for the 
 term of five years from the date of adjudication. 
 
SPECIAL NOTICE. 
 
 In the case of the present Essays, the duty of selection 
 rested entirely with the Adjudicators ; and the Council of the 
 Association, though it has undertaken the publication, holds 
 itself free from all responsibility for the views of the writers. 
 

 FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNA BLACKWELL. 
 
 |HAT our "Social Institutions" are 
 the outcome of our " Beliefs " is 
 a proposition so evidently true 
 that we may probably be allowed to 
 assume its acceptance as such by our 
 readers and to proceed, without further 
 preamble, to examine the consequences 
 resulting from the admission -of the fact 
 of correlation between Philosophic Con- 
 victions and Social Forms. 
 
 If we admit that our Beliefs are the 
 source of our Institutions, we must also 
 admit that the latter will necessarily 
 change with every change in the for- 
 mer ; and, as what we have been accus- 
 
EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 tomed to regard as " the established order 
 of society" is founded on religious, 
 philosophic, and scientific "creeds" that 
 are crumbling away on every side, we 
 must admit, still further, that this " order" 
 will necessarily share the fate of the 
 theoretic conceptions on which it has 
 been reared, and that the present epoch 
 is, therefore, emphatically an epoch of 
 transition. And as the very fact of 
 transition implies both the abandonment 
 of our actual stand-point and the exist- 
 ence of some new stand-point to which 
 this transition is leading us, we cannot 
 escape the conclusion that the general 
 throwing of "Beliefs" into the crucible 
 of analytic examination — which is one 
 of the distinguishing characteristics of the 
 present day— must be regarded, not 
 merely as being destined to effect a de- 
 composition of the elements of society 
 as it has hitherto existed, but also as 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 7 
 
 a preparation for an approaching re- 
 combination of those elements, on the 
 basis of some new form of mental con- 
 viction that will constitute the " Belief," 
 and thereby determine the social develop- 
 ments, of the Future. 
 
 A transformation of such vast impor- 
 tance, and implying possibilities of 
 change so far transcending the reach 
 of human foresight, may well induce an 
 earnest consideration of such indications, 
 in regard to the general direction in 
 which we are tending, as may be de- 
 ducible from an examination of what is 
 taking place in the world around us. 
 
 The most superficial glance at the 
 present state of opinion suffices to show 
 us that the immediate effect of the de- 
 composing process,, to which all the 
 old formulae of human thought are now 
 being subjected, is to be found in the 
 rapid spread of theoretic Materialism, 
 
8 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 which denies the existence of the 
 Spiritual element of the universe as the 
 corollary of its denial of the existence 
 of an Intelligent Creator, and in the 
 substitution of selfish appetites and inte- 
 rests, in place of the nobler psychic 
 motives of action, which is the practical 
 consequence of that theoretic denial. 
 And as the practical carrying-out of a 
 theory so simply dissolvent as that of 
 Materiahsm would necessarily result 
 in the destruction, not only of what we 
 call "society," but of the human race 
 itself, it is natural that the prospect of 
 deterioration and ruin thus presented 
 should fill with dismay the minds of 
 those who have not yet learned to re- 
 gard all states as essentially transitory, 
 and to see, in all modes of dissolution, 
 only a destruction of perishable forms 
 that have been temporarily assumed by 
 imperishable elements— only a setting-free 
 
FIEST PEIZE ESSAY. 9 
 
 of those elements, as the indispensable 
 preliminary to their re-combination in 
 some new modes of temporary union. 
 
 But the "dissolution" of old ideas, 
 of which the present prevalence of Ma- 
 terialism is the earKest result, is seen, 
 on a closer examination of the subject, 
 to be no exception to the consoUng law 
 of Providential ordering which makes 
 what we call. " death " the forerunner 
 ^nd harbinger of what we call "life." 
 For the Materialistic denial of the ideas 
 of a Creative and Overruling Power 
 distinct from the Creation, of the Soul, 
 and of human duty, responsibility, and 
 destiny, is less a denial of those funda- 
 mental intuitions of the human mind 
 than a rejection of the unsound and arbi- 
 trary theoretic assumptions on which 
 they have hitherto been rested ; and the 
 Materiahstic hypothesis should, there- 
 fore, be regarded as only a passing 
 
10 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 phase of the reaction of modern science 
 against assumptions which must neces- 
 sarily be cleared away before those 
 fundamental elements of human belief 
 can , be securely established on the solid 
 ground of scientific and rational con- 
 viction. For those assumptions — o^ecog- 
 nizing no community of origin or of 
 destiny among the various orders of 
 beings, and, consequently, no identity of 
 Purpose in the evolutions of existence, 
 but, on the contrary, breaking up those 
 beings into unconnected categories and 
 substituting permanent antagonisms in 
 place of pre-ordained co-operation — 
 prevent the ascertainment of the only 
 sound basis of belief in the Creator 
 and in Immortality. The MateriaUstic 
 protest against those assumptions is 
 therefore rendering an immense service 
 to the ideas which it aims at destroying; 
 for it is unwittingly preparing the way 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. H 
 
 for the establishment of a Unitary 
 Theory — the need of which is beginning 
 to be generally though vaguely felt — 
 that shall combine all the facts of ex- 
 istence in one grand, all-embracing 
 synthesis, and thus furnish the key to 
 the problems of, Origins and End& 
 that have hitherto baffled the keenest 
 enquiry. And as it is only through 
 the solution of those problems that we 
 can arrive at a rational belief in the 
 existence of a Beneficent Creator and 
 Overruler of the universe and a rational 
 acceptance of the all-important moral 
 consequences inseparable from that beHef, ' 
 it is evident that whatever tends to 
 undermine those arbitrary and erron- 
 eous assumptions is clearing the ground 
 for the establishment of the Scientific, 
 Theism which — as the only certain guaran- 
 tee of the eternal persistence of the 
 Spiritual principle, the only sound 
 
12 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 foundation of Physical Science, and the 
 only safe guide, to the elucidation of 
 social questions — is the most urgent 
 need of the present day. 
 
 The real tendency of modern Ma- 
 terialism is to the establishment of this 
 unitary synthesis. Compelled, by the 
 identity of their chemical constituents 
 .and vital phenomena, to attribute a 
 common origin and destiny to the 
 various orders of beings that people our 
 ^lobe, and being imable to unite them 
 on any common ground of spiritiiality, 
 the Materialist essays to unite them on 
 a common ground- of materiality. The 
 -stand-point of the visible world being 
 too narrow to allow of the construction, 
 thereupon, of a theory that can reconcile 
 the facts of life and the fact of death with 
 the belief in a^ Beneficent Creator and 
 Overruler of the universe (from which 
 belief the admission of a Spiritual ele- 
 
FIRST , PRIZE ESSAY. lb 
 
 ment distinct from Matter is inseparable)^ 
 the Materialist endeavours — ^by eliminat- 
 ing that belief and consequently denying 
 the existence of a Spiritual element — to 
 bring those various orders of beings and 
 of facts within the scope of a common 
 formula. Seeing only Matter, he takes it 
 as his basis of speculation. By attribut- 
 ing to Matter the "property" of Force, 
 he makes it the cause of Movement ; and, 
 by attributing to it the properties of Soul, 
 he makes it the source of immaterial 
 phenomena. Unable to imagine a 
 beginning of the material universe, he 
 credits Matter with the capacity of 
 orderly evolution which is the result 
 and evidence of the Divine Overruhng, 
 and thus endows it with the self- 
 existence which is the distinguishing 
 characteristic of the Creator. Denying 
 — or attributing to assumed " properties 
 of Matter" — all the facts indicative of 
 
14 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 the concurrence of Soul, Force, and 
 Matter in the phenomena of existence, 
 atid of the action of self-existent in- 
 telligence in the co-ordination of those 
 three constituent elements of the uni- 
 verse, thfe MateriaUst arrives at a basis 
 of reasoning that appears to be unitary, 
 but that is unitary only in appearance ; 
 and he builds, upon that incomplete and 
 delusive basis, a Theory of Existence, 
 which— as an attempt to arrive at the 
 formation of the unitary synthesis that 
 will be the beacon of the Future — con- 
 stitutes an advance upon the theoretic 
 antagonisms of the Past, but which is, 
 in reahty, as partial and unsound as the 
 various unfounded assumptions it dissi- 
 pates. 
 
 But as the Sun, notwithstanding the 
 terrestrial vapours that veil its splendour, 
 continues to discharge its beneficent func- 
 tions as the Ruler of the system of depen- 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 15 
 
 dent worlds that revolve around it, so the 
 Divine Overruling — ^untrammelled by hu- 
 man denial — provides the appropriate 
 remedy for Materialistic aberration, by 
 enabling the spirits of the so-called 
 ^' dead " to give us incontrovertible evi- 
 dence of their continued existence beyond 
 the grave, and thus furnishes to the world 
 — just when the dazzle of physical dis- 
 covery is blinding it to the existence of 
 the Spiritual principle — the visible and 
 tangible proofs of the reality and immor- 
 tality of that principle which will eventu- 
 ally place our convictions, in regard to the 
 Spiritual element of our compound nature, 
 on the same basis of Positive Science 
 which underlies our convictions in regard 
 to the facts of our physical existence. 
 
 It is evidently impossible to overrate 
 the influence which the establishment of 
 intelligent communication between the 
 surface and the spirit-sphere of our planet 
 
16 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 must necessarily exercise in shaping the 
 new phase of conviction and of action to- 
 wards which we are tending, notwithstand- 
 ing the drawbacks which may seem, at 
 first sight, to diminish the value of the 
 results to be hoped for from that com- 
 munication. 
 
 The two realms of existence furnished 
 by the surface and the spirit-sphere of our 
 planet being "part and parcel" of each 
 other and subjected to the same law of 
 slow and gradual progress, we must ex- 
 pect to find — as is, indeed, already 
 abundantly evident — ^that ignorance of 
 general principles, retentions of prejudice 
 and error, and contradictory statements 
 based on individual impressions, supposi- 
 tions, and speculations, are as rife on the 
 other side of the grave as on this side of 
 it. Like attracting like, it is evident that 
 each medium will usually attract only 
 spirits of the same average advancement 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 17 
 
 as Ms own, and that the difficulties in- 
 herent in the art of spirit-manifestation 
 must necessarily impede^ — ^for the present, 
 and perhaps for a long time to come — the 
 free and correct transmission of thought 
 from the higher regions of the spirit-world. 
 But it is equally evident that, notwith- 
 standing these drawbacks — which are due 
 to the general backwardness of our planet, 
 and can only be got rid of through the 
 gradual progress of both classes of its 
 population — the communication now be- 
 ing established, at every point of its sur- 
 face, between our globe and the spirit- 
 world, must nevertheless exert a deter- 
 mining influence upon its future develop- 
 ment. 
 
 In the first place, this communication 
 will generahze the certainty of the survival 
 of the soul, with its activities and affections, 
 after the death of the body ; a survival in 
 regard to which the vast majority of man- 
 
18 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM, 
 
 kind have, as yet, no clear and enlightened 
 belief, and which has, consequently, no 
 practical influence on their action. And 
 although this survival does not suffice 
 to prove the indestructibility of the soul — 
 for the prolongation of its existence 
 through a few hundreds, thousands, or 
 even millions of years, is by no means a 
 certain proof that it wiU be prolonged 
 throughout eternity, which, as previously 
 pointed out, can only be proved with 
 absolute certainty as a deduction from a 
 Unitary Theory of Existence — ^yet, if 
 spirit-communication were to have no 
 other result than that of showing that the 
 soul does not die with the body, and that 
 there is, consequently, no inherent impossi- 
 bility in the idea of its being destined to 
 an eternal duration, the fact of that com- 
 munication would still be incomparably 
 more interesting in itself, and more im- 
 portant in its bearing on the future con- 
 
FIKST PRIZE ESSAY. lU 
 
 victions and action of mankind, than all 
 the purely physical discoveries which are 
 the glory of the Positive Science of our 
 day. 
 
 But the communication in question 
 is evidently destined to bring about a. 
 result far more important than the mere 
 establishment of the presumption, in 
 favour of our eternal existence, which is 
 deducible from the survival of the soul, 
 for a longer or shorter period, after the 
 death of the body. For, while it is 
 evident that the great mass of mediani- 
 mic communications can only be a reflex 
 of the present ideas of the spirits who 
 are nearest to the earth and of the me- 
 diums to whom they are sympathetically 
 attracted, it is equally evident that the 
 generalization of medianimity will enable 
 the more advanced intelligences, who are 
 directing the transformation of ideas 
 now being effected in our world, to select 
 
20 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 the mediums best fitted to serve as the 
 channel of the suggestive hints they may- 
 have to give us, and thus to assist us 
 in working out the general explanation 
 of the Creative Plan, which — as it must 
 necessarily involve the relations of the 
 present to the past and the future, 
 and those of our earth and its races 
 with the other realms and beings of 
 Infinity — can never be elaborated through 
 any unassisted efforts of observation 
 and induction on our part, but can 
 only be arrived at by us with the aid 
 of those whose superior advancement 
 enables them to take a wider view of 
 Providential arrangements than is ob- 
 tainable, from the lower stand-point 
 of human observation; an explanation 
 which the progressive discoveries of 
 Science vdll elucidate and confirm, and 
 which, by enlightening us in regard to 
 the nature and conditions of the soul's 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 21 
 
 existence, will give us at once the 
 rationale and the certainty of the eternal 
 duration of each individualised soul, as 
 the aim and result of those arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 The supposition of such a transmission 
 of teaching from a higher point of view 
 than that of our present life — as a 
 consequence to be naturally anticipated 
 from the communication now being es- 
 tablished between spirits and men — 
 necessarily pre-supposes our inability to 
 foresee, in their entirety, the ideas that 
 will be gradually conveyed by that 
 teaching. But it is evident that, in 
 order to set us on the track of the 
 theoretic unity now being sought for, 
 more or less consciously, by the most 
 advanced thinkers of the day, -this 
 higher teaching must do three things : — 
 
 1. It must prove the common origin, 
 law of development, and destiny, of all 
 
22 EFFECT OF SPIEl'TUALISM, 
 
 the Ci'esatures of the universe, from the 
 lowest to the highest, by showing that 
 all forms of suffering and of effort, of 
 life and of death, result from their 
 community of origin and of destiny, 
 and occur in virtue of a Unitary Plan 
 and Purpose that link together, in one 
 endless chain of progress, aU the reigns, 
 modes, and realms of Creation : — 
 
 2. It must vindicate the Wisdom, Jus- 
 tice, and Beneficence of the Divine Go- 
 vernment, by showing us (i.) That the 
 various orders of beings constitute the 
 successive links of that chain ; (ii.) That 
 their corporeal differences and mental in- 
 equalities mark successive degrees of the 
 same general scale of evolution, succes- 
 sive steps of the common road to the 
 common goal ; and, (iii.) That they only 
 appear to us to be heterogeneous and un- 
 connected, because we see them all at the 
 same time and out of the natural sequence 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 23 
 
 of their production, and are therefore un- 
 able to perceive the orderly filiation 
 according to which — could our glance 
 take in the origin, career, and end of 
 our planet, and the relations of its 
 races with the other worlds and beings 
 of the universe — we should see that 
 they have been produced. For a Unitary 
 Theory of Existence must, necessarily 
 show us that the Universe is a unit; — 
 that " Creation " is not local but general, 
 not an act but a process, whose sole 
 aim is the development and education of 
 Soul through the action it' is made to 
 exert upon the elements of Matter, in 
 accordance with the Creative Plan; — 
 that Soul is the formative principle of 
 all the temporary agglomerations of 
 those elements which we caU " bodies," 
 and that all natural "bodies," from the 
 simplest to the most complex, from the 
 lowest to the highest, are mere temporary 
 
24 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 results of the past or present action of 
 Soul, upon the material element, at the 
 various stages of its education ; — ^that 
 there is, consequently, no fixed and 
 abiding "Universe," but only a succes- 
 sion of temporary phenomena, constituted, 
 for the time being, by the action of Soul,, 
 and that the duration of a nebula,, 
 with its countless myriads of suns and 
 of planets, is as changeful and ephe- 
 meral, considered in its relation to 
 Eternity, as that of the May-fly which 
 lives and dies in a single day ; — and that 
 all our Positive Sciences — Chemistry, Geo- 
 logy, Astronomy, Electricity, Mineralogy, 
 Botany, Physiology, Natural History, &c. 
 — are mere summings-up of the modes of 
 soul-action in the special directions with 
 which they severally deal : — 
 
 3. It must explain the mingling of 
 truth and falsehood in the various "Be- 
 liefs" of the Past, as having resulted 
 
FIRST PEIZE ESSAY. 25 
 
 from the imperfections of the phases of 
 human development in which they took 
 their rise ; and it must take the place of 
 those "Beliefs," not by destroying, but by 
 fulfilling, their aspirational out-reachings, 
 as the "workings of root, stem, and flower 
 are fulfilled, in the fruit. 
 
 Let us now briefly examine the con- 
 sequences deducible from the idea of the 
 Unitary Synthesis towards which we 
 have seen that the mental movement of 
 the day is tending, as regards, first, the 
 belief and next, the social forms, of the 
 Future. 
 
 1. The idea of a Unitary Theory of 
 Existence necessarily presupposes the 
 fact of a Unitary Plan in the produc- 
 tion and maintenance of the universe, 
 and thus implies the eternal continuity 
 of the Creative Action by which we and 
 all the other orders of Creatures have 
 been called into being, and the eternal 
 
26 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 continuity of the same law of develop- 
 ment to which we and they are now 
 subjected : — 
 
 2. The continuity of the Creative 
 Action implies that there never was a 
 period, in the eternity of the Past, in 
 which the Creatures of an earher Crea- 
 tion had not already attained to the 
 relative "perfection" of knowledge, love, 
 ^nd power which is the aim of Creation 
 and the source of the happiness of all 
 Creatures : — 
 
 3. The attainment of that relative 
 "" perfection" by the spirits of earher 
 Creations implies the employment of 
 those relatively " perfected " spirits in 
 fields of cosmic activity proportioned, in 
 grandeur and importance, to the degree of 
 their scientific and moral advancement : — 
 
 4. The arrival of the Creatures of 
 earlier Creations at those higher fields of 
 activity (the " Thrones, PrincipaUties, 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 27 
 
 Powers" of the vicegerents to whom the 
 practical administration of the universe 
 is entrusted by the Creator) impUes that 
 we, and all the other Creatures of the 
 later Creation to which our earth and its 
 population belong — and those of all the 
 innumerable future Creations that will 
 succeed each other throughout eternity — 
 shall eventually arrive at the same ele- 
 vation : — 
 
 6. The attainment of the same eleva- 
 tion by all the Creatures of the universe 
 imphes the upward passage of all those 
 Creatures through the same successive 
 degrees of development, and thus con- 
 firms the earliest religious insight of our 
 globe, as recorded in the earliest of its 
 "Sacred Writings," which expressly de- 
 clare that "Kinsmen, beasts, stones, vege- 
 tables, are all one; what they are, a man 
 has been:"* a declaration tantamount 
 
 * Vide the Druidic Triads, Bhagavat-Ghita, &c. 
 
28 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 to asserting that what a man is, th^y 
 will he: — 
 
 6. And this unity of origin, training, 
 and destiny implies, in its turn, the two 
 great related doctrines expressed, with 
 more or less clearness, in all the " Bibles " 
 of the world and in the writings of its. 
 greatest thinkers, from the earliest times 
 to the present day, viz., (i.) The pre-exist- 
 ence of the soul to the body it animates, 
 ai^d, (ii.) The gradual progression of the 
 soul in knowledge, virtue, power, and 
 happiness, through successive embodi- 
 ments in the same planet, or in planets of 
 higher and higher degree, until it reaches 
 the grade of mental, moral, and corporeal 
 development which lifts it above the need 
 of any further connexion with plane- 
 tary matter, and introduces it to the nobler 
 modes of being that are dimly fore- 
 shadowed, in all thos^ "Bibles," as the 
 " glorified " existence to which we are 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 29 
 
 eventually to attain, but of the nature of 
 which we are unable, at our present low 
 level of attainment, to form the remotest 
 conception. 
 
 No theory that does not fulfil the con- 
 ditions here laid down can satisfy the 
 mental need of our day, for no other could 
 claim to be unitary; because no other 
 could explain the affinities and construc- 
 tivity of the Mineral Reign; the vitality, 
 digestion, circulation, sleeping and waking, 
 activities, preferences, efforts, diseases, 
 and death of the Vegetable Reign ; the in- 
 telligence, passions, and suflferings of the 
 Anijnal Reign ; the unequal conditions, the 
 sorrovfs, aspirations, and progressiveness 
 of the Human Race ; and the persistence, 
 in each ascending reign, of the special 
 characteristics of the reigns below it : and 
 because, without this coherent and all-em- 
 l)racing explanation, it is impossible to 
 demonstrate the existence of a Beneficent 
 
30 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 and Omnipotent Author, Sustainer, and 
 Euler of the Universe, — to prove the exist- 
 ence of any unity, either of nature or of 
 destiny, between the beings of the various 
 reigns of our planet, or between these and 
 the other beings of the universe, — to 
 justify the conception of the Brotherhood 
 of the Human Race, — or to perceive the 
 rationale of Christ's subhme summing-up 
 of the totahty of aspiration and of con- 
 structive achievement in his prophetic 
 prayer that the "Will" of the Creator may 
 " be done on earth, even as it is done in " 
 the more advanced realms of being, 
 whose inhabitants have learned to practise 
 the lesson of conformity with the laws im- 
 posed hy the Creative Ordaining which we 
 are now being made to learn through the 
 discipline of the earthly life ; all of which 
 conceptions, without the soUd substratum 
 that can only be furnished to them by a 
 Unitary Theory of Existence, must be 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 3t' 
 
 regarded as mere baseless figments of the 
 imagination. 
 
 It is evidently as impossible to fore- 
 cast the details of the Social Institu- 
 tions that will take their rise in tho 
 phase of unitary " Belief " to which 
 we are tending, as to foresee all the 
 ideas that will be comprised in that 
 " Belief" But it may be safely assumed, 
 on the one haild, that those institutions 
 will grow out of, and crown, the ex- 
 periences and aspirations of. our Past, 
 and, on the other hand, that they will, 
 nevertheless, differ from those of the 
 Past as widely as the .convictions of 
 the Future will differ from our earlier 
 "creeds." For the institutions of the 
 Past — growing out of a perception 
 of diversities and antagonisms that 
 were supposed to be inherent in the 
 nature of things, and attributing a false 
 and exaggerated importance to th& 
 
32 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 present conditions of an earthly life 
 that was supposed to be our only one 
 — ^necessarily embodied the individual 
 and social selfishness imphed in those 
 suppositions. But the institutions of the 
 Future — growing out of a view of 
 existence in which all the Creatures of 
 the universe are seen to be travelling 
 onwards, from the same starting-point, 
 by the> same road, to the attainment of 
 the same destiny, and in which the 
 interests of each are perceived to be 
 inseparable from those of all — ^will 
 necessarily embody the conviction that, 
 not only is "Love," in literal truth, 
 the sole " fulfilling of the law " of 
 Creation, but that we can only secure 
 our own individual interests and happi- 
 ness by substituting, for the divergent and 
 antagonistic ayrangements which make 
 ALL the rivals and enemies of each, the 
 convergent and co-operative arrangements 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 33 
 
 which will secure to each the aid and 
 support of ALL. 
 
 ; It may therefore be safely assumed 
 that the individualism and antagonism, 
 which have characterized the social 
 arrangements of the Past, will be suc- 
 ceeded by the application of the 
 principle of co-operation, as the cha- 
 racteristic of the social arrangements of 
 the Future. No one, at this day, would 
 contest the vastness of the power ob- 
 tainable from the union of wills and 
 efforts in the accomplishment of any 
 given aim; but comparatively few are 
 yet aware how enormous are the 
 economic results that would be obtained 
 — as regards both the production and 
 the employment of all the elements of 
 human well-being — ^from the application 
 of the principle of co-operation, of 
 mutual helpfulness, to the various in- 
 terests and occupations of Kfe. Did 
 c 
 
34 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 space permit, it would be easy to show 
 that, just as all moral evils result from 
 the substitution of self-love for the senti- 
 ment of justice and of charity, so all the 
 evils of our social state result from the 
 substitution of individualism and antago- 
 nism in place of co-operation and mutual 
 helpfulness, and can only be success- 
 fully dealt with by substituting co-opera- 
 tion for individualism. 
 
 Ignorance, poverty, brutahty, pauper- 
 ism, prostitution, servitude, war, vice, 
 disease, injustice, can never be pre- 
 vented from producing their natural 
 effects ; and all our various philanthro- 
 pic efforts to ameliorate what is radi- 
 cally bad are mainly to be rejoiced in 
 because they will necessarily lead, in 
 time, to a recognition of the impossi- 
 bility of diminishing the evils of our social 
 state otherwise than by ridding ourselves 
 of the causes to which those evils are 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 35 
 
 -due : a result which, as will be appa- 
 rent to all who reflect dispassionately on 
 the nature of those evils and the condi- 
 tions required for clearing' them away, can 
 only be accomplished by the adoption of 
 modes of living that shall ensure, to every 
 member of the human family, the full 
 and healthy development of his physical, 
 mental, artistic, and moral nature, and a 
 sphere of congenial activity in which he 
 will both contribute to the general weal 
 and benefit by all that has been achieved 
 by the industry, skill, science, and genius 
 of all its other members. 
 
 "Practise my simple doctrine of 
 fraternity and charity," said the Great 
 Teacher, eighteen hundred years ago, "and 
 all other things shall he added unto you;" 
 in other words— wAe7e the exclusive seek- 
 ing of his own interests hy each individual 
 necessarily defeats itself- — the practical ap- 
 plicatiop of the principles of brotherhood 
 
36 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 and of mutual helpfulness which, in this 
 nineteenth century, is briefly expressed 
 by the' term co-operation, -will give 
 comfort, health, knowledge, elegance, 
 security, to all. 
 
 The application to social life of 
 principles which are universally accepted 
 in theory, but universally rejected in 
 practice, can only be effected gradually, 
 through repeated experiment's, and with 
 the aid of experience gathered from partial 
 and temporary failures. But, though such 
 a transformation of society must neces- 
 sarily be laborious and slow, no one who 
 believes in the supremacy of good over evil, 
 no one who perceives the signs of dawn 
 amidst the darkness of the present, can 
 doubt that it will be eventually achieved, 
 and in the way implied in the words 
 of Christ, viz., by the application of 
 the principle of co-operative helpful- 
 ness to every department of human life ; 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 37 
 
 a practical carrying-out of the law of 
 brotherliood and charity that will become 
 possible in proportion, and only in propor- 
 tion, as the fact of intelligent communica- 
 tion, between souls in flesh and souls in 
 the spirit-world, shall bear its natural fruit 
 in the enlarging of the mental horizon of 
 mankind, and the defining of the true 
 nature and aim of terrestrial existence. 
 Por, the evUs of our social state being due, 
 as we have seen, to the narrow views of 
 iuman Ufe and destiny hitherto prevalent 
 in the world, the persistence of those views 
 would necessarily perpetuate the defective 
 social conditions in which those views are 
 embodied; and it may therefore be broadly 
 asserted that such a transformation of 
 social conditions can only be accompUshed 
 through thfe modification, of human ideas, 
 motives, and aims, that will necessarily be 
 effected, sooner or later, as the result of 
 that communication. 
 
38 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 The possibility of such a substitution of 
 co-operation for antagonism being once 
 admitted, who would venture to assign a 
 limit to the amelioration of human exist- 
 ence that must result from so radical a 
 transformation of its social conditions ? 
 The present social conditions of our earth, 
 being evil, attract to it souls of very shght 
 advancement, whose baseness corresponds, 
 to, and is perpetuated by, the evil sur- 
 roundings into which they are born, and 
 which they, in their turn, help to per- 
 petuate. The establishment of better social 
 conditions, on the contrary, will attract to 
 the earth souls of greater advancement, 
 already fitted to profit by those improved 
 conditions, and by whom those conditions 
 will be still further improved; until — 
 through the gradual amelioration thus 
 achieved by the efforts of successive gene- 
 rations — our earth shall have become the 
 abode of righteousness, fraternity, and. 
 
FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. 39 
 
 peace, prefigured in the brief, but preg- 
 nant, words of Christ. 
 
 What imagination, of painter or of 
 poet, could forecast the glory, the beauty, 
 the happiness, of the earthly life under 
 such conditions, chastened and ennobled 
 as it would be by the knowledge — due 
 to our communication with spirits of 
 greater advancement — that terrestrial life, 
 even under such improved conditions, 
 can only be the stepping-stone, the 
 portal, to higher states of being, and 
 that its most exquisite refinements are 
 only valuable as educating us up to. 
 modes of etherealized existence beyond 
 the region of planetary worlds 1 For, 
 as we have already seen, such a trans- 
 formation of the social conditions of our 
 earth can only be accomplished through 
 a transformation of our scientific, philo- 
 sophic, and religious " Beliefs " which 
 will cause us to take a new view of 
 
40 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 human life; — a view that will, on the 
 one hand, reduce our estimate of the 
 intrinsic importance of an earthly life- 
 time, by showing us that it is but one 
 step of the endless career we have 
 before us, vrhile, on the other hand, it will 
 enhance, immeasurably, our estimate of 
 its relative importance, by shovdng us 
 that the use we make of each phase of 
 our existence decides the character of the 
 next phase of our career. 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 
 
 BY 
 
 G. F. GREEN. 
 
 |F the influence of an idea upon 
 Humanity were always commen- 
 surate with its intrinsic import- 
 ance and scope — in other words, if the 
 Harvest were always proportioned to the 
 quaUty of the Seed sown — our task in 
 tracing the probable effect of Spiritualism 
 in the world would be an easier one. But, 
 as, in the material world, the goodness of 
 the soU, and favorable conditions of heat, 
 light, and moisture, are as essential as 
 good Seed ; so, in the moral world, the 
 preparation of men's minds, and favoring 
 outward influences, are as essential as 
 the intrinsic goodness of the Idea. 
 
42 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 The idea of a Future Life has been iu 
 the world for centuries, but the seed 
 has fallen for the most part upon " stony- 
 ground." "Where it has taken root it has 
 undoubtedly brought forth some fruit; 
 but the extent of the harvest cannot be 
 ascertained for the tares which are not 
 withered. As a practical question, there- 
 fore, our subject demands, firstly, a care- 
 ful consideration of the present condition 
 pf Society, and its state of preparation 
 to receive the truths revealed by Spiri- 
 tualism; and, secondly, the proper In- 
 fluence of the truths themselves under 
 favorable conditions. It may here be 
 premised that we shall not seek to fore- 
 cast the effects of Spiritualism beyond 
 the proximate future. This is the only 
 problem a solution of which can be either 
 possible or profitable to finite beings. If 
 we took the ground that Truth is mighty 
 and must prevail, it would only be 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 43- 
 
 necessary to prove Spiritualism to be 
 true, and imagine an Utopia in which it 
 should flourish, and our task would then 
 be completed. But the conditions being 
 all imaginary, such an attempt should 
 rather be embodied in the form of poetry 
 than prose. The' end of the prose 
 essayist is better attained if he be con- 
 tent to narrow his field of vision, for 
 the sake of better definition of the object 
 to be viewed. In the present instance 
 we have a given state of Society and a 
 given Motive, and we shall attempt to 
 trace the probable effect of that motive 
 only so far into the future as ordinary 
 human faculties may penetrate. 
 
 Although then the form of the pro- 
 blem before us does not involve only, 
 or even mainly, the question of the truth 
 of Spiritualism, the solution of that pro- 
 blem is necessary as a preliminary to- 
 the consideration of its influence. We 
 
44 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM, 
 
 shall therefore deal with this question 
 first — Is Spiritualism true ? 
 
 Is Spiritualism true? The question 
 naturally suggests another — What is 
 Spiritualism? Many different answers 
 might be given, but we shaU claim here 
 this one as the proper definition — Spiri- 
 tualism is the Science of a Future Life. 
 In the modern sense of the term, as 
 contradistinguished from ancient forms 
 of supernaturalism. Spiritualism is strictly 
 a Science. All its fixed conclusions are 
 to be maintained by inductive reasoning. 
 The orthodoxy of its facts is to rest 
 ^lone upon the constancy of their verifi- 
 cation and verifiability. 
 
 Amongst the existing forms of re- 
 ligion which point to similar conclusions 
 this characteristic is entirely lacking. 
 The Protestant Church, for example, 
 builds its behef upon a Revelation which 
 is closed, i.e., upon facts which cannot 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 45 
 
 recur. The Catholic Church, although 
 not denjdng the occasional recurrence of 
 miracles, yet bases its belief also en- 
 tirely upon the past. Hence, apart from 
 the internal or inspired knowledge of 
 spiritual existences (which many deny), 
 these Churches have no more evidence 
 of the actuality of the Spirit-world to 
 offer to the sceptic than is offered for 
 the actuality of many ancient myths, viz : 
 historical testimony. All merely tradi- 
 tional beliefs, whether true or false, have 
 a tendency to become weakened by time ; 
 and unless supported by fresh testimony 
 their ultimate extinction is a certainty of 
 nature. And Christiahity, so far as any 
 real belief in its supernatural evidences 
 is concerned, is rapidly sharing this fate. 
 The facts upon which it is built have 
 come to present to us so strange and 
 unnatural an appearance, have become 
 invested with such a legendary and ideal 
 
46 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 •character as to lose their very quahty 
 of facts. They are regarded as some- 
 thing quite distinct from ordinary facts ; 
 so that more weight is attached to con- 
 temporaneous theories than to the very 
 facts which gave rise to them. As a 
 matter of historical accuracy, facts are 
 more likely to be correctly transmitted 
 than words — the substance than the 
 form. But many lovers of the Bible 
 will have it that the words have an in- 
 spired accuracy, which is by no means 
 confirmed by an unequivocal meaning; 
 The pertinacity with which the letter of 
 the Bible is clung to proves the absence 
 of any living faith in the Supernatural. 
 It is necessary to bolster up our behef 
 in facts so strange by the behef in 
 something yet stranger, viz : Verbal in- 
 spiration. 
 
 Anomalous as must appear such a 
 state of mind as we have described, it is 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY, 47 
 
 impossible otherwise to explain the utter 
 incredulity and sheer inability to believe 
 the facts of Spiritualism which we meet 
 with in most Christian circles. The 
 power of believing in a miracle seems 
 so dead, that we must conclude the 
 continuance of the Christian religion in 
 the present day is due to the acknow- 
 ledged perfection of its ethical teachings 
 alone. It is not an uncommon trait of 
 the human mind to hold on to the 
 form of a faith after " the brains are 
 out." 
 
 " The times have been 
 That when the brains were out the (creed) would die. 
 And there an end." 
 
 But it is not so now. The " brains " 
 of Christianity were the supernatural 
 facts of Christ's life ; his resurrection 
 and appearance to the disciples ; and 
 the spiritual gifts which were subse- 
 quently bestowed upon them ; not so 
 much the morahty or theology which he 
 
48 EFFECT OF SPIEITUALISM. 
 
 sought to inculcate; and still less the 
 subsequent teachings of the Apostles. 
 As Spiritualists it is not necessary to 
 hold the infallibility or the fallibility of 
 those teachings, but Spiritualism oflFers 
 such strong confirmation of the facts 
 upon which only a reasonable belief can 
 be based, that Christians should be 
 the first to welcome it. Unfortunately, 
 dogma is rather held to confirm the 
 facts than as needing confirmation by 
 them, and any additional probability 
 given to the facts of the Bible is 
 thought to be unncessary, and the 
 offer of it is only contumaciously re- 
 jected. 
 
 "While such is the attitude of the 
 religious world towards Spiritualism, we 
 need not be surprised that the sceptical, 
 and more thinking portion of the com- 
 munity, has not been able to attain any 
 wide-spread belief in it, but, repudiating 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 49 
 
 alike the records in which it sees pro- 
 fessing Christians have no solid belief, 
 and the rumours of so-called modern 
 superstition, denies the existence of Soul 
 altogether. The only proof possible of 
 such an occurrence as an apparition 
 (we are told) is in the consciousness of the 
 See^. To all the world beside it is but 
 hearsay, and should be discredited on 
 the mere ground of its improbability — 
 on the same grounds as we discredit the 
 existence of the Sea-serpent. Such an 
 argument as this is wholly unassailable 
 by any weapons of orthodox Christianity. 
 The Christians and Materialists are at 
 the two poles of behef, and both lack 
 the middle part of it which Spiritualism 
 can supply. For these it has its verifiable 
 facts; for those its all-embracing philo- 
 sophy. With the Materialist it is neces- 
 sary to begin by proving that Intelligence 
 and Vohtion are to be found separate 
 
 D 
 
50 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 from the brain and human organism.. 
 With the Religionist it is necessary to- 
 point out the true raison d'etre of his 
 belief 
 
 That Spiritualism is true may be de- 
 monstrated in two ways — inductively, 
 from the facts of spirit-communion occur- 
 ring daily in our midst ; deductively, from 
 the universality of the belief in it, which 
 has prevailed in some form or other in 
 all civilized nations. It is difficult, nay 
 impossible, to suppose that any wide- 
 spread belief is an entirely baseless one. 
 Moreover, this belief that when every 
 sensible proof of life is extinct a some- 
 thing yet lives, is not one for which we 
 can readily assign a cause if it be false. 
 The beUef in a God may have arisen 
 from the contemplation of Nature. The 
 thunder, the earthquake, or the regular 
 course of the seasons may alone have 
 suggested the idea of a Governing Power. 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 51 
 
 But we see no suggestion of Life where 
 Death is. Whence then has arisen the 
 behef in a future Ufe if not from sen- 
 sible communion of some kind with the 
 unseen world 1 But if the onus prohandi 
 is still with us, we affirm that a Future 
 life may be proved to-day inductively 
 from facts. No amount of argument will 
 suffice to prove a fact. Testimony which 
 wUl convince one wiU not convince all. 
 We can only therefore point out what 
 are the facts which we claim as pre- 
 misses, and ask our opponents to test 
 them in their own manner. They ar& 
 these : That under certain conditions 
 Spirits can be seen, felt, and heard, thus, 
 estabhshing their existence through th& 
 same three senses which take cogniz- 
 ance of the existence of our fellow-men. 
 That they prove their identity as human 
 beings, and their relationship (in many 
 cases) in exactly the same way as those 
 
52 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 whom we do not scruple in our daily life 
 to regard as bodily realities. That we 
 have, therefore, no more reasonable cer- 
 tainty of each other's existence than of 
 the existence of these apparitions. There 
 is no change of consciousness, as after 
 sleep, to induce us to liken them to the 
 creations of dream-land. These are no 
 madmen's fantasies : but if they be not 
 real facts, there can no longer be any 
 certainty in the world : aU phenomena 
 must be regarded as phaiitasmagorical 
 and illusory alike. The Future and the 
 Past can have no real existence. The 
 Present must be regarded as the only 
 reality, and even that a subjective one, 
 with no other substratum than the in- 
 dividual consciousness. 
 
 Happily, however, such ultra-scepti- 
 cism as this does not seriously threaten 
 to overwhelm humanity. It is only with 
 regard to the experience of others that 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 53 
 
 we are ever able to feel any high de- 
 gree of doubt. Our own senses in the 
 end are always trusted. Reason, it is 
 true, should lead us to conclude that 
 the confidence in the actuality of the 
 things we perceive, is ill-founded if 
 we do not accord a like confidence to 
 the perceptions of others. But, prac- 
 tically, this confidence is impeded by 
 imperfect sympathy. Without sympathy 
 it is impossible to reveal our percep- 
 tions to others so that they cannot be 
 doubted. The proof, therefore, of the 
 facts of Spiritualism must doubtless 
 rest on personal experience — and this 
 may be obtained by any who seek it 
 earnestly. 
 
 We come now to the question — What 
 will be the effect of Spiritualism upon 
 Society, viewed merely in its social as- 
 pect? It cannot be doubted that the 
 very existence of Society depends upon 
 
54 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 the susceptibility of its members to ideal 
 impressions. While men are governed 
 chiefly by simple primary impidses, and 
 those more complex motives which 
 spring from ideal impressions of the 
 Past and Future are in abeyance, none 
 but temporary associations are possible. 
 The permanence of Society depends upon 
 the permanent predominance in a ma- 
 jority of its members of the ideal over 
 the real, as a motive-power: or all 
 motives which regard a future, in pre- 
 ference to a present good, are in their 
 nature ideal. But although Society can- 
 not exist without an ideal basis, that 
 ideal may be, and frequently is, a narrow 
 •one. The need of association for mutual 
 protection against a common enemy, or 
 for purposes of industry, or commerce, 
 are motives which regard only a proxi- 
 mate future ; and of themselves are not 
 calculated to produce a highly civihzed 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. OO 
 
 society. The strength of a given com- 
 munity is in proportion to the unanimity, 
 or equaUty of culture, of its working ma- 
 jority; but its durability and harmony 
 will depend on the ^cope and truthfulness 
 of its ideal. It may well be affirmed, 
 therefore, that an ideal which is limited 
 to the consideration of our interests in 
 this life, or at furthest does not look 
 beyond those of our immediate descen- 
 dants or their successors, cannot be a 
 sufficiently wide one, if the doctrine of 
 a, future life for us and them can be 
 verified. 
 
 Undoubtedly the lower ideal of how 
 to make the best of this life is as yet 
 very imperfect, and has not been long 
 enough in the world to effect one tithe 
 of the good to be expected from it. 
 This may be urged (and is urged by the 
 Secularists) as an argument for ignoring 
 the consideration of a Hereafter. But 
 
56 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 it has no weight against Spiritualism as 
 a Science, however it may tell against 
 speculative theology. The larger ideal 
 does not destroy, but includes, the lesser. 
 The perception of a future good does 
 not per se prejudice the enjoyment of 
 the present, but enhances it. Hence we 
 conclude that the belief in Spiritualism 
 is calculated to benefit Society as such, 
 by adding another and higher motive 
 for association. At present its influence 
 is weak; but, maybe, in the course of 
 time, the lower motives which depend 
 on our physical wants, wiU cease with 
 those wants to be the predominant ones; 
 and we must then look to something 
 higher to supersede them and form the 
 necessary cement of Society. Judging 
 from analogy, the power which regards 
 the world 
 
 "With other, larger eyes than ours" 
 
 has not ordained that the knowledge of 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 57 
 
 a longer lease of existence should act as 
 a disintegrant of Society; or cause us- 
 to neglect the present for the future alto- 
 gether. 
 
 The effect of Spiritualism upon Mo- 
 rality and Religion must depend on the 
 condition in which it finds them. If 
 Utility be accepted as the basis of morals, 
 it is obvious that Spirituahsm opens up 
 a wider view of it than that taken by 
 the disciples of the Benthamite school. 
 If, on the other hand, a correct code of 
 morals can only be arrived at by a 
 special revelation. Spiritualism is the 
 science which recognizes, expounds, and 
 harmonises all Revelations. In either 
 case it is of paramount importance in 
 its relation to Morals and Religion. Our 
 creed includes a belief in both methods 
 of arriving at knowledge, — Revelation 
 and Science. A truth is often appre- 
 hended before it is comprehended. . It 
 
•58 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 is felt by a species of intuition, before 
 it is explained and proved by Science. 
 We do not wish to exalt Intuition at 
 the expense of Science, The one is our 
 beacon light, the other our compass 
 •and guide through the darkness. 
 
 As an illu'stration of our meaning, we 
 may point to the fact, that the truth 
 •of the universal brotherhood of man- 
 kind was revealed to the world through 
 Christ, but neither his disciples nor 
 their descendants really grasped the idea. 
 " The light shineth in darkness, and the 
 darkness comprehended it not." It is 
 reserved for Science and experience to 
 expound and prove the actuality of this 
 grand truth, by inductive processes, be- 
 fore it can be assimilated into the fabric 
 •of the human mind. The way in which 
 it wiU achieve this object is, by discover- 
 ing the nature of the links which con- 
 nect each member of the human family 
 
SECOND PEIZE ESSAY. 59 
 
 with all its members. As we advance 
 in ^knowledge the actual community of 
 interests of all mankind must become 
 more and more apparent : until, if we 
 Jiad thoroughly mastered the laws which 
 govern Society, we should doubtless per- 
 ceive that no one member of the human 
 family can suffer without a corresponding 
 harm to the whole of his kindred. 
 
 We have said that Spiritualism recog- 
 nizes Revelation : but it does not recog- 
 nize an infallible Revelation : for two 
 reasons — the necessary fallibility of the 
 human medium, and the possible fallibi- 
 lity of the Revelator. There are Christian 
 SpirituaUsts, it is true, who believe in 
 the Divine character of the Scripture 
 revelation, as coming from an infallible 
 source through infaUibly-inspired chan- 
 nels, but such belief is a part of their 
 Christianity, and not of their Spiritualism. 
 The science of Spiritualism by itself (and 
 
60 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 this cannot be too well remembered) 
 proves nothing but the sole doctrine of 
 a Future Life. Upon all other subjects 
 the teachings of the Spirits are various 
 and often conflicting. We are left to 
 sift the truth from the error in aU cases. 
 It needs but little reflection, we think, 
 to show us that a complete Revelation 
 of God's wiU to man is an impossi- 
 bihty: for it would presuppose the 
 capacity in man to comprehend it. And 
 so also the revelation of any higher 
 truths than those we are accustomed to, 
 must be a gradual one ; and it is a natural 
 supposition in conformity with all ex- 
 perience of Law, that to be intelligible 
 to us they should come through the 
 medium of minds only a little in ad- 
 vance of our own. 
 
 From the foregoing it will be gathered 
 that we do not look to Spiritualism for 
 any influence upon Morality or EeUgion 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. 61 
 
 from the revelation of any altogether 
 new and startling truths. We look 
 rather to the gradual growth, and in- 
 creased vitality, of the belief in a future 
 life — to the consequent widening and 
 enlarging of our ideal of happiness, 
 which is undoubtedly the actual basis 
 of all morality. In the present stage of 
 man's development, there are compara- 
 tively few who are duly influenced by 
 the thought of a temporal and proximate 
 future, sufficiently to induce them (for 
 instance) to make provision for old age 
 or possible calamity. With such, the 
 idea of a remoter future can have but 
 little effect. But that which influences 
 the higher, gradually filters downwards 
 in the scale of intelligence, and we have 
 to consider, besides, many causes now 
 existing which tend to make the process 
 an accelerating rate — the increased den- 
 sity of the population of the globe, the 
 
62 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 greater facility of acquiring, recording, 
 and imparting new ideas which is due 
 to the discoveries of the steam engine, 
 printing, and the electric telegraph. 
 
 All these things are so many concur- 
 rent influences which must be taken 
 into account. To sum up — ^the good 
 effect of Spirituahsm upon Morality is 
 all comprised in the additional incentive 
 it offers us to seek out for ourselves the 
 true path. At first, no doubt, many 
 will be led away by the notion that ad- 
 vanced Spirits can supply us with a new 
 and infalUble code, but bearing in mind 
 the ascertained law of spirit-communion 
 that "hke seeks like," that only those 
 Spirits in sympathy with us can hold 
 direct intercourse, we cannot reasonably 
 encourage such a hope. The standard 
 of morality can only advance with our 
 knowledge of God's laws. The idea of 
 an infallible code of morals is rather 
 
SECOND PRIZE ESSAY. QS 
 
 calculated to hinder than promote^ 
 true progress in those who believe it 
 — ^for it precludes the exercise of charity. 
 Our perception of the best manner of 
 Hving is, and ever will be, far beyond 
 our practice — but our perception can never 
 attain to the Absolute. Science, not 
 dogma, is the great promoter of moraUty^ 
 if rightly understood, for it discovers and 
 expounds God's laws, and morality is 
 the art of conforming our lives to them. 
 
 Lastly — ^What will be the influence of 
 Spiritualism upon Religion ? Religion is 
 too apt to be regarded as the intellectual 
 behef of certain dogmas about God's 
 nature and attributes ; or the knowledge- 
 of his designs and intentions towards his 
 •creatures. A true belief is held to be 
 the only pass-word to salvation ; or works 
 founded upon a ti'ue behef But what 
 if man, an erring and finite creature, is 
 unable to see God's message in humanly 
 
^4 EFFECT OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 transmitted dogmas ? What if the report 
 of his intentions seems but a system of 
 human theories, and partial truths 1 Is 
 all rehgion therefore impossible to him ? 
 "We answer — No ! True religion demands 
 none of these things. It demands of 
 every man that he should worship only 
 his highest ideal — that he should seek 
 after Truth and practise Charity. The 
 conditions of salvation are nowhere dis- 
 tinctly laid down, for they are imperfectly 
 known even in the Spirit-world. Like 
 Christ's gospel, then, Spiritualism is good 
 tidings. The tidings are good whether 
 they be accepted or rejected ; but we 
 rejoice in the beUef that the time will 
 never come when it wiU exert any but 
 an indirect influence upon Religious creeds 
 — or supplant conscience — ^the true basis 
 of Eeligion — by authority, though that 
 authority were supported by a host of 
 Angels.