wandering at our feet; the animals, the trees, the plants; and consider the permanency of their actions and conditions under the government of these laws. The most delicate flower, the tenderest insect, continues in its species through countless years; always varying, yet ever the same. When we think we have discovered a departure, as in the 'Aphides, Medusæ, Distomæ, &c.[1], the law concerned is itself the best means of instituting an investigation, and hitherto we have always found the witness to return to its original testimony. These frail things are never-ceasing, never-changing, evidence of the law's immutability. It would be well for a man who has an anomalous case before him, to contemplate a blade of grass, and when he has considered the numerous ceaseless, yet certain actions there located, and his inability to change the character of the least among them, to recur to his new subject; and, in place of accepting unwatched and unchecked results, to search for a like certainty and recurrence in the appearances and actions which belong to it.
Perhaps it may be said, the delusion of table-moving is past, and need not be recalled before an audience like the present[2];—even granting this, let us endeavour to make the subject leave one useful result; let it serve for an example, not to pass into forgetfulness. It is so recent, and was received by the public in a manner so strange, as to justify a reference to it, in proof of the uneducated condition of the general mind. I do not object to table-moving, for itself; for being once stated, it becomes a fit, though a very unpromising subject for experiment; but I am opposed to the unwillingness of its advocates to investigate; their boldness to assert; the credulity of the
- ↑ See Claparède's Account of Alternating Generation and the Metamorphoses of Inferior Animals.—Bibl, Univ. Mar. 1854, p. 229.
- ↑ As an illustration of the present state of the subject, I will quote one letter from among many like it which I have received.
"April 5, 1854.
"Sir, I am one of the clergymen of this parish, and have had the subject of table-turning brought under my notice by some of my young parishioners; I gave your solution of it as a sufficient answer to the mystery. The reply was made, that you had since seen reason to alter your opinion. Would you have the politeness to inform me if you have done so? With many apologies for troubling you,
I am, your obedient servant,
""
