Do the phenomena go beyond what is known of the possibility of chance coincidences? Not until it is shown that legerdemain cannot produce the effects; that most painstaking investigation can find no explanation and no antecedent in the order of nature; and, further, that the phenomena transcend the possible bounds of coincidences, is there the least presumption that the cause is supernatural. Yet comparatively few of the investigators of occult phenomena have taken pains to comprehend the facts and principles of natural science or the tricks of jugglers,—some of whom have been masters of science,—or to comprehend the vast possibilities of coincidence.
It should not be supposed that common sense and learning, without special experience, qualify persons to investigate these things. Yet physicians who would sneer with just contempt at a non-professional person who should attempt to give an opinion on a difficult question in medical science, and lawyers who would despise a layman presuming to appear as a judge of abstruse legal questions, and ministers who have given no attention to methods of deception or to the "night side of nature," will join with merchants, teachers, and farmers to pronounce upon subjects much further removed from their spheres than are the pursuits of those whom they call "laymen" from their own; and, because they cannot see how these things can be performed or explained, will give support by testimonials and affirmations of mystery to every new, or renewal of an ancient, superstition. Thus astrology and divination were maintained, and so vast structures of deception at the present day are upheld.
