THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
ance experiences in Paris, touching a closely kindred subject, was an equally striking one, while it was not pretended that the “spirits” were the active power in the case. Yet the phenomena produced were very similar. Assuming that there was no fraudulent jugglery in the production of these phenomena, which in the cases I have narrated I think there was not, we must conclude that there are forces active in and upon the human mind the nature of which we do not know. Scientific research, such as “experimental psychology,” has given names to these forces—“telepathy,” “suggestion,” “spiritual communication,” etc., which indicate interesting problems, but as to the nature of the forces, leave us in the dark. We may be able to see such forces in motion and observe their effects. But what they really are we do not know, and it is questionable whether we ever shall. It is so with a force which some centuries ago might have been called witchcraft, but has now become our familiar servant—electricity. We can make it active. We can control its activity and put it to all sorts of practical uses, but what electricity essentially is, we do not know.
President Johnson received me with the assurance that he had read my letters with great interest and appreciation, and that he was earnestly considering the views I had presented in them. But in one respect, he said, I had entirely mistaken his intentions. His North Carolina proclamation was not to be understood as laying down a general rule for the reconstruction of all “the States lately in rebellion.” It was to be regarded as merely experimental, and he thought that the condition of things in North Carolina was especially favorable for the making of such an experiment. As to the Gulf States, he was very doubtful and even anxious. He wished to see those States restored to their constitutional relations with the General Government as quickly as possible, but he did not know
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