SEP 291899

(781)

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by

WILLIAM MOUNTFORD,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & Co.,

CAMBRIDGE.

THE

PREFACE.

It

This

`HE subject of the Supernatural has engaged my attention, as a student, during many years. grew upon me as to importance, and deepened as to interest, while I was at Rome, where, like St. Paul, I dwelt two years in my own hired house. book, which I offer to the public, was written simply because the times seemed to be asking for some such work. And, as nobody else was answering to the call of the times, it occurred to me suddenly, one morning, some sixteen months ago, that perhaps I might myself be not quite clear of the summons. Doubtless a better man than I am was called upon, and a better book was asked for than what I have to offer. I confess that I feel so. And let this acknowledgment be accepted as an apology for such a venture as this is upon such a theme.

Some persons have wondered that I should have attempted to strengthen my argument by availing myself of the phenomena of Spiritualism as evidence of there being about us a sphere of life altogether different from this of nature, and for which science has no methods nor instruments, and for which, therefore, it should not have even one word of denial, or even of doubt. Those phenomena may be called ridiculous, or they may be called demoniac;