The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism

It Is Some Principle of Nature as Yet Unknown

If there is any wisdom in this theory, it is so profound that we “don’t see it.” It looks very much to us as though this amounted only to the saying that “all we know about the mystery is, that it is unknown; all the explanation that we can give of it is, that it is inexplicable; and that the only theory of it is, that it has no theory.” Thus it leaves the matter just where it was before, and we should not have deemed this saying worthy of the slightest notice had we not heard and read so much grave discussion on the subject, criticising almost every other theory, and then concluding with the complacent announcement of the writer’s or speaker’s theory as superior to all others, that “it is some principle or force of nature as yet unknown!”