SPIRITUALISM, a name used by some philosophers, in stead of "Idealism," to signify a philosophic attitude or point of view about the universe opposed to materialistic philosophy, and to imply that the ultimate reality is more fundamentally on the mental or ideal side of things rather than on that which ap peals most directly to the senses as the behaviour and modifica tions of matter. But the name "Spiritualism," or "Spiritism," is more usually employed to signify a growing persuasion on the part of certain people that the activity of human beings is not entirely limited to the use they make of their bodily or material organisms on this planet. It is held that those organisms were constructed by an animating principle which having entered into relation with matter for the purpose of developing an indi viduality can continue long after the temporary material body is worn out or otherwise resolved into its elements; and, further, that the personalities thus brought into existence shall carry wit} them their memory, character, tastes and affection, which they had developed here while in association with matter, and shall be able under certain limitations to guide and influence terres trial affairs in co-operation with those still living on the earth.
This may be taken roughly as the spiritualistic interpretation or explanation of certain obscure phenomena which have occurred sporadically from time immemorial, and which may be said to constitute the phenomena of spiritualism.
and then to study the facts, so as to disentangle the laws which regulate them, and seek to bring them within the recognized do main of organized human knowledge, or else to expand that domain so as to include them. This is called psychical research. A third group of scientific men not only discard the spiritistic hypothesis, but feel a doubt about the facts, regarding them rather as the outcome of savage superstition and folk-lore, and therefore unworthy of scientific attention.
The whole subject therefore at the present time is a debatable one, on which there are many more or less legitimate differences of opinion. On the whole however there is a general consensus of agreement among those who have devoted time and attention to the subject that some of the phenomena are genuine; so that in time they must be accepted and gradually incorporated into the main body of science. They admit however that the investi gation is conducted under difficulties, inasmuch as the phenomena cannot be produced at will, and because the facts are largely dependent on the good faith and careful testimony of those who experience them, or who are allowed to witness them under sufficiently strict conditions. In so far as the phenomena appear to be dependent upon the activity of agents whose existence is not generally recognized, and who have the spontaneity and it may be the capriciousness characteristic of live creatures, the phenomena differ in many respects from the purely mechanical behaviour of atomic groupings and material bodies, such as form the customary stock-in-trade of astronomers, physicists and chemists. They appear likely to belong more to the domain of biology, or even of anthropology, when those sciences are sufficiently enlarged to include them. Meanwhile there is a great body of testimony as to their actual occurrences, which cannot properly be ignored.