ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by DE WITT & DAVENPORT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of New York. W. H. Tinson, Stereotyper, 24 Beekman street, N. Y. HOLMAN, GRAY & Co., Printers. INTRODUCTION. THE substance of the following Lectures, on the rationale of the so-called spirit-manifestations, was delivered at the CITY HALL in Auburn, N. Y., in April, 1851. In June, 1852, I wrote them out with an intention, after delivering them a few times, to hand them over for publication. But this has been neglected, and I have continued to deliver them ccasionally for eighteen months past, when and where invited by my friends to do so. I make the above explanation, because it will be perceived by the reader, that in one of my Lectures I make a statement, that I knew of no one who had taken the middle ground between believers and skeptics in the spirit-manifestations, and who was a rational believer that is, a believer on natural principles. And as I use considerable language of this character, it might be considered incorrect, when Mr. Rogers has published a work that occupies the middle ground between believers and skeptics. But as my Lectures were written and delivered before his book appeared, so this matter will be understood by all. I have no faith whatever in the odic force of Reichenbach, which Mr. Rogers seems to have adopted to explain the phenomena of the spiritmanifestations. For this the reader will find my reasons stated in the Appendix to these Lectures. I will now say, that I had abandoned the idea of publishing my views in connection with the spirit-manifestations, and had con cluded to prepare a work devoted exclusively to the exposition of the instincts of man as connected with the involuntary powers of his mind, which, as a branch of mental philosophy, has been entirely overlooked. But as Judge Edmonds, of this city, has just published a work in |