34. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to study the facts may at once obtain the definite scientific rationale y 

 and these things can all be openly produced and experimented upon, 

 expounded and explained. There is not a single thing we are asked 

 to believe of this kind, that cannot be publicly exhibited. For instance, 

 in this town, last week, I saw a stream of molten iron coming out from 

 a foundery ; I did not see on this occasion but the thing has been 

 done over and over again that a man has gone and held his naked 

 hand in such a stream of molten iron, and has done it without the 

 least injury ; all that is required being, to have his hand moist, and if 

 his hand is dry he has merely to dip it in water, and he may hold his 

 hand for a certain time in that stream of molten iron without receiving 

 any injury whatever. This was exhibited publicly at a meeting of the 

 British Association at Ipswich many years ago, at the foundery of 

 Messrs. Ransome, the well-known agricultural implement makers. It 

 is one of the miracles of science, so to speak ; they are perfectly credi- 

 ble to scientific men, because they know the principle upon which it 

 happens, and that principle is familiar to you all that if you throw a 

 drop of water upon hot iron, the water retains its spherical form, and 

 does not spread upon it and wet it. Vapor is brought to that con- 

 dition by intense heat, that it forms a sort of film, or atmosphere, be- 

 tween the hand and the hot iron, and for a time that atmosphere is not 

 too hot to be perfectly bearable. There are a number of these mira- 

 cles of science, then, which we believe, however incredible at first 

 sight they may appear, because they can all be brought to the test of 

 experience, and can be at any time reproduced under the necessary 

 conditions. Houdin, the conjurer, in his very interesting autobiog- 

 raphy a little book I would really recommend to any of you who are 

 interested in the study of the workings of the mind, and it may be 

 had for two shillings Houdin tells you that he himself tried this ex- 

 periment after a good deal of persuasion ; and he says that the sensa- 

 tion of immersing his hand in this molten metal was like handling 

 liquid velvet. These things, I say, can be exhibited openly above- 

 board ; but these Spiritual phenomena will only come just when cer- 

 tain favorable conditions are present conditions of this kind, that 

 there is to be no scrutiny no careful examination by skeptics ; that 

 there is to be every disposition to believe, and no manifestation of any 

 incredulity, but the most ready reception of what we are told. I was 

 asked some years ago to go into an investigation of the Davenport 

 Brothers ; but then I was told that the whole thing was to be done in 

 the dark, and that I was to join hands and form part of a circle ; and 

 I responded to the invitation by saying that in all scientific inquiries I 

 considered the hands and the eyes essential instruments of investiga- 

 tion, and that I could not enter into any inquiry, and give whatever 

 name I possess in science to the result of it, in which I was not allowed 

 freely to use my hands and my eyes. And, wherever I have gone to 

 any of these Spiritual manifestations, and have been bound over not 



