DR. CARPENTER ON SPIRITUALISM. 



449 



" Katie King" exposure, and of the fto\ver-sea?ice 

 chemically exposed. And, lastly, we have the 

 statement, repeated under many forms, that when 

 adequate investigation has taken place, and es. 

 pecially when " trained experts " have been em- 

 ployed, trick or imposture has always been dis- 

 covered. But this I have shown to be the gross- 

 est of all misstatements. Surely medical men 

 are " trained experts," and we have nine members 

 of the Royal Academy of Medicine investigating 

 for five years, and a large number of French and 

 English medical men devoting years of inquiry to 

 this subject, and deciding that it is not imposture. 

 Are not eminent physicists trained experts, so far 

 at least as the purely physical phenomena are 

 concerned? But we have Prof. Hare, Prof. 

 Gregory, and Mr. Crookes, who all devoted years 

 of careful investigation to the subject ; Prof. 

 Barrett, who has come to it with a fresh and 

 skeptical mind, stored with all the warnings that 

 Dr. Carpenter can give him, and yet declares it 

 to be reality, and neither imposture nor delusion ; 

 while another recent convert from extreme skep- 

 ticism on this subject is Dr. Carter Blake, Lect- 

 urer on Comparative Anatomy at Westminster 

 Hospital, who last year wrote me that, after 

 months of careful examination, he was satisfied 

 that the phenomeua called " spiritual " are thor- 

 oughly genuine and worthy of scientific examina- 

 tion ; that he has arrived at this conclusion very 

 slowly, and, referring to his recent investigations, 

 he says : " Every experiment performed has been 

 under the most rigorous test-conditions, and the 

 dishonest element which some professional medi- 

 ums have shown has been rigorously eliminated." 

 Yet, again, professional conjurers are surely 

 "trained experts," and Dr. Carpenter has him- 

 self often referred to them as such, but the mo- 

 ment they go against him he ignores them. I have 

 adduced, for the second time, the remarkable 

 evidence of Robert Houdin to the reality of the 

 clairvoyance of Alexis ; Mr. T. A. Trollope in- 

 forms us that another celebrated conjurer, Bosco, 

 " utterly scouted the idea of the possibility of 

 such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. Home 

 being performed by any of the resources of his 

 art;" and, lastly, at Glasgow, last year, Lord 

 Rayleigh informed us that he took with him a 

 professional conjurer to Dr. Slade's, that the phe- 

 nomena happened with considerable perfection, 

 while " the conjurer could not form the remotest 

 idea as to how the effects were produced." 



We have now concluded what has been a 

 painful task ; but in the interests of truth it was 

 necessary to show how completely untrustworthy 

 29 



is the self-appointed guide that the public so 

 blindly follow. By ample references I have af- 

 forded to such of my readers as may be so in- 

 clined the means of testing the correctness of 

 my charges against Dr. Carpenter ; and if they 

 do so they will, I feel convinced, not only lose all 

 faith in his explanations of these phenomena, 

 but will al<o find how completely ignorant of 

 this, as of most scientific subjects, are those writ- 

 ers in our influential literary press who have, al- 

 most without exception, praised this book as a 

 fair and complete exposition of the subject on 

 which it treats. 



It also seems to me that an important ques- 

 tion of literary morality is here involved. While 

 maintaining as strongly as any one that new or 

 disputed theories should be subjected to the 

 fullest and severest criticism, I yet hold that 

 this should not involve either misrepresentation 

 or what has been termed the " conspiracy of si- 

 lence." It is, at the best, hard enough for new 

 truths to make their way against the opposing 

 forces of prepossession and indifference ; and, 

 bearing this in mind, I would ask whether it is 

 in the interests of human progress and in accord- 

 ance with right principles, that those who have 

 the ear of the public should put forth, under the 

 guise of impartial history, a thoroughly one-sided 

 and erroneous account of a disputed question. 

 It may be said that errors and misstatements can 

 be exposed, and w-ill only injure the author of 

 them ; but, unfortunately, this is not so. The 

 popular view of a subject like this is sure of a 

 wide circulation, and writers in the daily and 

 weekly papers increase its publicity, whereas few 

 read the answer, and the press decline or refuse 

 to make it known. 1 As the very existence of 

 the press depends on popularity, this is inevita- 



1 A striking proof of this statement has been quite re- 

 cently furnished us. The letter given below was sent by 

 Dr. Slade to Prof. E. R. Lankester. It would seem to 

 exhibit, in a high degree, the characteristics of truth, fair- 

 ness, and charity. No answer was received. The press, 

 moreover, refused to publish it, and the daily press, one 

 and all, refused to insert it even as an advertisement ! 

 '■'■Prof. E. R. Lankestee — 



"Deak Sik: Dr. Slade, having in some measure re- 

 covered from his very severe illness, and his engagement 

 to St. Petersburg having been postponed (by desire of his 

 friends there) tiil the autumn, desires me to make the fol- 

 lowing oner : 



" He is willing to return to London for the express 

 and sole purpose of satisfying you that the slate-writing 

 occurring in his presence is in no way produced by any 

 trickery of his. For this purpose he will come to your 

 house unaccompanied by any one, and will sit with you at 

 your own table, using your own slate and pencil: or, if 

 you prefer to come to his room, it will suit him as well. 



