730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



than almost any other scientific phenomena. He has reproduced the 

 career of Horkey with remarkable fidelity. No sincere inquirer has 

 ever failed, if he made proper effbrts, to obtain evidence of an active 

 intelligence which is not material. In my first interview with a me- 

 dium, over twenty-five years ago, loud sounds not raps, but sounds 

 like the creaking of a wooden mill were freely produced at request in 

 a small uncovered table in our parlor, when no person was in contact 

 with it or within three feet of it. On making careful examinations, the 

 sounds appeared to be developed in the loose marble slab which con- 

 stituted its top, and, by feeling the slab on both sides, I could locate 

 the sound and vibration with great accuracy in its centre. When no 

 one was touching the table, it was held down by the spirit-power, 

 when requested, with a force which I estimated at twenty pounds in 

 lifting it. 



But it is entirely useless to mention any such facts to bigots of the 

 Carpenter class, or to sustain them by any amount of testimony ; for 

 to them all testimony is woi'thless concerning anything outside of 

 the limit which Dr. Carpenter has marked off with a grand Caidinal 

 Richelieu flourish, as the impassable limit where inquiry must halt and 

 vituperation begin. 



Great is the power of the speculative scientific dogmatism which 

 enabled Dr. Carpenter to show in his "Physiology" that one hundred 

 pounds of starch would support the life of a savage as long as four 

 hundred pounds of venison or other game (Chapter VII. Of Food and 

 the Digestive Process), although it w^ould be as difiicult to convince 

 the unscientific savage that such an opinion is preferable to experi- 

 ence as to convince Crookes, Wallace, Flammarion, Hare, or even Vic- 

 tor Hugo, that Dr. Carpenter's ojnnions are preferable to their own 

 careful observations. 



Worthless as this book seems as an argument, and amusing as it is 

 to those at whom it is aimed, it has some power for mischief the 

 'power of a demoralizing example the power of position and reputation 

 in giving a quasi-respectability to that which is philosophically silly 

 and ethically corrupt. The most demoralizing influence which pro- 

 ceeds from a thoroughly depraved society is the doctrine that all men 

 are knaves or fools, to which Dr. Carpenter has given his active co- 

 operationsaving only a few self-styled " experts " from this satanic 

 maxim. His unfair example is corrupting to scientific literature. The 

 vast amount of mesmeric facts, which coidd scarcely be summarized 

 and classified in the limits of his book, has been carefully ignored, and 

 his readers would not suspect their existence, if dependent on him for 

 information. Yet, as he is such a stickler for the scientific qualifica- 

 tions of witnesses, why could he not even allude to the testimony of 

 Prof. Agassiz, who ranks before the world at least as high as himself? 

 Pi'of. Agassiz was thoroughly mesmerized by the Rev. C. H. Towns- 

 hend,and his letter describing his sensations and condition during the 



