m 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE EOETELY.-SUPPLEEEET. 



legion of opponents, who have had to invent most 

 varied excuses for being his implacable foes. 

 Strangely enough, these adversaries are, most of 

 them, in the same sphere of spiritual activity with 

 himself. They are mediums — physical or phe- 

 nomenal mediums — of one kind or another, and 

 therefore brought into close juxtaposition with 

 their elder brother. . . . This inflated selfishness 

 only leads to mutual detraction and evil-speaking, 

 which, when reproduced and carried from country 

 to country, becomes a perfect host of devils, suffi- 

 cient to goad to madness any one who lives on the 

 plane of their action. . . . The whole proceeding 

 is an instructive illustration of the too-extended 

 development of physical mediumship, unsanctified 

 by spiritual love and unselfish beneficence." 



So much for Mr. Home personally : now for 

 his book : 



" Take the book as a whole, from beginning 

 to end, it is a superficial compilation without an 

 original thought or inspired purpose, and, as all 

 such performances are, it is charmingly illogical." 



See how these spiritualists love one another. 



I now turn to Mr. Wallace, an old friend with 

 whom I have never had the slightest personal 

 disagreement, except that which has arisen (on 

 his side) out of our difference of opinion on the 

 subjects discussed in my lectures. 



In the review of these lectures to which I 

 have already referred, Mr. Wallace charges me 

 with " complete misrepresentations of the opin- 

 ions of his opponents," with making " vague gen- 

 eral assertions, without a particle of proof offered, 

 or which can be offered ; " and, what is far worse, 

 with willful and repeated suppressio veri. One 

 passage in particular, reflecting upon what I con- 

 sidered Mr. Wallace's too ready acceptance of 

 " the slenderest evidence of the greatest mar- 

 vels," is denounced by Mr. Wallace, first, as 

 " an utterly unjustifiable remark ; " secondly, as 

 not having " even the shadow of a foundation ; " 

 and thirdly (when he has worked himself up to 

 the highest pitch of virtuous indignation), as a 

 " reckless accusation, which he cannot adequately 

 characterize without using language which he 

 would not wish to use." The terrific force of this 

 last dreadful denunciation (equivalent to the speak- 

 er's fearful threat of" naming " an honorable mem- 

 ber) makes me thankful that, as spiritualism is 

 not yet a dominant power in the state, I can at 

 present be only morally " pilloried." Looking, 

 however, to the case of the unfortunate minister 

 who was hanged during the Salem epidemic, for 

 having dared to call in question the very exist- 

 ence of witchcraft, I cannot contemplate with- 

 out a shudder the doom that might befall me if I 



were put on trial for my spiritualistic heresy, 

 with Messrs. Crookes and Wallace for my judges, 

 the Oxford M. A. as attorney-general for the 

 prosecution, and Mrs. Guppy Volckman as the 

 principal witness against me ! 



Having introduced these citations merely as 

 choice samples of the " amenities of spiriual- 

 ism," which remind one of the "brief" instruc- 

 tions given to the counsel for a defendant — " No 

 case; abuse the plaintiff's attorney" — I pass on 

 to the next " curiosity." 



What Mr. Wallace means by " Demonstra- 

 tion." 



Every one who has studied the subject of evi- 

 dence knows perfectly well that to " demon- 

 strate" a certain proposition is, as Dr. Johnson 

 defined it, " to establish so as to exclude possi- 

 bility of doubt or denial ; " the type of demonstra- 

 tive reasoning being the mathematical, in which 

 every step in the deductive process is so com- 

 pletely indubitable — either the contrary, or any- 

 thing else than the proposition affirmed, being 

 " unthinkable " — that we have as firm an assur- 

 ance of the final Q. E. D. as we have of the ax- 

 ioms from which we first started. 



No evidence as to either scientific or ordinary 

 facts can be, in the strict sense, " demonstra- 

 tive ; " for it is open to various sources of fal- 

 lacy, such as errors of observation, errors of inter- 

 pretation, and errors (intentional or unintentional) 

 of statement. But what we ordinarily proceed up- 

 on in the formation of our convictions is a con- 

 currence of testimony given by competent and 

 disinterested witnesses, which, if it does not abso- 

 lutely " exclude possibility of doubt or denial," 

 does so to such a degree as to establish the high- 

 est moral probability that the case admits of. 

 Where, on the other hand, there is a reasonable 

 ground for doubt, either as to the sufficiency of 

 the testimony for the establishment of (ho factum 

 probandum, or as to its trustworthiness (which 

 may be questioned not only on the ground of in- 

 tentional deceit, but on many others), it would 

 altogether confuse the meaning of terms to call 

 such evidence " demonstrative." 



This, however, is what Mr. Wallace has re- 

 peatedly done ; charging me with willfully shutting 

 my own eyes to, and endeavoring to hide from 

 the eyes of others, what he considers the demon- 

 strative evidence in favor of certain propositions; 

 which evidence, so far from being free from " the 

 possibility of doubt or denial," appears to me 

 open to question on every one of the grounds I 

 have just specified. 



