PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES OF SKEPTICISM. 



237 



demonstrated, the phenomena here discussed are 

 marvelous realities, it is to be expected that 

 there will be impostors to imitate them, and no 

 lack of credulous persons to be duped by those 

 impostors. But it is not the part of an honest 

 searcher after truth to put forward these detected 

 impostures while ignoring the actual phenomena 

 which the impostors try to imitate. When we 

 have Dr. Carpenter's final word in the promised 

 new edition of his Lectures, I shall be prepared to 

 show that tests far more severe than such as 

 have resulted in the detection of imposture have 

 been over and over again applied to the genuine 

 phenomena with no other result than to confirm 

 their genuineness. 



This is not the place to discuss the reality of 

 the phenomena which Dr. Carpenter rejects with 

 so much misplaced indignation, and endeavors to 

 put down by such questionable means. The care- 

 ful observations of such men as Prof. Barrett, 

 of Dublin, and the elaborate series of test experi- 

 ments carried out in his own laboratory by Mr. 

 Crookes, 1 are sufficient to satisfy any unpreju- 

 diced person that the phenomena are genuine ; 

 and, if so, whatever theory we may adopt con- 

 cerning them, they must greatly influence all our 

 fundamental ideas in science and philosophy. 

 The attempt to excite prejudice against all who 

 have become convinced that these things are real, 

 by vague accusations, and by quoting all the 

 trash that can be picked out of the literature of 

 the subject, is utterly unworthy of the men of 

 science who adopt it. For nearly thirty years 

 this plan has been unsparingly pursued, and its 

 failure has been complete. Belief in the genuine- 

 ness of the phenomena has grown steadily year 

 by year ; and at this day there are, to my per- 

 sonal knowledge, a larger number of well-educated 

 and intelligent, and even of scientific men, who 

 profess their belief, than at any former period. 

 There is no greater mistake than to suppose that 

 this-body of inquirers have obtained their present 

 convictions by what they have seen at public 

 seances only. In almost every case those convic- 

 tions are the result of a long series of experiments 

 in private houses ; and it would amaze Dr. Car- 

 penter to learn the number of families in every 

 class of society in which even the more mar- 

 velous and indisputable of these phenomena oc- 

 cur. The course taken by Dr. Carpenter of dis- 

 crediting evidence, depreciating character, and 

 retailing scandal, only confirms these people in 

 their belief that men of science are powerless in 



1 Quarterly Journal of Science, October, 1871, and 

 January, 1S74. 



face of this great subject ; and I feel sure that all 

 he has written has never converted a single ear- 

 nest investigator. 



It is well worthy of notice, as correlating this 

 inquiry with other branches of science, that there 

 is no royal road to acquiring a competent knowl- 

 edge of these phenomena, and this is the reason 

 why so many scientific men fail to obtain evi- 

 dence of anything important. They think that a 

 few hours should enable them to decide the whole 

 thing ; as if a problem which has been ever be- 

 fore the world, and which for the last quarter of a 

 century has attracted the attention of thousands, 

 only required their piercing glance to probe it to 

 the bottom. But those who have devoted most 

 time and study to the subject, though they be- 

 come ever more convinced of the reality, the im- 

 portance, and the endless phases of the phenome- 

 na, find themselves less able to dogmatize as to 

 their exact nature or theoretical interpretation. 

 Of one thing, however, they feel convinced : that 

 all further discussion on the inner nature of man 

 and his relation to the universe is a mere beating 

 of the air, so long as these marvelous phenomena, 

 opening up as they do a whole world of new in- 

 teractions between mind and matter, are disre- 

 garded and ignored. 



APPENDIX. 



Abstract of Mr. Crookes's Experiments above re- 

 ferred to. 



The apparatus used consisted of an electrical 

 circuit with a reflecting galvanometer showing the 

 slightest variations in the current, designed and ar- 

 ranged by one of the most eminent practical electri • 

 cians. This instrument was fixed in Mr. Crookes's 

 laboratory, from which two stout wires passed 

 through the wall into the library adjoining, and 

 there terminated in two brass handles fixed at a 

 considerable distance apart, and having only an 

 inch or two of play. These handles are covered 

 with linen soaked in salt and water, and when the 

 person to be experimented on holds these handles 

 in the hands (also first soaked in salt and water) 

 the current of electricity passes through his or her 

 body, and the exact " electrical resistance " can be 

 measured ; while the reflecting galvanometer ren- 

 ders visible to all the spectators the slightest vari- 

 ation in the resistance. This instrument is so 

 delicate that the mere loosening of the grasp of one 

 or both hands or the lifting of a finger from the 

 handle would be shown at once, because by alter- 

 ing the amount of surface in contact the " elec- 

 trical resistance " would be instantly changed. 

 Two experienced physicists, both Fellows of the 

 Koyal Society, made experiments with this instru- 

 ment for more than an hour before the tests began, 



