PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES OF SKEPTICISM. 



239 



original assertion— that I had " expressed " my full 

 faith in his " self-asserted powers " — one whit more 

 accurate. If Dr. Carpenter had then in his memory 

 this means of throwing doubt on the facts, why did he 

 not mention it in his Lectures or in his article, in- 

 stead of first charging me with the "expression" of 

 a faith which I never expressed or held, and then at- 

 tempting to change the issue by substituting other 

 words for those which I really complained of? 



Note B.— In the new edition of Dr. Carpenter's 

 Lectures (the proof of part of which has been sent 

 me) he supports his statement that " there are at the 

 present time numbers of educated men and women 

 who have so completely surrendered their ' common- 

 sense' to a dominant prepossession as to maintain 

 that any such monstrous fiction (as of a person being 

 carried through the air in an hour from Edinburgh to 

 London) ought to be believed, even upon the evidence 

 of a single witness, if that witness be one upon 

 whose testimony we should rely in the ordinary af- 

 fairs of life"— by saying that " the moonlight sail of 

 Mr. Home is extensively believed on the testimony of 

 a single witness." Even if it were the fact that this 

 particular thing is believed by some persons on the 

 testimony of a single witness, that would not justify 

 Dr. Carpenter's statement that there are numbers of 

 educated men and women who maintain as a principle 

 that any such thing, however monstrous, ought to be 

 so believed. As, however, there are, as above shown, 

 three witnesses in this case, and at least ten in the 

 case of Mrs. Guppy, also referred to, it appears that 

 Dr. Carpenter first makes depreciatory general state- 

 ments, and, when these are challenged, supports them 

 by a misstatement of facts. Such a course of proced- 

 ure renders further discussion impossible. 



Note C. — A letter of Dr. Carpenter's has also, " at 

 «• his own request," been forwarded to me, in which 

 lie attempts to justify the conduct narrated above. 

 In Nature, for November 15th, Mr. Crookes printed the 

 letter which was given in facsimile in American 

 newspapers, with remarks of a somewhat similar 

 character to those I have here made. Dr. Carpenter, 

 writing three days afterward (November 18th), wishes 

 it to be stated in Fraser, as his " own correction," 

 that this letter was not carried away from England by 

 Eva Fay; adding, "What was carried away by Eva 

 Fay was a much stronger attestation, publicly given in 

 full detail by Mr. Crookes in a communication to the 

 Spiritualist " — of which communication I give an ab- 

 stract in an appendix to this article. This obliges me 

 to add a few further particulars. 



In Nature, October 25th, in a note to a letter about 

 the radiometer, Dr. Carpenter says: " ' On the strength 

 of a private letter from Mr. Crookes, which has been 

 published in facsimile in the American newspapers, a 

 certain Mrs. or Miss Eva Fay announced her " spirit- 



ualistic" performances as indorsed by Prof. Crookes 

 and other Fellows of the Royal Society.' " This sup- 

 posed letter was " set forth " in detail in last month's 

 Fraser as above stated. 



In Nature, November 8th, Dr. Carpenter says: 

 " And the now notorious impostor, Eva Fay, has been 

 able to appeal to the ' indorsement ' given to her by 

 the ' scientific tests ' applied to her by ' Prof. Crookes 

 and other Fellows of the Royal Society,' which had 

 been published (I now find) by Mr. Crookes himself 

 in the Spiritualist in March, 1875." 



From the above it follows, that it was between 

 October 25th and November 8th that Dr. Carpenter 

 first became acquainted with Mr. Crookes's account 

 of his experiments with Eva Fay ; and, finding (from 

 Mr. Crookes's publication of it) that his own detailed 

 account of the contents of the facsimile letter was to- 

 tally incorrect, he now makes a fresh assertion— that 

 Eva Fay " carried away with her" a copy of the Spir- 

 itualist containing Mr. Crookes's experiments. This 

 is highly probable, but we venture to doubt if Dr. 

 Carpenter has any authority to state it as a fact ; while, 

 even if she did, that article does not, any more than 

 the facsimile letter, justify Dr. Carpenter's allega- 

 tions. It contains not one word about the " spirit- 

 ualistic nature of her manifestations"— it does not 

 state that he "in common with other Fellows of the 

 Royal Society had satisfied himself of their genuine- 

 ness " — it does not say that he " willingly gave her the 

 benefit of his attestation." It is a detailed account of 

 a beautiful scientific experiment, and nothing more. 

 Yet Dr. Carpenter still maintains (in his letter now 

 before me) that his statements are correct, " except 

 on the one point — one of form not of substance — that 

 of the address of the letter in which Mr. Crookes 

 attested the genuineness of the medinmship of Eva 

 Fay I " 



It thus appears that, when he wrote the article in 

 last month's Fraser, and the letter in Nature of Oc- 

 tober 25th, Dr. Carpenter had not seen either the fac- 

 simile letter or the account in the Spiritualist, and 

 there is nothing to show that he even knew of the 

 existence of the latter article ; yet, on the strength 

 of mere rumor, newspaper cuttings, or imagination, 

 he gives the supposed contents of a letter from Mr. 

 Crookes, emphasizing snch obnoxious words as " spir- 

 itualistic" and " manifestations," which Mr. Crookes 

 never once employed, and giving a totally false im- 

 pression of what Mr. Crookes had really done. So 

 enamored is he of this accusation, that he drags it 

 into a purely scientific discussion on the radiometer, 

 and now, in his very latest communication, makes 

 no apology or retraction, but maintains all his state- 

 ments as correct " in substance" and declares that he 

 " cannot see that he has anywhere passed beyond the 

 tone of gentlemanly discussion." 



— Fraser's Magazine. 



