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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



was carefully sifted in France ; yet it now appears 

 that Dr. Carpenter perfectly well knew of the 

 commission of the same Academy about ten years 

 earlier, which, after five years of most careful 

 and elaborate experiments, gave a unanimous re- 

 port positively in favor of the reality of clair- 

 voyance. 



But Dr. Carpenter would have us believe that 

 he studiously avoided all mention of this report 

 because it had been proved to be wholly founded 

 on imposture or error; and he endeavors to es- 

 tablish this by giving a single hearsay case of a 

 confession of imposture on another person not 

 even a member of the commission ! I feel sure 

 that the impression conveyed to the readers of 

 Dr. Carpenter's letters would be that the case of 

 alleged imposture by one of the mesmeric patients 

 of MM. Gcorget and Rostan occurred to members 

 of the commission, and that the case had been 

 examined by them and reported on as genuine. 

 But this impression would be entirely erroneous. 

 The members of the commission, whose names 

 are appended to the report, are as follows: 1. 

 Bourdeois de la Motte (president) ; 2. Fouquier ; 

 3. Gueneau de Mussy ; 4. Guersent ; 5. Itard ; 

 6. Leroux ; *7. Marc ; 8. Thillaye ; 9. Husson (re- 

 porter). Against the voluminous and interesting 

 details of this report, its carefully-repeated ex- 

 periments, its cautious deductions, its amazing 

 facts, not one particle of rebutting evidence is 

 adduced. Yet Dr. Carpenter thought himself 

 justified not only in ignoring its existence, but in 

 giving his readers to understand, by an express 

 form of words, that no such inquiry was ever 

 made! This was the accusation I made against 

 him, and the readers of the Athenaeum can now 

 judge as to the candor and sufficiency of the 

 reply. 



I must add a few words on the way in which 

 Dr. Carpenter treats M. Rostan, " one of the ablest 

 medical psychologists of his day." Dr. Carpen- 

 ter states, as a fact, that, "when a second edition 

 of the ' Dictionnaire de Medecine ' came out in 

 1838, he (M. Rostan) withdrew the article he had 

 contributed to the first ; " and then, further on, 

 it is stated that " M. Rostan, by his own confes- 

 sion," had been led away by cunning cheats in 

 the matter of clairvoyance. Now I have always 

 understood that M. Rostan was much annoyed at 

 his article being superseded in the second edition 

 of the Dictionnaire ; and, as this is a priori prob- 

 able, I require some direct evidence of Dr. Car- 

 penter's assertion that he voluntarily withdrew it. 

 This is the more necessary because the still more 

 important and damaging statement — that M. Ros- 



tan made a "confession" that he had been led 

 away by cunning cheats — is also given as a hear- 

 say report without any reference or authority ; 

 and it looks very much as if Dr. Carpenter's 

 logic had deduced the " confession " as an in- 

 ference from the "withdrawal," no evidence 

 whatever being offered for either of them. If 

 this should really be the case, then the severest 

 things I have said as to Dr. Carpenter's mode of 

 carrying on this discussion will be more than 

 justified. 



Throughout my discussion of this subject 

 with Dr. Carpenter I have strictly confined my- 

 self to questions of fact and of evidence, and 

 have maintained that these are of more value 

 than opinions, however numerous or weighty. 

 My criticisms have, for the most part, been di- 

 rected to misrepresentations of facts and sup- 

 pressions of evidence on the part of my oppo- 

 nent. The readers of the Athenceum will now 

 be able to judge, as regards one case, whether 

 that criticism is sound ; and for numerous other 

 cases I refer them to my articles in the Quarterly 

 Journal of Science and in Eraser's Magazine. If 

 they read these, they will, I think, agree with me 

 that the cause of truth will not be advanced by 

 the further continuance of a discussion in which 

 one of the parties perpetually evades or obscures 

 the most important points at issue, and at every 

 step introduces fresh misstatements to be cor- 

 rected and fresh insinuations to be rebutted, as 

 I have shown that Dr. Carpenter has done in his 

 numerous writings on this subjeet. 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



DR. CARPENTER'S REJOINDER. 



As Mr. Wallace, without invalidating any one 

 of my facts, has now reaffirmed yet more strong- 

 ly the charge which he brought against me in Mr. 

 Crookes's journal, I beg to be allowed very briefly 

 to restate my defense. 



The evidence in favor of clairvoyance (con- 

 tained in the Academic report of 1830), in 

 which Mr. Wallace not only has himself full 

 faith, but requires me and every one else to have 

 the same, was condemned as untrustworthy by 

 the two contemporary tribunals to which it was 

 submitted — the French Academy of Medicine, 

 and the redacteurs of the " Dictionnaire de Mede- 

 cine. The former, after full investigation by a 

 second and a third commission (1837-'40), de- 

 liberately reversed the judgment of its first, as 

 having been obtained by fraud and chicanery ; 

 and formally pronounced the evidence for the 

 "higher phenomena" of mesmerism to be "null 



