578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the university, who did not appear to share this conviction. These, 

 among whom you name myself, are of course perfectly free to believe 

 or disbelieve as they please, but it is their duty, as representatives of 

 science, " to state publicly what they saw, and why they doubt the 

 objective reality of what they saw why they feel compelled to as- 

 sume jugglery, deceit, or illusion." You add that there remains to 

 these deniers and doubters only the alternative, " either to acknowl- 

 edge by their silence that there is nothing upon which they are able 

 to base their doubts therefore, that they simply icill not believe what 

 is perfectly attested or to show how it was possible to deceive these 

 men (and many others of unquestionable credibility) in so remarkable 

 a manner." 



I feel that I must not neglect so energetic a challenge, and you 

 will permit me not only to make my explanations publicly, according 

 to your wish, but also to address them to yourself. Your article, as 

 I gladly acknowledge, has this advantage over the publications of 



whatever properly calls itself science. In England, on the contrary, as is well known, 

 while being no such widespread movement as in America, spiritualism has, during recent 

 years, engaged the earnest attention of prominent scientific circles, has gained many con- 

 verts of high scientific reputation, and drawn forth the most important contributions to 

 the literature of the subject which exist. The case in Germany is very similar. The 

 principal centers of interest in the subject have been the universities, and, above all, the 

 University of Leipsic, and the principal participants in the investigations and the dis- 

 cussions have been eminent professors. The excitement recently has centered in the 

 seances of Mr. Slade, who passed several months in Leipsic and Berlin after his ejection 

 from England, two or three years ago. The result of these seances was the conversion or 

 half conversion to spiritualism of several well-known Leipsic professors. Professor I. 

 H. Fichte, now in his eighty-third year, has also recently confessed his faith, pronouncing 

 the Slade phenomena to be " decisive for the cause of spiritualism in Germany." But 

 most surprising of all, perhaps, has been the publication in the last number of the " Zeit- 

 schrift fur Philosophic und philosophische Kritik," of an article by Professor Ulrici, of 

 Halle, in which he declares his persuasion of the truth of the spiritualistic theory, like- 

 wise on the strength of the observations reported by the Leipsic professors an article 

 the general scope of which is made plain by Professor Wundt's references. To this arti- 

 cle Professor Wundt, who has watched the whole movement with critical interest, and 

 who indeed participated in the Slade experiments, deemed it his duty to reply, and he has 

 done so in the form of the letter before us. To scientific men Professor Wundt needs 

 no introduction. He is the principal lecturer in philosophy in the University of Leipsic, 

 and perhaps the most eminent psychologist in Germany, a man of acute thought and well- 

 balanced judgment, distinguished even among German scholars for the breadth and accu- 

 racy of his knowledge. It is not too much to say that the reputation and character of 

 no living German thinker could give greater weight to any words on a subject like this. 

 His letter has been immediately recognized in Germany as containing the most reason- 

 able words which have yet been spoken on those phases of the subject to which it con- 

 fines itself, and it will have a powerful effect in calling back many confused minds to 

 soberness and sense. Professor Wundt believes that scientific men have no longer a 

 right simply to neglect a movement which has become so widespread, which is the occa- 

 sion of so much perplexity among the people at large, and which is so unquestionably 

 mischievous. It is to be hoped that his words will not fail of their effect in America 

 also, where the intellectual and moral disorders which he declares to be the logical and 

 necessary results of opinions like those discussed are already so apparent and alarming. 



