442 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



which are not, obviously due to trickery ; and suggest that the former throw no 

 discredit on the latter. They even pretend that the manifestations of a medium 

 who has been actually exposed are not necessarily always fraudulent — he was 

 sick or drunk when he perpetrated the frauds, but he is usually quite honest ! 

 Lastly, they try to throw on us the onus of proving that all mediums are tricksters 

 — as your correspondent, Mr. C. A. Richardson, does in his letter. Not at all. 

 On them lies the onus of proving that all mediums are not tricksters. 



We readily admit with Huxley that absolute impossibilities can rarely be 

 established. In the vast majority of cases we are obliged to come to a decision on 

 the sum of probabilities, one way or another — often after large random sampling. 

 When a man has been once convicted of lying or stealing, that is good 

 presumptive evidence (used as such by the law) that he may lie or steal again ; 

 and, if he is found again in suspicious circumstances, on him will rest the burden 

 of proving that this time he was guiltless. Still more difficult will it be to clear 

 himself if he tries to do so by pleading the occurrence of a miracle ; and this 

 is precisely the case of a medium who has once been detected in fraud when 

 he pretends to " manifest " a ghost or " telepath " a message on a subsequent 

 occasion. When one alleged miracle is proved to be due to a trick, that is good 

 presumptive evidence that all alleged miracles of the same kind have been really 

 due to the same trick. And the whole of the case under C now lies under the 

 same suspicion : the presumptive evidence is against it ; and on it lies the onus 

 of clearing itself. Still more generally — if we see a tree in a field we believe that 

 it grew there from the seed or the sapling ; if you assert that it fell from heaven 

 it is for you to convince us. Our explanation is a natural and ordinary one, yours 

 an unnatural and an extraordinary one. On him who asserts the miracle lies the 

 burden of the proof. 



But our* spiritualists claim that their exhibitions have often been tested by 

 " rigorous investigators," who have failed to find any trick or flaw. We ask at 

 once whether these persons would have been able to discover the artifices 

 employed by any ordinary professional conjurer ? Certainly not. I have myself 

 watched card-tricks and many kinds of jugglery done in broad daylight a yard 

 or two away from me, without being able to detect the tricks employed. Why 

 then should we suppose that the " rigorous investigators " will be more successful 

 at stances, with the additional security of darkness and an atmosphere of 

 " religious " faith and sanctity ? Their failure to do so may as rightly be 

 interpreted as evidence of one of two things, either of the genuineness of the 

 manifestation, or of the cleverness of the deception ; and the former involves 

 a miracle, the latter only such a common thing as a fraud. Then again, are the 

 investigators really "rigorous"? They may pretend to be so, while they are 

 secretly or sub-consciously desirous of overlooking any small doings behind the 

 scenes. It is idle to adduce the integrity or eminence of such persons, because 

 we know that the most upright and able men (especially old men) often make 

 mistakes, or fall into fads, or even lose money on the Stock Exchange ! Then 

 what of the equally upright and scientific gentlemen who have detected frauds at 

 seances or who do not believe in spiritualism ? Your correspondent mentions 

 four "rigorous investigators," who, he says, have supported the assertions of 

 spiritualism, but he omits to refer to the hundreds or thousands of men of 

 science who laugh at them. Such a dialectic may be permissible in metaphysics — 

 but not in science. In fact, the argument is worthless both ways. 



The pose of the detached scientist who sets out to investigate " psychic 

 manifestations " in the cause of pure truth is becoming rather worn and thin. To 



