7 66 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



more sittings in Paris. Most impressive of all (to those who, 

 like Mr. Shelton's conjurer, have no opinion of F.R.S.'s), she 

 completely upset the scepticism, in a series of eleven sittings at 

 Naples in 1908, of three of the ablest investigators now living, 

 two of them expert conjurers, and all of them old hands at the 

 game of showing up fraudulent mediums. 1 



But, once more and for the last time, conclusions are not to 

 be arrived at by proxy. We cannot get convictions second- 

 hand. Each must investigate for himself. The mind is natur- 

 ally inhospitable to statements alleging occurrences which have 

 no parallel in its own experience. And this natural conservatism 

 is a good thing. It saves us from superstition and foolish 

 credence of various kinds. I greatly prefer excessive scepticism 

 to excessive credulity, and should be sorry to think that any one 

 believed these things on my authority. We do not expect to 

 produce belief by our reports ; we do not even wish to do so. 

 The most that we expect or wish to do is to " modify the atmo- 

 sphere," to dissolve away negative assumptions, to change 

 popular opinion from a state of ignorant denial to a state of 

 open-minded tolerance and suspense of judgment ; while at the 

 same time insisting on adherence to careful scientific methods 

 and on ruthless rejection of anything that is not based on solid, 

 carefully amassed, and tested evidence. To quote James again : 



" Is it then likely that the science of our own day will escape 

 the common doom, that the minds of its votaries will never look 

 old-fashioned, to the grandchildren of the latter? It would be 

 folly to suppose so. Yet, if we are to judge by the analogy of 

 the past, when our science once becomes old-fashioned it will be 

 more for its omissions of fact, for its ignorance of whole ranges 

 and orders of complexity in the phenomena to be explained, than 

 for any fatal lack in its spirit and principles." 2 



Oliver Cromwell once said, when getting rather impatient 

 with some bigoted theologians : " For God's sake, gentlemen, 

 consider that you may just possibly be mistaken." I would say 

 to orthodox scientific men : " For Truth's sake, gentlemen, con- 

 sider that Hamlet's famous remark to Horatio, though now too 

 hackneyed for quotation, may nevertheless be true." 



1 Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xxiii. pp. 309 et seq. • Report by Baggally, 

 Carrington, and Feilding. See also Carrington's book, Eusapia Palladino and 

 her Phenomena, and Morselli's Psicologia e Spiritismo. 



* Proceedings S.P.P., vol. xii. p. 10. 



