1 84 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



unless we are prepared with another. He has hard words for the attitude of the 

 man who admits the facts, or many of them, but cannot accept the theory, and is 

 content to wait for further light. Now the logic of hypothesis is difficult, and has 

 been much debated ; but, at any rate, there can be no compulsion to accept a 

 theory merely because it is the only one offered, unless the theory does fairly 

 cover the facts as a whole. And this theory does not. It offers a kind of explana- 

 tion of the central fact, that mediums show a knowledge which we cannot otherwise 

 explain as yet. But when we ask how the theory is to be reconciled with all the 

 circumstances, we are met simply with excuses : we cannot expect to understand 

 everything ; the study of spiritualist phenomena is in its infancy ; we have no 

 right to expect things to fit in with our preconceived ideas (though this is just 

 what we mean by a theory fitting the facts) ; and so forth. The truth is, the 

 doctrine that these phenomena are due to the intervention of discarnate minds, 

 far from explaining them, makes them more incomprehensible than ever. Is it 

 really Raymond Lodge, the trained engineer, who tells Sir Oliver Lodge, the 

 physicist, that a table tilts because it is full of magnetism, or that magnetism has 

 to be stored up for a sitting, and therefore it is well always to use the same room 

 and furniture ? When the " spirit-control " calls itself Phinuit or Moonstone or 

 Rector, talks broken English, says the departed are miserable because their living 

 friends will not go to mediums, or dwells on the sitter's great name, strong 

 personality, and wonderful influence : is it more probably an authentic voice from 

 beyond the grave or a deliverance of the medium's sub-liminal consciousness ? Is 

 it valuable and valid information about the next world, when we learn that the 

 people there live in houses built of bricks, " certain unstable atoms being drawn 

 from the atmosphere and crystallised as they draw near a certain central attraction" ; 

 that there are dogs in that land, the ghosts of dogs that have lived on earth ; that 

 there are flowers, which "do not die and grow again but renew themselves," which 

 are " like a pansy and not quite a pansy " ; that there are seven spirit-spheres, one 

 of them being called the astral plane and another Homeland or Summerland; that 

 " the spirit-spheres are built round the earth plane, and seem to revolve with it. 

 Only, naturally, the first sphere isn't revolving at such a rate as the third, fourth, 

 fifth, sixth, and seventh spheres. Greater circumference seems to make it revolve 

 more rapidly. That seems to have an actual effect on the atmospheric conditions 

 prevailing in any one of the spheres " — is this the kind of information from the 

 other world that we all long for ? 



Does Sir Oliver Lodge in his inmost heart believe it himself? He tells us of 

 foolish and wicked spirits disturbing the sittings, of spirits skylarking with mediums, 

 and of messages so trivial that they would evaporate from his mind unless some- 

 thing occurred to give them importance. Think of it : your lost friend, whose 

 every earthly word you treasure as a sacred memory, speaks to you from beyond 

 the grave, from that land whose silence since the day that the first man died has 

 been so complete and unbroken that "as silent as the grave " is our very similitude 

 for the absolutely soundless ; but, now, so commonplace and trivial is the stream 

 of chatter from that hitherto silent land, that his words "evaporate from your 

 mind"! Is it credible? 



The attitude of the average thoughtful man towards all these super-normal 

 manifestations is at present one of suspended judgment. He does not deny their 

 existence; he admits their real interest and their possible importance; he is 

 grateful to any competent observer who will impartially investigate them. But he 

 is firmly convinced that their classification as super-normal is merely a temporary 

 expedient, and that they will ultimately prove to be as natural, as amenable to law 



