CORRESPONDENCE in 



of your correspondent's case in his second paragraph. He appears to have 

 the vaguest notions on quantitative reasoning, and even on the meaning of 

 the word " proof." 



His thesis about rabbits is : conjurors can produce ghosts out of boxes 

 and rabbits out of hats ; it is as absurd to suppose that therefore all ghosts 

 come out of conjurors' boxes as it would be to suppose that all rabbits come 

 out of conjurors' hats. What an argument ! My thesis was : just as con- 

 jurors can produce ghosts out of boxes, so can any clever charlatan do so at 

 seances — even in the presence of a score of " impartial " scientists and pseudo- 

 philosophers, all of whom wish to believe in ghosts, and none of whom knows 

 anything about the conjuror's art. There is this essential difference between 

 rabbits and ghosts : we have all seen rabbits which were not produced from 

 conjurors' hats, but few of us even profess to have seen ghosts which were 

 not produced by conjurors or spiritualists. The world therefore refuses to 

 believe that rabbits are generated by conjurors ; but does beheve that 

 ghosts are. 



In his third paragraph your correspondent excuses himself for having 

 omitted the names of incredulous scientists when citing the names of four — 

 shall we say — credulous scientists, by averring that he knows of none of the 

 former who have carried out sufficient investigations. I have just exposed 

 this clever expedient for rigging the jury. He ignores my argument that 

 only those people who wish to believe in ghosts are ever likely to waste their 

 time in investigating them. 



In his next paragraph he is able to cite no less than two biologists who, 

 he says, are in favour of his views. He admits " Berkeley's fallacies and 

 Kant's faulty psychology," and then brings up seven modern philosophers 

 in support. Perhaps the day will come when these also will be convicted 

 of fallacies and faulty psychology — not to mention faulty reasoning. On 

 the other hand, he doubts whether Haeckel is a philosopher at all, and does 

 not mention Comte, Spencer, Huxley, etc. Those who are on his side are 

 philosophers ; those who are against him are not. My view is that the 

 former are pseudo-philosophers, and that the latter are men of science. He 

 himself has recently written a book called Spiritual Pluralism, in which he 

 defends the theory that ' ' the texture of the Universe is through-and-through 

 spiritual " ; but it appears to me to be a characteristic work of pseudo- 

 philosophy, full of long and vague words and of sit-ergo-est arguments. Of 

 course my own philosophy is in general agreement with another recent 

 book, Mr. Hugh Elliot's admirable Modern Science and Materialism — except 

 that the last word does not accurately focus my conclusions. Mr. Richardson 

 talks of " crass and pitiful materialism." The very use of these adjectives 

 shows that he has not yet grasped even the fundamental principle of correct 

 reasoning, impartiality. It is the characteristic delusion of the spiritualists 

 that truth should appear hideous to them while they rave over the beauty 

 of their own obi. 



In his penultimate paragraph he tries to explain away his previous fatal 

 admission that, after all, the appearance of ghosts to certain people may 

 be due only to telepathic suggestion from without. The scientific reader 

 will enjoy the skilful verbiage by means of which he tries to wriggle away 

 from the pin. We cannot deny that his explanations may just possibly or 

 conceivably be true ; but he evidently thinks that because they may be true, 

 therefore they are true — sit-ergo-est again. At the same time he seems to 

 be quite unaware of the fact that there is a very simple and much more 

 natural explanation of the alleged manifestations both of ghosts and of 

 telepathy — that they are due merely to lying. 



With regard to his two final questions, I think that he must be an ex- 

 ceptionally ingenuous person to imagine that I or anyone else would frank 

 with our signatures two such statements containing implications with which 



