728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



he has learned and you have not ; and so with a thousand other 

 and more humble facts of daily life. Spiritualism (to a large 

 extent) comes under the same category ; and the Seybert commis- 

 sion, and these other observers who have acquainted themselves 

 with the possibilities of conjuring and the natural history of de- 

 ception, who by their training and natural gifts have fitted them- 

 selves as competent judges of such alleged ultra-physical facts — 

 these persons have the same right to our confidence and respect 

 as a body of chemists or physicians on a question within their 

 province. It is not fair to set up what you think you have seen 

 as overthrowing their authority ; even if you are an unprejudiced 

 and accurate observer who has weighed the probability of your 

 observations being vitiated by one or other of the many sources of 

 error in such observation, it is only a small fact, though of course 

 even that should be registered. 



Whatever of seeming dogmatism there is in this view is re- 

 moved by the experimental demonstration furnished by Messrs. 

 Hodgson and Davey, that the kind and amount of mal-observation 

 and faulty description which an average observer will introduce 

 into the account of a performance such as the medium gives, is 

 amply sufficient to account for the divergence between his report 

 of the performance and what really occurred. The success of a 

 large class of tricks depends upon diverting the observer's atten- 

 tion from the points of real importance, and in leading him to 

 draw inferences perfectly valid under ordinary circumstances but 

 entirely wrong in the particular case. It must be constantly re- 

 membered that the judging powers are at a great disadvantage in 

 observing such performances, and that it is a kind of judgment in 

 which they have no practice. In the intercourse of daily life a 

 certain amount of good faith and confidence in the straightfor- 

 wardness of the doings of others prevents us from exercising that 

 close scrutiny and suspicion here necessary. We know that most 

 of our neighbors have not the sharpness to deceive us, and do not 

 live on the principle of the detective, who regards every one as 

 dishonest until he has proved himself honest. 



Mr. Davey (who, by the way, was at one time deceived almost 

 into conversion by spiritualistic phenomena) is an expert amateur 

 conjurer, and repeats the slate- writing performances of such as 

 Englinton with at least equal skill. He arranged with Mr. Hodg- 

 son to give sittings to several ladies and gentlemen, on the con- 

 dition that the latter send him detailed written accounts of what 

 they had seen. He did not pose as a medium or accept a fee, but 

 simply said that he had something to show which his sitters were 

 to explain as best they could, and with due consideration of trick- 

 ery as a possible mode of explanation. The " medium " has here 

 a decided advantage over Mr. Davey, because he induces a mental 



