732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



enter as a serious possibility into the minds of such as guide their 

 beliefs by reason. Again, their " spiritualistic " explanations are 

 simply violent assumptions, varying with the caprice and inge- 

 nuity of every medium, and evidently manufactured for the pur- 

 pose. Even if such explanations were consistent, they would be 

 possible only in that extreme sense in which any bizarre notion or 

 fantastic hypothesis is possible. Practically, they are impossible, 

 because contradictory to the fundamental tenets of science and 

 experience ; because they are opposed to that marvelous network 

 of mutually corroborating laws and observations upon which the 

 logic of civilization is founded. Those whose feelings are not 

 appealed to by the doctrines of spiritualism will never be at- 

 tracted to it by its logic. 



A system that aims to instruct men with regard to beliefs 

 appealing most earnestly and deeply to the human heart, appears 

 in the light of scientific investigation as an empty, tottering 

 framework, held together by the grossest frauds, covered over 

 with the most vulgar sham, and embellished with the meanest 

 kind of deception. Let each one leave as small or as large a mar- 

 gin for the possibility of a genuine spiritualism as to him seems 

 fit, but let him realize in all its immensity the gross scandal to 

 which this system has given and is giving rise. Let him under- 

 stand that under the shelter of spiritualism men and women in all 

 our large cities are daily and hourly preying upon the credulity 

 of simple-minded folk, and obtaining money by means for which 

 the law provides the jail. Let him know that there is now abun- 

 dant evidence to make the term " medium " synonymous with 

 " impostor." When these facts are clearly and universally recog- 

 nized, we may hope to ascertain whether there is a true but small 

 foundation-stone hidden beneath this rubbish-heap, or whether, 

 like its equally pretentious predecessors, it leaves the mystery 

 as unsolved as it found it. 



AocoBDiNG to Prof. Judd, an important change has taken place in scientific 

 opinion concerning the climatical relations of fauna and flora, and the distribution 

 of biological regions. It has been tacitly assumed that all marine organisms com- 

 ing from regions bordering the equator must have lived under tropical conditions ; 

 but deep-sea research has shown that all conditions of temperature and of light 

 prevail at their several depths in tropical as well as other seas ; and that many 

 forms which, because they came from equatorial regions, we have hitherto re- 

 garded as tropical, we now know to live in icy-cold water as well as in almost 

 utter darkness. The large size and abundant development of cephalopods, crus- 

 taceans, and fish, we now know to be no evidence of the presence of warmth or 

 life, and Sir Joseph Hooker has shown the fallacy of similar reasoning when 

 applied to plant-life. 



