Por GbE ceo iy 
AND 
MODERN SPIRITUALISM: 
A KEPLY TO THE “QUARTERLY REVIEW.” 
Tue Quarterly Review for October contains an article under the title of 
‘‘ Spiritualism and its Recent Converts,” in which my investigations and those 
of other scientific men are severely handled in the spiteful bad old style which 
formerly characterised this periodical, and which I thought had happily passed 
away. It has reverted to the unjustifiable fashion of testing truth by the 
character of individuals. Had the writer contented himself with fair criticism, 
however sharply administered, I should have taken no public notice of it, but 
have submitted with the best grace I could. But with reference to myself he 
has further mis-stated and distorted the aim and nature of my investigations, and 
written of me personally as confidently as if he had known me from boyhood 
and was thoroughly acquainted with every circumstance of my educational 
and scientific career, so that I feel constrained to protest against his manifest 
unfairness, prejudice, and incapacity to deal with the subject and my con- 
nection with it. Although other investigators, including Dr. Huggins, Serjeant 
Cox, Mr. Varley, and Lord Lindsay, are included in the indictment and found 
guilty with extenuating circumstances, for me he can feel no tenderness, which, 
were it not for my recent sins, he is good enough to observe he “ might have 
otherwise felt for a man who has in his previous career made creditable use of 
his very limited opportunities.’ The other offenders who are attacked can 
well take care of themselves ; let me now vindicate myself. 
It was my good or evil fortune, as the case may be, to have an hour’s 
conversation, if it may be so termed when the talking was all on one side, 
with the Quarterly Reviewer in question, when I had an opportunity of 
observing the curiously dogmatic tone of his mind and of estimating his inca- 
pacity to deal with any subject conflicting with his prejudices and preposses- 
sions. At the last meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh we were 
introduced—He as a physiologist who had enquired into the matter fifteen or 
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