14 Psychic Force and Modern Spiritualism. 
Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, where, in addition to my principal employment 
of arranging the meteorological department, I divided my leisure time between 
Homer and mathematics at Magdalen Hall, planet-hunting and transit 
taking with Mr. Pogson now Principal of the Madras Observatory, and 
celestial photography with the magnificent heliometer attached to the Obser- 
vatory? My photographs of the Moon, taken in 1855, at Mr. Hartnup’s 
Observatory, Liverpool, were for years the best extant, and I was honoured 
by a money, grant from the Royal Society to carry out further work in 
connexion with them. These facts, together with my trip to Oran last year, 
as one of the Government Eclipse Expedition, and the invitation recently 
received to visit Ceylon for the same purpose, would almost seem to show that 
Astronomy was my speciality. In truth, few scientific men are less open to 
the charge of being ‘‘a specialist of specialists.” 
Whilst the scepticism of this reviewer in respect to the credibility of eminent 
witnesses, who give their names and detailed statements of definite facts, 
exceeds all reasonable bounds, his credulity in believing unattested statements 
of others, or in expecting his readers to give credit to all the absurd stories of 
his own experience, is refreshing in its simplicity. He gives five separate 
accounts of certain séances, where he saw something take place, but he con- 
descends to few details; with one exception, no names or tests are given, 
nor is there a single clue by which the accuracy of his statements can be 
verified. The only case in which a name and anything like detail is given is an 
account of a visit to Mr. Foster. Amongst other strange things here recorded, 
but by no means satisfactorily accounted for, even by our reviewer, is the 
following :— 
‘We were not introduced to him by name, and we do not think that he 
could have had any opportunity of knowing our person. Nevertheless, 
he not only answered in a variety of modes the questions we put 
to him respecting the time and cause of the death of several of our 
departed friends and relatives whose names we had written down on 
slips of paper which had been folded up and crumpled into pellets 
before being placed in his hands; but he brought out names and 
dates correctly in large red letters on his bare arm, the redness being 
produced by the turgescence of the minute vessels of the skin, and 
passing away after a few minutes like a blush.” 
The accurate answers to the reviewer’s questions are supposed to be 
explained by ‘unconscious ideo-motor action,’ which, like ‘ unconscious 
cerebration,” is to explain all phenomena, past, present, and to come. 
Respecting the latter phenomenon, he says—‘‘ The trick by which the 
red letters were produced was discovered by the enquiries of our medical 
friends.” Ifthe reviewer will not believe my plain statement of facts fortified by 
eminent witnesses, how does he expect his readers to believe these statements 
on the simple word of an anonymous writer? His ‘ gullibility,” to use his own 
coarse, but expressive word, is strongly shown in his implicit belief of an obviously 
exaggerated account given by the well-known Robert Houdin of the way in 
which he and his son performed some of their tricks. 
It is curious to note how Dr. Carpenter is made to pervade the Quarterly 
Review article. The reviewer throughout the article unconsciously manifests 
his implicit conviction that Dr. Carpenter is to be regarded as the paramount 
