A Reply to the Quarterly Review. 15 
authority in reference to the subtle psychological questions involved in the 
so-called spiritualistic phenomena. The theories of the profound psy- 
chologists of Germany, to say nothing of those of our own countrymen, 
are made quite subsidiary to the hypotheses of Dr. William Carpenter. 
An unquestioning and infatuated belief in what Dr. Carpenter says con- 
cerning our mental operations has led the reviewer wholly to ignore 
the fac that these speculations are not accepted by the best minds 
devoted to psychological inquiries. I mean no disrespect to Dr. Car- 
penter, who, in certain departments, has done some excellent scientific work, 
not always perhaps in a simple and undogmatic spirit, when I ‘“ speak 
advisedly ” that his mind lacks that acute, generalising, philosophic quality 
which would fit him to unravel the intricate problems which lie hid in the 
structure of the human brain. 
Here I must bring this enforced vindication to a close. The self-reference 
to which I have been constrained is exceedingly distasteful to me. I forbear 
to characterise with fitting terms the spirit of this attack upon a scientific 
worker ; it is enough that I have proved that in ten distin@ instances the 
reviewer has deliberately calumniated me. It is a heavy and a true charge 
to bring against anyone occupying the reviewer's position amongst scientific 
men. 
I cannot refrain from citing from the Birmingham Morning News the 
following trenchant criticism from the pen of an eminent chemist—himself a 
disbeliever in “ Spiritualism.” It will serve, as one instance amongst many, 
to show the feeling of disgust which the article in the Quarterly Review has 
excited among scientific men, whatever their opinions on this topic may be. 
After a few prefatory remarks, the writer goes on to say :— 
‘Either a new and most extraordinary natural force has been discovered, or 
some very eminent men specially trained in rigid physical investigation have 
been the vidims of a most marvellous, unprecedented, and inexplicable 
physical delusion. I say unprecedented, because, although we have records 
of many popular delusions of similar kind and equal magnitude, and specula- 
tive delusions among the learned, I can cite no instance of skilful experimental 
experts being utterly, egregiously, and repeatedly deceived by the mechanical 
acticn of experimental test apparatus carefully constructed and used by them- 
selves. 
“As the interest in the subje@ is rapidly growing both wider and deeper, as 
a very warm discussion is pending, and further and still more extraordinary 
experimental revelations are in reserve, my readers will probably welcome a 
somewhat longer gossip on this than I usually devote to a single subjed. 
“Such an extension is the more demanded as the newspaper and magazine 
articles which have hitherto appeared, have, for the most part, by following 
the lead of the Quarterly Review, absurdly muddled the whole subjea@, and 
ridiculously mis-stated the position of Mr. Crookes and others. In the first 
place all these writers that follow the Quarterly omit any mention or allusion 
to Mr. Crookes’s preliminary paper published in July, 1870, but which has a 
