16 Psychic Force and Modern Spiritualism, 
most important bearing on the whole subject, as it expounds the objec of all 
the subsequent researches. 
““Mr. Crookes there states, that ‘Some weeks ago the fa& that I was 
engaged in investigating Spiritualism, so-called, was announced in a contem- 
porary (The Atheneum), and, in consequence of the many communications I 
have since received, I thinkit desirable to say a little concerning the investiga- 
tions which I have commenced. Views oropinions I cannot be said to possess 
on a subject which I do not profess to understand. I consider it the duty of 
scientific men, who have learned exact modes of working, to examine pheno- 
mena which attract the attention of the public in order to confirm their 
genuineness, or to explain, if possible, the delusions of the honest, and to ex- 
pose the tricks of deceivers.’ He then proceeds to state the case of Science 
versus Spiritualism, thus:—‘ The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 
100 lbs. being lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known 
force; but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will 
render sensible a weight so small that it would take ten thousand of them to 
weigh one grain; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a power, professing to 
be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy body to the ceiling, shall 
also cause his delicately-poised balance to move under test conditions.’ ‘The 
Spiritualist tells of rooms and houses being shaken, even to injury, by super- 
human power. The man of science merely asks for a pendulum to be sent 
vibrating when it is in a glass case, and supported on solid masonry.’ ‘The 
Spiritualist tells of heavy articles of furniture moving from one room to 
another without human agency. But the man of seience has made instru- 
ments which will divide an inch into a million parts, and he is justified in 
doubting the accuracy of the former observations, if the same force is power- 
less to move the index of his instrument one poor degree.’ ‘ The spiritualist 
tells of flowers with the fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living objects being 
carried through closed windows, and even solid brick walls. The scientific 
investigator naturally asks that an additional weight (if it be only the roooth 
part of a grain) be deposited on one pan of his balance when the case is locked. 
And the chemist asks for the roooth part of a grain of arsenic to be carried 
through the sides of a glass tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed.’ 
‘‘ These and other requirements are stated by Mr. Crookes, together with 
further exposition of the principles of strict inductive investigation, as it should 
be applied to such an inquiry. A year after this he published an account of 
the experiments which I described in a former letter, and added to his own 
testimony that of the eminent physicist and astronomer Dr. Huggins, and 
Serjeant Cox. Subsequently, that is, in the last number of the Quarterly 
¥ournal of Science, he has published the particulars of another series of experi- 
ments. 
‘‘]T will not now enter upon the details of these, but merely state that the con- 
clusions of Mr. Crookes are directly opposed to those of the Spiritualists. He 
utterly, positively, distinctly, and repeatedly repudiates all belief in the opera- 
tions of the supposed spirits, or of any other supernatural agency whatever, 
and attributes the phenomena he witnessed to an entirely different origin, viz., 
to the dire agency of the medium. He supposes that the force analogous to 
that which the nerves convey from their ganglionic centres to the muscles, in 
