SIR WILLIAM CROOKES ON PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 



The articles in the General Appendix of the Smithsonian Report 

 are intended as a rule to set forth accounts of known and admitted 

 scientific facts and not of speculations. 



The following- two articles, forming portions of addresses to the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science and to the Society 

 for Psychical Research, delivered in each case by their president, Prof. 

 William Crookes, contain, however, speculations so weighty and ingeni- 

 ously illustrated that an exception is here made in their favor, but it 

 is to be repeated that they are not presented as demonstrated fact. 



S. P. Langlet, Secretary. 



I. EXTRACT FROM ADDRESS BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR 

 THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 1898. i 



* * * No incident in my scientific career is more widely known 

 than the part I took many years ago in certain psjxhic researches. 

 Thirt}^ years have passed since I published an account of experiments 

 tending to show that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a 

 Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordinary intelligence 

 common to mortals. This fact in my life is, of course, well understood 

 by those who honored me with the invitation to become your president. 

 Perhaps among my audience some may feel curious as to whether I 

 shall speak out or be silent. I elect to speak, although briefly. To 

 enter at length on a still debatable subject would be unduly to insist 

 on a topic which — as Wallace, Lodge, and Barrett have already shown — 

 though not unfitted for discussion at these meetings, does not yet enlist 

 the interest of the majority of my scientific brethren. To ignore the 

 su])ject would be an act of cowardice — an act of cowardice I feel no 

 temptation to commit. 



To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of 

 knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to 

 bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to 

 do but to go straight on; "to explore up and down, inch by inch, with 

 the taper his reason;" to follow the light wherever it may lead^ even 

 should it at times resemble a will-o'-the-wisp. I have nothing to 



' From Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1898. 

 Bristol meeting. 



186 



