SECT. 33.] Fallacies. 365 



32. To take a specific instance, this way of regarding 

 the matter has often occurred to me in disputes upon Spi 

 ritualist manifestations. Assent is urged upon us because, 

 it is said, no other possible solution can be suggested. It 

 may be quite true that apparently overwhelming difficulties 

 may lie as against each separate alternative solution ; but is 

 it always sufficiently realized how numerous such solutions 

 may be ? No matter that each individually may be almost 

 incredible : they ought all to be massed together and thrown 

 into the scale against the proffered solution, when the only 

 question asked is, Are we to accept this solution ? There is 

 no unfairness in such a course. We are perfectly ready to 

 adopt the same plan against any other individual alterna 

 tive, whenever any person takes to claiming this as the 

 solution of the difficulty. We are looking at the matter 

 from a purely logical point of view, and are quite willing, so 

 far, to place every solution, spiritualist or otherwise, upon the 

 same footing. The partisans of every alternative are in 

 somewhat the same position as the members of a deliberative 

 assembly, in which no one will support the motion of any 

 other member. Every one can aid effectively in rejecting 

 every other motion, but no one can succeed in passing his 

 own. Pressure of urgent necessity may possibly force them 

 out of this state of practical inaction, by, so to say, breaking 

 through the opposition at some point of least resistance ; but 

 unless aided by some such pressure they are left in a state of 

 hopeless dead-lock. 



33. Assuming that the spiritualistic solution admits 

 of, and is to receive, scientific treatment, this, it seems to 

 me, is the conclusion to which one might sometimes be led 

 in the face of the evidence offered. We might have to say to 

 every individual explanation, It is incredible, I cannot accept 

 it ; and unless circumstances should (which it is hardly pos- 



