THE SPIRIT-RAPPERS 



of these instruments that we arrive at any precision 

 and certainty. 



4. If spirits, thought-waves, silent healings, or 

 any other of the so-called psychic manifestations 

 can influence human beings, they can also influ- 

 ence delicate machines in a far greater degree. 



5. In the absence of such proofs, "mental" sci- 

 ence and all its like are slightly incongruous terms. 

 They do not happen to be sciences. They are noth- 

 ing but dreams. ( A 



I do not think that the telepaths or the spirit- 

 rappers have ever thought of materializing on a 

 galvanometer. It is their characteristic that they 

 fight shy of each and all of the familiar means 

 by which the body of human knowledge has, in a 

 century and a half, come to be something more 

 than Sir Isaac Newton's pebble on the shores of 

 the sea. I have friends who surmise that many 

 "Christian," or "mental," scientists do not know 

 what a galvanometer is, nor how it works. Yet in 

 view of the indubitable grossness of our senses, and 

 consequently of the gross character of the stimuli 

 required to excite sensation and produce conscious- 

 ness, until the galvanometer or some similar sim- 

 ple mechanism has been shown to respond to the 

 "psychic forces," the latter can hardly be regarded 

 as other than the childish fancies of childish minds. 



