MESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISM 299 



authority of his name to ' Stranger than Fiction; my great 

 respect for Thackeray rendering my remonstrance earnest." 

 Then he concludes with a gentle admonition to myself — 

 " I see the usual keen powers of your mind displayed 

 in the treatment of this question. But mental power may 

 show itself, whether its material be facts or fictions. It is 

 not lack of logic that I see in your book, but a willingness 

 that I deplore to accept data which are unworthy of your 

 attention. This is frank — is it not? 



" Yours very faithfully, 



" John Tyxdall." 



G. H. Lewes, to whom I had sent the little book with 

 an invitation to investigate at my house the phenomena 

 which occurred w T ith my friend Miss Nichol, replied much 

 in the same way as Tyndall — that he was quite ready to 

 examine any serious claim to spiritual power, but that he 

 had " thoroughly examined " the phenomena, ' had forced 

 Mrs. Hayden to avow herself an impostor," while all other 

 mediums he had tested " were either impostors or dupes." 

 Still, he would come to me if he could have "all the 

 conditions of testing the phenomena freely accorded." He 

 " would not permit a medium to determine the conditions 

 or to open the usual loopholes of escape." He would also 

 wish to bring Mr. Herbert Spencer, or some other scientific 

 friend with him ; and he concluded, " I pledge you my word 

 that I will publicly state, with all the accuracy I can, what- 

 ever phenomena I may witness." 



I gladly accepted his offer, only stipulating as before that 

 he should not impose conditions on the first occasion, and 

 that he should devote at least six sittings (I think) of an 

 hour each to the investigation before coming to any conclusion. 

 But he never came at all. 



Several of my friends about this time urged me strongly 

 to make a personal investigation of the subject. Among 

 these were my old companion, H. W. Bates, and Professor 

 E. B. Tylor. I was doing so at the time, but when I pub- 

 lished the results a few years later, and about the same 



