Maech 30, 1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



199 



"f> ^' 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfked Tennyson. 



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SCIENCE AXD KELIGION. 



[770] — While certain bi{,'Oted professors and preachers of the 

 Christian religion of the type of Mr. Talmage, of America, arc 

 hurling the shafts of their vulgar eloquence at the heads of such 

 men as Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and others, 

 it is i>leasing to hear, by way of contrast, words such as these, fall 

 from the lips of a more liberal minister of the Gospel :. — " Christ 

 is always saying, ' Other sheep I have which are not of this fold ; 

 them also I must bring.' .\nd I see them coming in, I do — the 

 men that are now supposed not to belong to us; I see the mighty 

 and brilliant host of Huxleys. and Tyndalls, .ind Herbert Spencers 

 and others, that are supposed to be outside. They are not outside 

 really, but they have got a way of saying things which we do not 

 always understand. They are trjing to come in by a road we have 

 never travelled — a high, rocky road we could not climb by reason 

 of feebli ness ; and what if God should meet them and say [quoting 

 the text', 'I girded thee, though thou hast not known me ' " — 

 uttered in the course of a sermon preached by the Bev. Dr. Parker, 

 in the City Temple, last Good Friday morning, on behalf of the 

 Haverstock Hill Orphan Working School. Of course, too much 

 weight is not to be attached to this particular utterance, being an 

 almost j.arenthetic allusion cut out of the centre of a discourse 

 bearing upon another subject ; but these are the kind of remarks 

 that promote, at least, good feeling between scientists and theo- 

 logians, if they cannot create actual union upon controversial 

 points. A Lover of Knowledge. 



MAGIC-LAXTEEN SLIDES FOR POPULAR LECTURES. 



[771] — Can any of your readers ti"!! me where it would be pos- 

 sible to lure or borrow magic-lantern slides of Norwegian mountain 

 •cenery ? The Norwegian slides in the optician's catalogues I have 

 consulted are very unsatisfactory, consisting merely of public build- 

 ings in the capital, with no views characteristic of the liords. A 

 gentleman has offered to give one of the Friday evening Penny 

 lectures at the Victoria Hall on Norway, but the Victoria Hall 

 audience cares little for a lecture unless it is addressed to the eye as 

 well as the ear. And on the whole they are right. Those who 

 haye never seen a mountain need the help of pictures in order in 

 •ny degree to realise what a lectnrer means when he speaks of one. 

 Therefore any information as to where such views can be obtained 

 will greatly oblige. One of the Victobu Hall Co.mmittek. 



PLANCHETTE WRITING. 



[772]— The letter of '• T. P. B." will interest many who think, as 

 I do, that "some yet unknown truth lies under the nonsense of 

 Bpiritualism," and that " the founding of a false theorj' on real facts 

 shoDld not prevent the facts tlieniselvcs being allowed and studied." 



Some years ago 1 experimented for months with a Planchctte, 

 •Bd in other ways endeavoured to convince myself of the truth of 

 eertein physiological facts that had given rise to the theory of 

 SpiritaaliBm. I was so circumstanced that tko want of all interest 

 in those I was associated with, amounting, in fact, to opposition, 

 caused me reluctantly to give up all further investigation, and to 



cease all argument with those whose minds are so constituted that, 

 as Do Slorgan says, they " infer imposture from the assumed im- 

 possibility of the phenomena asserted, and then allege imposture 

 against the examination of the evidence." 



The " Planchctte " proper is, as its name implies, a little board 

 of thin wood, heart-shaped, and mounted on three tiny brass 

 castors that move easily in every direction. At the pointed end 

 of the board, which is turned away from the operator, is a hole 

 through which a pencil is fixed. The hand s placed lightly on the 

 I'lanchette, that in a short time runs about making wild flourishes 

 all over the sheet of paper placed under it, and in some hands 

 ([uickly settles down into steady writiug. Its own light weight can 

 hardly be considered, and the easy castors make the frietional 

 resistance almost nominal. I can assert with confidence that under 

 the hand of an honest experimcBtor, the pressure exerts no influence 

 in forcing the Planchctte in any particular direction ; on the con- 

 trary, when fairly imbued with whatever force may move it, the 

 thing rushes about in directions quite uncontrolled and unexpected 

 by the person whose hand is on it. 



Six or seven years ago Planchettos were sold as toys by, I 

 believe, Messrs. Cromer, in Regent-street. Previous to that the}- 

 were made by a man whose name and address I have forgotten (it 

 was mentioned in an aiaiclc in Once a Wcel;, about twelve years 

 ago) , who claimed that there was some occult virtue or power in 

 the wood he used ! and charged 7s. Cd. for an article any neat- 

 handed joiner could make for about Is. 



But " T. P. B." tells us that under the hand of his friend a plate 

 performed the same work. No castors mentioned. One would like 

 to know more about this, as the description is insuflScient. A plate 

 of any material without castors, would offer very great frietional 

 resistance, and would not lend itself as readih- as an ordinary 

 Planchctte would to imposture. Again to quote from De Morgan, 

 " So soon as any matter excites warm discussion and lively interest, 

 attempts at imposition commence ; " and in our investigations we 

 should guard against this, though feeling contempt for the narrow- 

 mindedness that refers to imposition and fraud all that cannot be 

 othenvise explained satisfactorily, refusing to take into considera- 

 tion the number of things in Heaven and earth that are still not 

 " dreamt of in our pliilosopliy." 51. A. B. 



[A numljcr of Plancliettcs have been sent in response to my note. 

 I find it is tolerably easy for a single operator to make the thing 

 write legibly, and even neatl}'. Whether, with practice, one 

 operator could so write when another person had his or her hands 

 lightly on the instrument, I cannot say from my own knowledge. 

 From singular stories which have reached me through persons 

 whose word I accept unhesitatingly, I should say that, after a little 

 practice, this can be managed. I find no tendency whatever on 

 the I'lanchette's part — under my own hands only, or in company 

 with another pair of hands— to anything like movement caused 

 uuconscionslv. — E. P. 1 



EVOLUTION OF LIFE. 



[773]. — The readers of Knowledge are indebted to you for the 

 succinct form in which the principles of the doctrine of evolution 

 are presented to them ; and without criticism of the first six, save 

 to ask whether the fj<if< "normal form of the species " has been fixed 

 by Dr. Wilson, or the propoundcr of those principles (see No. 1), 

 perhaps No. 7 presents ideas upon which " Owen, Agassi/., or 

 Mivart" have grounds for their specific objections. Varieties are 

 known to revert to their originals, and jiossibly it will be allowed 

 that S)iecimens of new races and species must be criticised by the 

 laws of comparative anatomy. The probabilities of Xo. 8 go as far 

 back possibly till the original ascidian is found ; but are scientific 

 facts, when exactly described, built upon probabilities P 1 do not 

 pretend to criticise the intricacies of Dr. Wilson's experiments and 

 researches, but as one of the well-meaning persons referred to, will 

 yon permit me to say that it is not the evidence of nature which is 

 rejected, but the " if 's," "may he's " settling down into " must bo's," 

 which the crcdulons biologist dogmatises upon. 



The battle turns, in my humble opinion, upon the ' Origin of 

 Man"; and with all respect to the opinions set forth in the 

 article in question, is not Lubbock's theory to be taken into the 

 biological consideration of the question? Where the fact of 

 the special and distinct act of the creation of the Adamic race is 

 denied, the theon.- has proved correct that without the " light that 

 lightcncth the world" man, hft to himself, surely degenerates. 

 Babylonians, Egyptians, I'ersians, Grecians, Romans, notwith- 

 standing the advance of learning, art, and science among them, 

 have gone. May I ask if the learning and wisdom of the Grecians 

 ]>revented them from sinking into conniption and decay, speaking, 

 of course, of their gifts as a power of self-elevation. It seems to 

 me that it is impossible to consider man as an animal only, and 

 here evolution, as generally presented to us, thoroughly fails. The 



