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NATURE 
THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1871 


MR. CROOKES ON THE “ PSYCHIC” FORCE 
ITH a boldness and honesty which deserve the 
greatest respect, Mr. Crookes has come forward as 
an investigator of those mysterious phenomena which 
have now been so long before the public that it is unne- 
cessary to name them, more especially as their generally 
received name is very objectionable. 
Two things have contributed to retard our knowledge 
of these strange events. Inthe first place, until lately few 
men of name have been associated with their occurrence, 
so that outsiders have not had the facts put before them 
in a proper manner. In the next place, we are inclined to 
endorse the remark of Mr. Crookes, that men of science 
have shown too great a disinclination to investigate the 
existence and nature of these alleged facts, even when 
their occurrence had been assetted by competent and 
credible witnesses. 
Before adverting to the results obtained by Mr. Crookes, 
a few words may be said about our mode of procedure in 
accepting testimony. 
Let us suppose that a man comes before us asa witness 
of some strange and unprecedented occurrence. Here it 
is evident that we are not entitled to reject his testimony 
on the ground that we cannot explain what he has seen in 
accordance with our preconceived views of the universe, 
even although these views are the result of a long ex- 
perience ; for by this means we should never arrive at any- 
thing new. Our first question is manifestly one regarding 
the man’s moral character. Is he an honest and trust- 
worthy man, or is he trying to deceive us? 
Let us assume that we have convinced ourselves of his 
honesty ; we are then bound to believe that he thought he 
saw what he described to us ; not necessarily, however, 
that the occurrence which he described actually took 
place. Convinced, already, that he is not deceiving us, 
we next question whether he may not be deceived himself. 
Let us, however, assume that, upon investigation, the 
circumstances are such that collusion of any kind is out 
of the question, and that the man is neither trying to 
deceive us, nor that it is possible that he himself can have 
been deceived by others. Even yet we have an alternative 
in our judgment of the event. The phenomenon may be 
subjective rather than odjective, the result of an action 
upon the man’s brain rather than an outstanding reality. 
For nothing is more certain than the occasional occurrence 
of such strange impressions ; and the cat or the dog or 
the skeleton by which the patient is haunted is frequently 
recognised even by himself as having no external exist- 
ence. Of late years we have been able to produce instances 
of this depraved consciousness almost at will. The 
author of these remarks considers it certain that the 
electro-biologist has frequently caused them. The unim- 
peachable character of the patient, combined with the fact 
that he has sometimes pronounced water to be wine, or a 
snow storm to be taking place in a room, can only be 
accounted for on the supposition that he has been put into 
a peculiar state, during which his evidence of events is 
utterly worthless. But beyond the bare fact, we know 
next to nothing of the laws that regulate this action, nor 
can we tell under what conditions one man is capable of 
VOL, IV. 
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23 
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influencing another, or whether a man-or body of men 
may not be capable of influencing themselves. 
To come now to the class of events which Mr. Crookes 
has witnessed. It is greatly to his credit that he has 
come forward so frankly and honestly ; and since he has 
begun to investigate the peculiar class of facts, we are 
sure that he will consider it his duty to continue the 
investigation in such a way as to convince those men of 
science who may not themselves be able to take up the 
question— outsiders in fact. Mr. Crookes will, we are sure, 
not object to a few critical remarks honestly made with 
the scle view of finding out the truth, and we would there- 
fore express a wish that, in order to facilitate operations 
the experiments should in future be conducted by only 
by such men as Mr. Crookes himself, and that it should 
always be absolutely superfluous to investigate whether 
machinery, apparatus, or contrivance of any sort, be 
secreted about the persons present. We should thus start 
from a higher platform, and the investigation would gain 
in simplicity, although perhaps something might be lost 
in the marked nature of the results obtained. 
Allowing, however (as we are disposed to allow), that 
things of an extraordinary nature are frequently witnessed 
on such occasions, yet we are by no means sure that these 
constitute external realities. The very fact that the 
results are uncertain, and that, as far as we know, they 
have never yet been obtained in broad daylight before a 
large unbiassed audience, would lead us to suspect that 
they may be subjective rather than objective, occurring in 
the imaginations of those present rather than in the out- 
ward physical world. Nor can this doubt be removed by 
any precision of apparatus ; for what avails the most per- 
fect instrument as long as we suspect the operator to be 
under a mental influence of the nature, it may be, of that 
which is witnessed in electro-biological experiments ? The 
problem is, in fact, one of extreme difficulty, and we do 
not see how it admits of proof, provided the influence 
cannot be exerted in broad daylight and before a large 
audience. There is, however, a cognate phenomenon 
which admits of easy proof. We allude to clairvoyance, 
and have in our mind at the present moment a man of 
science who if not himself a clairvoyant has yet the power 
to command the services of one who is. Now, were he 
at once to communicate to a journal such as NATURE, in 
cipher if necessary, the knowledge derived through the 
influence, giving the proof afterwards when obtained in 
an ordinary manner, the public would soon be ina position 
to judge whether there is any truth in the influence or not. 
It is, in fact, somewhat hard upon the writer of these 
remarks and some others who are disposed to allow the 
possibility of something of this nature, but have not the 
opportunity of investigating it, that those who have will 
not satisfy the public with a convincing proof. 
B, SVEWART 


TYNDALL S FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 
’ Fragments of Science for Unscientific People. By Prof. 
Tyndall, LL.D., F.R.S. (London; Longmans: 1871.) 
HIS volume is a reprint of a number of detached 
essays, lectures, and reviews, by Prof. Tyndall, pub- 
lished at various times and in various places during the 
last ten years. Besides a few shorter pieces collected at 
) 

