490 



NATURE 



[October 20, 19 10 



summarised briefly under the title Cross correspond- 

 ence, went some distance towards siiaking Mr. 

 Podmore's robust scepticism in everything except 

 telepathy — telepathy, that is, between living- persons 

 no matter how distant and disconnected from each 

 other they may be ; but though he showed signs of 

 an opening mind in this direction, in many others it 

 remained firmly, and as most will think reasonably, 

 closed. Mr. Podmore was one of those who some 

 time ago had believed too easily and too much — at 

 least so his later self would have claimed — and accord- 

 ingly he had swung over in the opposite direction ; 

 certainly nothing in the nature of what are called 

 " physical phenomena " — a title which is used to sum- 

 marise a group of cases relating to the movement 

 of objects without apparent contact — could ever find 

 lodgment in his mind. 



In this he may turn out to be right, for these so- 

 called physical phenomena are among the most in- 

 credible of all ; they do not appear to have any 

 immediate or necessary connection with the question 

 of human survival — if true, they appear to be a physio- 

 logical but extraordinary and, so to speak, ridiculous 

 extension of human faculty — and it would be a great 

 simplification if they could all be relegated to the easy 

 and comprehensive category of fraud. But the evi- 

 dence will not in my judgment permit this simplifi- 

 cation of the problems presented by a hitherto 

 uncharted portion of the universe; and I confess I 

 do not feel that Mr. Podmore's training made him 

 a competent critic of this division of the subject. It 

 is the part of his book which will meet with readiest 

 acceptance, however, inasmuch as it postulates no 

 causes but what ai'e only too well known, such as 

 human deceit, quackery, and gullibility; so it puts 

 no strain on the believing power of the reader, even 

 to the moderate extent of demanding the acceptance 

 of an obscure faculty like telepathy. 



But I am bound to say that the treatment here is 

 not as worthy of a careful and responsible critic as 

 is his treatment of subjects more closely allied with 

 telepathy. I would even go so far as to say that his 

 criticism of some e.xperiments, such as those made 

 by Sir W. Crookes, for instance, exhibits clear traces 

 of what I may call conscientious or forensic unfair- 

 ness; not only because definite assertions are ques- 

 tioned in a way which would undermine the record of 

 any experiment ever made, but because their quotation 

 is preceded by accounts of similar phenomena by over- 

 enthusiastic and incompetent witnesses, whose ac- 

 counts could not have any weight attached to them, 

 and are only quoted in order to prejudice a fair con- 

 templation of the subject. 



If I am wrong in attaching some credence to careful 

 records of unusual physical phenomena, on the strength 

 of actual experience of my own, I wish the statement 

 that I do so to stand as a personal confession in the 

 pages of this scientific journal which will be readily 

 accessible to posterity. 



Concerning Mr. Podmore's other scepticisms, how- 

 ever, though I do not by any means in every case 

 agree with them, his criticisms are reasonable and 

 competent; and all the disbelief that he possessed on 

 those subjects he was entitled to, inasmuch as he i 

 NO. 2138, VOL, 84] 



devoted much time to their consideration, and made 

 a careful scrutiny of the evidence. He was not exactly 

 a first-hand investigator himself, but he diligently 

 studied the work of others. His opinion, therefore, is 

 of weight, and, whether unduly sceptical or not, cannot 

 be lightly estimated like that of persons who pronounce 

 a positive and dogmatic judgment on no evidence at 

 all. 



The objection which I sometimes feel to Mr. 

 Podmore's books is that they appear to furnish readers 

 with a succinct summary of the evidence available, 

 whereas they really only furnish selections of that 

 evidence — made to some extent from the point of 

 view of their bearing on his favourite hypothesis. 

 These very readable and in some respects learned 

 books may be useful in opening up the question and 

 arousing interest, provided always that they do not 

 quench it, but they have the flaws inseparable from 

 second-hand testimony. The evidence cannot really 

 be studied in any such volumes. It is probably true 

 that conviction can only be attained by first-hand 

 experience of the facts themselves ; but, short of this, 

 the evidence inust be scrutinised in the recorded 

 observations of the actual experimenters — such records, 

 for instance, as are contained in the Proceedings of 

 the Society for Psychical Research, and those made by 

 earlier pioneers who in face of much obloquy and 

 ridicule preceded and rendered possible its work. 



Oliver Lodge. 



FOSSIL CLUB-MOSSES AND FERNS. 

 Fossil Plants : a Text-book for Students of Botany 

 and Geology. By Prof. A. C. Seward, F.R.S. 

 Vol. II. Cambridge Biological Series. Pp. xxii + 

 624, with 265 figures and frontispiece. (Cambridge 

 University Press, 19 lo.) Price 15s. net. 



IT is twelve years since the first volume of Prof. 

 Seward's important text-book appeared. The 

 progress of fossil botany has never been so rapid as 

 during the interval, and we may congratulate our- 

 selves, with the author, that the delay has enabled 

 him to produce a really up-to-date treatise on some 

 of the most important classes of fossil plants. 



The present volume is essentially concerned with 

 the Lycopods and "Ferns" — it is necessary to put 

 the latter word in quotation marks, for in these days 

 nothing is more difficult than to tell whether a re- 

 puted fossil fern deserves the name or not. 



Two short chapters at the beginning of the volume 

 are devoted to the Sphenophyllales and the Psilotales ; 

 the accoiint of the former group given in Vol. I. is 

 here completed by the description of some types of 

 fructification recorded since that volume appeared. 

 The relation of the little family PsilotaceEE to the 

 Pateozoic group of the Sphenophylls is fully recog- 

 nised, but the author does well to put the former in 

 a class of its own. Some authors have been too 

 hasty in uniting these families, which, though they 

 have important characters in common, are distin- 

 guished by features no less striking. 



The great class of the Lycopodiales, perhaps the 

 most prominent of all in the Carboniferous flora, 

 occupies a space commensurale with its importance. 



