SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, XOVEMBER IG, 18«;i. 



FROM SUPERSTITION TO HUMBUG. 



It is related that esi)ecially fortunate Euglisli 

 ■cominamlers in India liave encountered a ten- 

 •dencj' among the ignorant natives to exalt 

 them as more than human beings. It is not 

 strange that a benighted and superstitious 

 populace, astonished by exhibitions of power 

 to it incomprehensible, should, for a time, turn 

 fnjm its own hazj- gods to new and visible 

 wondei'-workers. 



A somewhat similar revolution appears to 

 accompany the progress of physical science. 

 "What its friends have to contend with at pres- 

 ent is not so much indifference or hostilit}', 

 though these are not altogether lacking, as a 

 "too implicit and childlike confidence in the 

 efficienc}- of scientific knowledge on the part 

 of those to whom its ways are in the main 

 iniknown. 



The real conquests of science have been so 

 vast and unexpected, so much like the work- 

 ings of raagic, that people eagerl}- i)ay their 

 .liomage to a power, which, though mysterious 

 enough to engage their credulity, accomplishes 

 <'very day feats that witches, ghosts, and magi- 

 cians performed only upon rare occasions. A 

 genuine scientific man will disdain to abuse 

 ■this confidence ; but there are always camp- 

 followers of the scientific army, who will find 

 in it their opportunity. It is curious to see 

 how those, who, a generation or two ago, wouM 

 have been the believers in witchcraft and all 

 things 'supernatural,' are now turning to be 

 caught in the toils of scientific charlatanry. The 

 wizard of the present day is an electrician. Elec- 

 tricity and magnetism have become literally 

 words to conjure with. 



There is a certain progress .in this, though 

 not in itself a valuable progres.s. It is the 

 advance from sheer ignorance to that little 

 knowledge which is proverbially a dangerous 



No. 41. — 1893. 



tiling. It is the advance from pure supersti- 

 tion, in which men did not reason at all, to 

 Immbug, in which they reason from false or 

 insufficient premises to wrong conclusions. 



It should be said in justice to the scientific 

 charlatan, that he is frequently not dangerous, 

 and is nearly always amusing. He possesses 

 an audacity, a volubility, that, combined with 

 his habit of blundering, make him a far more 

 cheerful person to contemplate than his gloomy 

 predecessor, the sorcerer. Take, for instance, 

 the inodern master of that ancient black art 

 of divination by rods. A newspaper report 

 makes a ' professor ' of the science of ' magnetic 

 geology,' as he calls it, speak as follows : — 



"You take tlie ends of the forks, :ind grasp them 

 tightly in either hand, allowingjthat portion where 

 the forks join to point iipwani. . . . Wlien one 

 walks over a mineral substance in the ground, the 

 electricity ascends through the body into the hands 

 and rod, and draws the central or connecting por- 

 tion of the rod downward. When this occurs, min- 

 erals exist beneath the spot where you staml. It the 

 rod begins to move as the person walks along, take 

 particular notice of the spot where you stand when 

 the movement begins. When the rod turns com- 

 pletely over, measure the distance from where it first 

 beg.in to move to the spot where it indicates miner- 

 als. This distance will give yovi the depth at which 

 the mineral can be found." 



' Rabdomancy, or divination by rods, is as 

 old as histor\-,' some one recently remarked. 

 The feature of this science peculiar to our age 

 is the pretence of explaining it. That the 

 method is still resorted to quite widely, there 

 can be no doubt. Wo read in a Vermont 

 paper, that a few months ago the, public au- 

 thorities of Jliddlebury resorted to the rod 

 when about to sink an artesian well. They 

 then sank a shaft eighty feet at the spot desig- 

 nated, and there struck, not water,. but flint. 

 We have lately heard of a man who ascertains 

 by the divining-rod the proper spot for ground- 

 ing lightning-rods. We have never seen a state- 

 ment of his theory in his own words ; but it 



