778 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 803 



page how the writers were deceived. On page 

 after page one finds them the victims of the 

 old " substitution-trick." Examples of this 

 will be given elsewhere. One can go through 

 the report and write on the margin at almost 

 every phenomenon (where the " control " is 

 stated) by what hand or foot it was probably 

 done. No substantial evidence remains. 



Thanks are due to Messrs. W. S. Davis, J. 

 L. Kellogg and J. W. Sargent, who have all 

 had much experience, both of professional 

 conjuring and of the investigation of medi- 

 ums, and who gave their time and invaluable 

 services at my last two sittings. Mr. J. F. 

 Rinn, a merchant, who is a trained observer 

 and an investigator of spiritualism, deserves 

 special acknowledgments for his work as a 

 watcher. Dickinson S. Miller 



I agree substantially with the committee's 

 report. My sittings with Paladino have failed 

 to convince me that she possesses any un- 

 known force. In fact, she has been detected 

 in so much trickery that there is in my opin- 

 ion an extremely high probability that aU of 

 the manifestations which I witnessed were 

 produced by merely natural means. But I do 

 not feel that the methods and conditions of 

 our experiments were of such a kind as to 

 warrant the rigorously scientific and finally 

 conclusive verdict for which we had hoped, or 

 even to justify quite the degree of emphasis 

 expressed in the majority report. 



It has long been known that Paladino re- 

 sorted to trickery, and the claim has been 

 made and will still be made that she finds it 

 easier to perform fraudulently that which she 

 can and sometimes does accomplish otherwise. 

 The Cambridge exposure of 1895 proved that 

 she used trickery, but did not put a stop to her 

 scientific vogue. I had hoped, perhaps fool- 

 ishly, that our investigation would be rather 

 more than a repetition of something already 

 accomplished. And it seemed plain that the 

 policy to pursue was to insist upon conditions 

 of control by mechanical means, which, in- 

 stead of encouraging fraud by their looseness, 

 should be so rigorous as absolutely to elimi- 

 nate her well-known tricks of foot and hand 

 substitution. 



If this plan had had a fair trial, and no 

 " phenomena " had resulted, our report might 

 have given a permanent quietus to the Pala- 

 dino cult. W. P. Montague 



I sign the majority report, believing it cor- 

 rect as far as it extends. But it does not go 

 far enough. It gains, I think, a certain fic- 

 titious importance through the absence of all 

 those details about methods and results which 

 are properly considered indispensable to any 

 such statement made by scientists to scien- 

 tists. Were those details here recorded, the 

 difference between this report and the sort 

 Science usually prints would instantly ap- 

 pear. 



One may take either of two attitudes 

 toward Eusapia and her like. Judge her by 

 shrewd common sense, if you choose; then al- 

 most everybody will briefly pronounce her an 

 egregious and unmitigated humbug, as I do 

 when thus considering all that I have seen at 

 seven of her seances. On the other hand, 

 though, you may prefer to subject her phe- 

 nomena to the strict scientific method; and 

 now, having elected the intellectual game you 

 are to play, you must observe its rules. If 

 my understanding of the canons of induc- 

 tion is correct, the investigators sometimes 

 unwittingly and sometimes unavoidably 

 changed their point of view very often in the 

 midst of their experiments with the result 

 that their verdict, like my own, is based upon 

 impressions and " human " probabilities. 

 That these latter are very strong does not 

 make the conclusions from them scientific. 

 Perhaps it is not worth while trying to be 

 scientific over such matters, but that is 

 another issue. W. B. Pitkin 



Professor Miller has asked me to add to the 

 statement which I signed as a member of the 

 committee, a personal report of the impres- 

 sions made on me by the three sittings with 

 Eusapia Palladino which I attended in Jan- 

 uary. 



Judging from the earlier sittings which I 

 attended on the invitation of Mr. Hereward 

 Carrington, I should say that those held with 

 the committee were fairly representative as 



