December 17, 1886. J 



SCIENCE. 



559 



sou's investigations in India were issued by the 

 society in a large octavo volume vs^hich has made 

 the author's reputation as a patient, skilful, accu- 

 rate observer and an able writer. The book is like 

 the work of a first-class lawyer in the investiga- 

 tion of a criminal case. The eifacement of every 

 claim of Madame Blavatski to supernatural powers 

 is complete and overwhelming. No such stupen- 

 dous spiritual fraud has, in our generation, deluded 

 so many educated persons. Had the society done 

 nothing else, this work would have amply com- 

 pensated for all ics labor and outlay. Mr. Hodg- 

 son is now engaged, in connection with Professor 

 Sidgwick and Mr. Myers, in some experiments on 

 the subject of mind-transferrence, or the occasional 

 communication of mental impressions independ- 

 ently of ordinary perceptions, under peculiar and 

 rare nervous conditions. A series of experiments 

 extending over several years seems to estab^sh 

 this as a scientific fact, but the idea is held tenta- 

 tively until a much lai'ger induction shall prove 

 or disprove its reality. Malcolm Guthrie, Esq., of 

 Liverpool, gave me two evenings with a subject in 

 jjrivate life, who, while often wrong, gave such a 

 preponderant number of successful answers as 

 afforded an immense probability to the theory. 



The members of the American society are so 

 overworked in their own several specialties, that 

 they are unable to give the close, continuous atten- 

 tion which the science requires. I wish that the 

 services of some one who is as able and experienced 

 an investigator as Mr. Hodgson, or Mr. Frank Pod- 

 more, could be secured for the secretaryship of the 

 American society. 



In regard to the results of the work of the 

 society, it is too soon to expect any final verdict in 

 a region of facts so elusive to the grasp, and so 

 illusory in their character. The essential impor- 

 tant result so far is, that, for the first time in the 

 history of science, men of the highest reputation 

 for successful investigation have collectively set 

 themselves seriously, patiently, and without pre- 

 judgment of the results, to an investigation, by 

 clear, cold, unemotional methods, of phenomena 

 which in all the ages, and never more than now, 

 have pressed themselves on the attention of the 

 race. Long generations of impostors have taken 

 advantage of these phenomena to intrude, by 

 sacrilegious crimes, into the most holy of human 

 susceptibilities, — the sacred love for departed 

 friends. They have wickedly and falsely pro- 

 fessed to speak authoritatively in the name of the 

 dead, once dear to us in life, and to found on 

 their imbecile, vagarious utterances a system of 

 religion. It is hard to find terms sufficiently 

 strong to characterize truly this wilful profanation 

 of the innermost temple of our lives. 



I do not prejudge the case, in the presence of 

 so able a court as the Society for psychical investi- 

 gation, by pronouncing that all spiritualistic phe- 

 nomena are frauds ; but I join with the more en- 

 lightened advocates in saying that evil spirits — 

 human in my opinion, superhuman in theirs — 

 are misleading multitudes to a fatal deterioration 

 of character. No individuals could possibly have 

 so completely extinguished the claims of the Bla- 

 vatski fraud as could a societj^ authoritative in 

 the character of its members, and permanent in 

 its organization ; and nothing but such an organi- 

 zation can deal with the ever-recurring claims, 

 believed in, it is said, by millions of our country- 

 men, many of them of high social and even scien- 

 tific reputation. 



Whether, when all that is fraudulent has been 

 eliminated, there will be any residuum of psychical 

 phenomena on which impostors have traded, but 

 which are real, is of course yet an open question. 

 But it is to be remembered that smoke indicates 

 fire, and counterfeits presuppose actual values 

 somewhere. I do not hope that the inquiries will 

 recover many who have fully yielded themselves 

 to the guidance of paid mediums ; but we may 

 reasonably expect that the results of the investiga- 

 tions of a body of scientists of the first rank may 

 in the future save tens of thousands of earnest 

 men and women who are searching with intensity 

 of purpose for what is true, before they have 

 yielded themselves to the domination of mediums 

 skilled in playing upon the emotions and credulity 

 of their subjects. In this connection it may be 

 well to say to the Siebert commission that we are 

 waiting anxiously for the results of their investiga- 

 tions, and that we hope that they will be given to 

 us in full detail, even though they may be nega- 

 tive in result. 



The most practically important, possibly, of the 

 investigations of the English society, is not yet 

 in a state in which I can speak of it, but I confi- 

 dently predict for it a world-wide and permanent 

 position in the destruction of fraudulent error. 

 , I commend ' The phantasms of the living," just 

 issued. In it are given, for the judgment of the 

 scientific public, the carefully sifted narratives of 

 phenomena claimed to have been seen by reliable 

 witnesses. It is unworthy of true science to ridi- 

 cule or repudiate these until the evidence in their 

 favor has been carefully and judiciously weighed. 

 Candid scientists, whether believers or unbelievers 

 in them, will welcome whatever authentically 

 makes against, as well as for, their preconcep- 

 tions. ^- P- S- 



1 Phantasms of the living. By Edmund Gukney, F.W, H. 

 Myers, and Frank Podmore. London and Mew York, 

 Triibner, 18S6. 8". 



