1870.] Light of Modern Science. 319 



of science roust be extremely careful not to allow the reins to get 

 into unfit and incompetent hands. 



In investigations which so completely baffle the ordinary observer, 

 the thorough scientific man has a great advantage. He has followed 

 science from the beginning through a long line of learning, and he 

 knows, therefore, in what direction it is leading; he knows that 

 there are dangers on one side, uncertainties on another, and almost 

 absolute certainty on a third : he sees to a certain extent in advance. 

 But, where every step is towards the marvellous and unexpected, 

 precautions and tests should be multiplied rather than diminished. 

 Investigators must work j although their work may be very small 

 in quantity if only compensation be made by its intrinsic excellence. 

 But, even in this realm of marvels, — this wonder-land towards which 

 scientific inquiry is sending out its pioneers, — can anything be 

 more astonishing than the delicacy of the instrumental aids which 

 the workers bring with them to supplement the observations of their 

 natural senses ? 



The spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 lbs. being 

 lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known 

 force; but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance 

 which will render sensible a weight so small that it would take ten 

 thousand of them to weigh one grain ; he is, therefore, justified in 

 asking that a power professing to be guided by intelligence, which 

 will toss a heavy body up to the ceiling, shall also cause his 

 delicately-poised balance to move under test conditions. 



The spiritualist tells of tapping sounds which are produced in 

 different parts of a room when two or more persons sit quietly round a 

 table. The scientific experimenter is entitled to ask that these taps 

 shall be produced on the stretched membrane of his phonautograph. 



The spiritualist tells of rooms and houses being shaken, even to 

 injury, by superhuman power. The man of science merely asks for 

 a pendulum to be set vibrating when it is in a glass case and sup- 

 ported on solid masonry. 



The spiritualist tells of heavy articles of furniture moving from 

 one room to another without human agency. But the man of 

 science has made instruments which will divide an inch into a 

 million parts ; and he is justified in doubting the accuracy of the 

 former observations, if the same force is powerless to move the index 

 of his instrument one poor degree. 



The spiritualist tells of flowers with the fresh dew on them, of fruit, 

 and living objects being carried through closed windows, and even solid 

 brick- Avails. The scientific investigator naturally asks that an addi- 

 tional weight (if it be only the 10 00th part of a grain) be deposited 

 on one pan of his balance when the case is locked. And the chemist 

 asks for the 1000th of a grain of arsenic to be carried through the 

 sides of a glass tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed. 



