I871j 



on Psychic Force. 



479 



but it is evidently, as you yourself would freely admit, for the assertor of a 

 new force to remove all sources of reasonable objection. 



" The breadth of the foot of the board was, I think, i\ or 2 inches, and the 

 bell placed on it was, perhaps, 2 or 3 inches broad. (I can't carry the exact 

 figures in my head.) Join the left edge* of the top of the bell, a, with the right 

 hand edge, b, of the base of the bell, and let efbe the joining line. Then we 

 may suppose the fingers to have pressed in any direction short of the limiting 

 line e f. Also as the board was rigid, the fulcrum for aught we know may 

 have been at c. From c let fall a perpendicular c m on the line, e f. Then the 

 pressure of the finger may have aded at the distance, c m, from the fulcrum. 

 Also, as the base lay flat on the table and both were rigid, for aught we know 

 an infinitesimal, and therefore imperceptible, tilt communicated to the table 

 at the time of trying the experiment may have shifted the fulcrum from the 

 edge d to the edge c, so that the weight of the hand may have acted by an 

 arm longer than before by c d, which would have contributed to the result. 



" In your second paper the uncertainty as to the broad bearing is removed. 

 But when the hand was dipped into the water the pressure on the base of the 

 glass vessel (after a little time if the connecting hole be narrow) is increased 

 by the weight of the water displaced, and that would of course depress the 

 balance. 



" I don't think much of mere tremors, for it would require very elaborate 

 appliances to prove that they were not due to a passing train or omnibus 



or to a tremor in the body of one of the company 



What do you wish to be done with the papers ? " 



To this I replied as follows, on July 1st : — 



" In your letter of the 30th ult., just received, you are quite right in saying 

 that I would freely admit that 'the assertor of a new force should remove all 

 sources of reasonable objection.' In your previous letter of the igth June, 

 you write with equal fairness, that ' your opinion is that you (the R. S.) ought 

 not to refuse to admit evidence of the existence of a hitherto unsuspected 



Fig. 1 (half- scale). 



force ; but that before printing anything on such a subject, you ought to 

 require a most scrupulously searching physical scrutiny of the evidence adduced 

 in favour of the existence of such a force.' 



* The diagram referred to here is shown, drawn to scale, in my answer 

 further on. The experiment under discussion is the one figured and described 

 in the last number of the " Quarterly Journal of Science," page 345. 



