482 Further Experiments [October, 



the same time I am not prepared to give in my adhesion without a thorough 

 siftingby more individuals than one. I don't see much use discussing the 

 thing in the sections, crowded as we already are : but if a small number of 

 persons in whom the public would feel confidence choose to volunteer to acl: 

 as members of a committee for investigating the subject, I don't see any 

 objection to appointing such committee. I have heard too much of the tricks 

 of Spiritualists to make me willing to give my time to such a committee 

 myself. 



"G. G. Stokes." 



Whilst I cannot but regret that a physicist of such 

 eminence as Professor Stokes should " be hasty," in 

 deciding on the merits of a paper which it is physically 

 impossible he could have even once read through, I am 

 glad to find that he no longer continues to speak of the 

 " entire want of scientific precision in the evidence adduced" 

 by me, but rather admits that "the subject seems to be in- 

 vestigated in a philosophical spirit." 



In submitting these experiments, it will not seem strange 

 that I should consider them final until rebutted by arguments 

 also drawn from facts, and that I should seek to know on 

 what grounds contra-statements are founded. Professor 

 Allen Thomson, at the recent meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion, remarked that no course of inquiry into the matter before 

 us " can deserve the name of study or investigation." And 

 why not ? On the other hand, Professor Challis, of Cam- 

 bridge, writes, " In short, the testimony has been so 

 abundant and consentaneous, that either the facts must be 

 admitted to be such as are reported, or the possibility of cer- 

 tifying facts by human testimony must be given up." It is 

 certainly not too much to suppose that Dr. Thomson had 

 some grounds for his statement ; and, indeed, " I have," he 

 owns, " been fully convinced of this (the fallacies of spiritual- 

 istic demonstration) by repeated examinations ;" but where 

 are the results of his investigations to be found ? They must 

 be very conclusive to warrant him in the use of such expres- 

 sions as " a few men of acknowledged reputation in some de- 

 partments of science have surrendered their judgments to 

 these foolish dreams, otherwise appearing to be within the 

 bounds of sanity." If Dr. Thomson's dogmatic denial arises 

 from the mere strangeness of the facts I have set forth, what 

 can he think of the address of the President for this year. 

 Surely the conception of a nerve-force is no more difficult than 

 that " of the inner mechanism of the atom ;" and again, any 

 investigation, be it worthy the name or not, bearing on a 

 matter in which eminent men have avowed their belief, which 

 takes a leading rank among the social questions of the day, 

 and which numbers its adherents by millions, is surely as 

 full of merit, and as instructive to all, as hypothetical 



