28o 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



every department of human learning, that I thought it would 

 be useful to bring these together in a connected sketch of 

 the whole subject. This I did, and sent it to a secularist 

 magazine, in which it appeared in 1866, and I also had a 

 hundred copies printed separately, which I distributed among 

 my friends. It was called " The Scientific Aspect of the 

 Supernatural," a somewhat misleading title, as in the in- 

 troductory chapter I argued for all the phenomena, however 

 extraordinary, being really " natural " and involving no altera- 

 tion whatever in the ordinary laws of nature. Some years 

 later (1874) this was included in my volume on "Miracles 

 and Modern Spiritualism," with an additional chapter, " Notes 

 of Personal Evidence." 



The letters I received from those to whom I sent copies 

 of this little pamphlet were interesting though not instructive. 

 Huxley wrote : " I am neither shocked nor disposed to issue 

 a Commission of Lunacy against you. It may be all true, 

 for anything I know to the contrary, but really I cannot get 

 up any interest in the subject. I never cared for gossip in 

 my life, and disembodied gossip, such as these worthy ghosts 

 supply their friends with, is not more interesting to me than 

 any other. As for investigating the matter— I have half a 

 dozen investigations of infinitely greater interest to me — to 

 which any spare time I may have will be devoted. I give 

 it up for the same reason I abstain from chess — it's too 

 amusing to be fair work, and too hard work to be amusing." 



To the latter part of this letter no objection can be 

 made, but the objection as to " gossip " was quite irrelevant 

 as regards a book which had not one line of " gossip " in 

 it, but was wholly devoted to a summary of the evidence 

 for facts — physical and mental — of a most extraordinary 

 character, given on the testimony of twenty-two well-known 

 men, mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, physiologists, 

 lawyers, clergymen, and authors, many of world-wide 

 reputation. 



Tyndall read the book "with deep disappointment," 

 because it contained no record of my own experiments. 

 He knew Baron Reichenbach, and had visited him, and had 



