322 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



therefore nothing to publish. As to the answers to mental 

 questions, he only got them when his own hands were on the 

 table. He therefore concluded and still believes that he him- 

 self gave the initiatory impulse to move the table, which the 

 other sitters involuntarily intensified and carried out. 



I will give my reply because it points out some of the 

 common fallacies of beginners in coming to hasty conclusions 

 from a few isolated facts. 



"Dear Mr. Romanes, 



" As I do not wish to continue this correspondence, 

 I will confine myself to pointing out why I consider your 

 present position to be logically untenable and unscientific. 

 You admit you cannot explain what took place in your own 

 house, but you say, ' not being able to explain ' is very far 

 from admitting it to have been done by supernatural means 

 (I would say * supernormal ' or ' preterhuman ' rather than 

 supernatural ; but that is a detail). You then describe the 

 * cage * you had made, with the result that nothing happened 

 when the medium sat within it ; and you imply that if 

 phenomena had occurred when Williams was within it you 

 would have admitted something * supernatural.' But why ? 

 Simply because, in your own words, you could not explain 

 *how the trick was done.' To me, and I think to most 

 persons, what did occur — the 'luminous hand,' lifting a bell 

 at a distance, etc., etc. — was just as inexplicable, and just as 

 much a proof of something beyond * trick,' as would have 

 been some physical effect produced outside the cage while 

 Williams was in it. 



" Again, it is not ' scientific ' to treat your own limited 

 experience as if it stood alone, and to refuse to admit all 

 evidence from other inquirers in corroboration. Although 

 your cage-test did not succeed, it did succeed with others. 

 Mr. Adshead, a gentleman of Belper, had a wire cage made, 

 and Miss Wood sat in it in his own house, many times, and 

 under these conditions many forms of men, women, and 

 children, appeared in the room. A similar cage was after- 

 wards used by the Newcastle Spiritual Evidence Society, for 



