XXXVI] TWO INQUIRERS INTO SPIRITUALISM 323 



a year or more, and Miss Wood sat in it weekly. It was 

 screwed up from the outside, yet all the usual phenomena of 

 materialization occurred just the same as when no cage was 

 used. At other times Miss Wood sat in the circle visible to 

 all, yet other figures of various apparent ages came out of the 

 cabinet. Then again Mr. Varley, the electrician, applied the 

 electrical test, to Miss Cook, she forming part of the circuit, 

 yet all the usual phenomena occurred. Crookes again used 

 the same test, with the same result ; and he also saw Miss 

 Cook and the materialized form ' Katie ' at the same time, 

 in his own house, and he photographed the latter. All these 

 facts and many others of like nature have been published, 

 and are known to all inquirers, and every investigator knows 

 that your failure to obtain phenomena under the test, was no 

 proof of any dishonesty in the medium, or of impossibility 

 of obtaining the phenomena under such conditions. Such 

 tests often require to be tried many times before success is 

 attained. To me, and I believe to most inquirers, it will 

 appear in the highest degree unscientific to reject phenomena 

 that could not possibly be due to imposture, and to ignore the 

 hundreds of corroborative tests by other equally competent 

 observers, and then, after this, to call all such observers (by 

 implication) fools or lunatics ! 



Yet, again, your attempted explanation of the ' mental 

 question ' test does not apply to the Bellew case, where you 

 expressly state that some of the words while being spelled 

 out were challenged by all present as being wrong, and were 

 yet insisted on by the unknown intelligence, and resulted, 

 contrary to the expectation of all, in—* I, John Bellew, fear 

 no being^ 



" Yours truly, 



"Alfred R. Wallace." 



In reply to this, I received another long and very argu- 

 mentative letter, admitting that from my point of view and 

 greater experience, my arguments were very strong, but that 

 from his point of view, with his "bias against the preter- 

 human," his refusal to accept any evidence, unless it could be 



