PSYCHIC FORCE AND PSYCHIC MEDIA. 
33 
vacillating hypotheses of pseudo-science ? And if we cannot, 
why did Mr. Crookes, who wishes to be thought scientific, if he 
is anything, so compare them ? 
The digression which then immediately precedes the accounts 
of these new experiments only shows too clearly that their 
author was almost entirely ignorant of the history of most of 
the previous work which had been done in the same direction. 
Besides this, his expressions contradict themselves : in one page 
he tells his opponents, “ Remember, I hazard no hypothesis or 
theory whatever and in another he says, “ Professor Thury’s 
ectenic force and my psychic force are evidently equivalent 
terms ; the suggestion of a similar hypo^ 
thetical nervous fluid has now reached us from another source,” 
&c. Surely there must be some mistake here. 
After this we come to quite a new phase in the history of 
the Psychic Force experiments. Most of our readers who have 
ever been to law and have had a verdict given against them 
cannot but be aware of the spirit in which they have generally 
received it. The stupidity of the jury, the wrong summing-up 
of the judge, the neglecting of the most important piece of evi- 
dence, &c. — all these details are narrated with more or less 
exaggeration to the sympathising ears of friends. So it is with 
Mr. Crookes. The two highest scientific tribunals in England 
have neglected his papers — the Royal Society has declined to 
receive them, and the British Association has declined to hear 
them. Naturally their author is indignant, and the pages of 
the “ Quarterly Journal of Science ” are filled with the editor’s 
querulous complaints against his judges. The very letters which 
passed between them are printed, and all is done to expose 
the injustice he believes he has had to submit to ; but still the 
unanswerable fact remains — his papers were rejected, the verdict 
of Science was given against him. And this means something 
more than is at first sight apparent. The names of Professor 
Stokes and Dr. Sharpey, the secretaries of the Royal Society, 
are not names to be lightly pushed on one side. They are the 
names of men whose lives have been devoted on the one hand 
to pure physical research, and on the other to that of pure 
physiology. Who then so competent to decide as to the merits 
of a case which may almost be called one of “ physical physi- 
ology ? ” and their deliberate verdict and that of the Committee 
went against it. To the British Association Mr. Crookes did 
not volunteer to show any public experiments, all he offered was 
a paper detailing those he had already privately made, and this 
the Committee of Section A rejected, and rightly too ; we have 
had enough of talk on this subject, we now want public ex- 
periments ; and without these, papers in every successive number 
of the ic Quarterly Journal of Science” will be useless. 
VOL. XI. — NO. XLII. D 
