414 Notices of Books . [July 
tions of Dr. Charpignon ; that Rutter’s magnenometer never 
acted when the operator did not know the substance influencing 
it, whereas Mr. Rutter states clearly and positively that it did ; 
that the Royal Academy of Medicine first investigated clairvoy- 
ance in 1837 and declared it not proved, whereas they first 
investigated it in 1825, and reported favourably ; that Pro- 
fessor Gregory was credulous, and took no precautions against 
imposture, which I have shown to be not the fact. Again 
we have numerous errors and misstatements (always against 
the mediums) in the accounts of the Misses Fox and Mrs. 
Culver, of the alleged “ Katie King” exposure, and of the 
flower-seance chemically exposed. And, lastly, we have the 
statement, repeated under many forms, that when adequate 
investigation has taken place, and especially when “ trained 
experts ” have been employed, trick or imposture has always 
been discovered. But this I have shown to be the grossest 
of all misstatements. Surely medical men are “ trained 
experts,” and we have nine members of the Royal Academy of 
Medicine investigating for five years, and a large number of 
French and English medical men devoting years of enquiry to 
this subject, and deciding that it is not imposture. Are not 
eminent physicists trained experts, so far ar least as the purely 
physical phenomena are concerned ? But we have Prof. Hare, 
Prof. Gregory, and Mr. Crookes, who all devoted years of careful 
investigation to the subjecft ; Prof. Barrett, who has come to it 
with a fresh and sceptical mind, stored with all the warnings 
that Dr. Carpenter can give him, and yet declares it to be reality, 
and neither imposture nor delusion ; while another recent convert 
from extreme scepticism on this subjecft is Dr. Carter Blake, 
Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at Westminster Hospital, 
who last year wrote me that after months of careful examination 
he was satisfied that the phenomena called “ Spiritual ” are 
thoroughly genuine and worthy of scientific examination, — that 
he has arrived at this conclusion very slowly, and, referring to 
his recent investigations, he says — “ Every experiment performed 
has been under the most rigorous test conditions, and the dis- 
honest element which some professional mediums have shown 
has been rigorously eliminated. Yet, again, professional con- 
jurors are surely “ trained experts,” and Dr. Carpenter has him- 
self often referred to them as such, but the moment they go 
against him he ignores them. I have adduced, for the second 
time, the remarkable evidence of Robert Houdin to the reality 
of the clairvoyance of Alexis ; Mr. T. A. Trollope informs us 
that another celebrated conjuror, Bosco, “ utterly scouted the idea 
of the possibility of such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. 
Home being performed by any of the resources of his art and 
lastly, at Glasgow, last year, Lord Rayleigh informed us that he 
took with him a professional conjuror to Dr. Slade’s, that the 
phenomena happened with considerable perfection, while u the 
