So long as there was contact, or even the possibility of contact, by the hands or feet, or even by the clothes of any person in the room, with the substance moved or sounded, there could be no perfect assurance that the motions and sounds were not produced by the person so in contact. The following experiment was therefore tried:
On an occasion when eleven members of your Sub-committee had been sitting round one of the dining-tables above described for forty minutes, and various motions and sounds had occurred, they, by way of test, turned the backs of their chairs to the table, at about nine inches from it. They all then knelt upon their chairs, placing their arms upon the backs thereof. In this position, their feet were of course turned away from the table, and by no possibility could be placed under it or touch the floor. The hands of each person were extended over the table at about four inches from the surface. Contact, therefore, with any part of the table could not take place without detection.
In less than a minute the table, untouched, moved four times; at first about five inches to one side, then about twelve inches to the opposite side, and then, in like manner, four inches and six inches respectively.
The hands of all present were next placed on the backs of their chairs, and about a foot from the table, which again moved, as before, five times, over spaces varying from four to six inches. Then all the chairs were removed twelve inches from the table, and each person knelt on his chair as before, this time however folding his hands behind his back, his body being thus about eighteen inches from the table, and having the back of the chair between himself and the table. The table again moved four times, in various directions. In the course of this conclusive experiment, and in less than half-an-hour, the table thus moved, without contact or possibility of contact with any person present, thirteen times, the movements being in different directions, and some of them according to the request of various members of your Sub-committee.
The table was then carefully examined, turned upside down and taken to pieces, but nothing was discovered to account for the phenomena. The experiment was conducted throughout in the full light of gas above the table.
Altogether, your Sub-committee have witnessed upwards of fifty similar motions without contact on eight different evenings, in the houses of members of your Sub-committee, the most careful tests being applied on each occasion.
In all similar experiments the possibility of mechanical or other contrivance was further negatived by the fact that the movements were in various directions, now to one side, then to the other; now up the room, now down the room—motions that would have required the co-operation of many hands or feet; and these, from the great size and weight of the tables, could not have been so used without the visible exercise of muscular force. Every hand and foot was plainly to be seen and could not have been moved without instant detection.
The motions were witnessed simultaneously by all present. They were matters of measurement, and not of opinion or fancy. And they occurred so often, under so many and such various conditions, with such safeguards against error or deception, and with such invariable results, as to satisfy the members of your Sub-committee by whom the experiments were tried, wholly sceptical as most of them were when they entered upon the investigation, that there is a force capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, and which force is in some unknown manner dependent upon the presence of human beings.
Such was the first verdict of science upon Spiritualistic doings in England, a verdict rendered by physicists, chemists, astronomers and naturalists, several of them members of the London Royal Society. The investigations were under the especial care of Professor Morgan, president of the Mathematical Society, of London; of Varley, chief electrical engineer of the department of telegraphs, and Alfred Wallace, naturalist, etc. Several members of the Dialectical Society refused to join in the conclusions of the committee, and declared they ought to be verified by another scientist; for example, by the chemist, Crookes. This gentleman accepted the proposition, and in this way it was that he began his experiments, of which more anon.
But, before presenting an account of the experiments of the eminent chemist, I should like to place before my readers the chief points settled by the Experimental Committee, of which I have just spoken.