[75] Several observations published in that work are however, connected in subject with the present one. For instance: a piano playing alone (p. 108), a door opening of itself (p. 112), curtains shaken (p. 125), extravagant gambols of pieces of furniture (p. 133), raps (p. 146), bells ringing (p. 168), and numerous examples of unexplained disturbing noises coinciding with deaths.
[76] The word used here by M. Castex-Dégrange is tête de Turc, a thing like the leather-covered bags in our gymnasiums, and used in fairs in France, to be pummelled by those wishing to try their strength.—Trans.
[77] I had considerable acquaintance with him at the Nice Observatory, where, in 1884 and 1885, I made with him spectroscopic observations on the rotation of the sun.—C. F.
[78] In the séances of which I spoke in the early part of this book (second chapter), when the word "God" was dictated the table beat a salute.—C. F.
[79] Goupil, Pour et Contre, p. 113.
[80] It has been my desire to give in this place the result of the personal experience of a large number of men anxious to know the truth; above all to reply to ignorant journalists who invite their readers to indulge in supercilious scorn of these researches and experimenters. At the very moment when I was correcting the proofs of these last pages I received a journal, Le Lyon républicain, of the 25th of January, 1907, which has for its leading article a quite preposterous diatribe against me signed "Robert Estienne." The performance shows that the author does not know what he is talking about nor the man of whom he is treating.
There is evidently no reason in the nature of things why the city of Lyons should be more disposed to error than any other point on the globe. But mark the coincidence: I received, at the same time, a number of L'Université catholique, of Lyons, in which a certain Abbé Delfour speaks of "supernatural contemporary facts" without understanding a word of the subject.
No, the trouble is not with the city of Lyons merely. There are blind people everywhere. You can read a dissertation ejusdem farinæ, signed by the Jesuit Lucien Roure, in Les Études religieuses, published at Paris, with critical judgments worthy of a traveling salesman.
In this connection, you can read in the Nouveau Catèchisme du diocèse de Nancy: "Q. What must we think of the demonstrated facts of Spiritualism, somnambulism, and magnetism?—A. We must attribute them to the devil, and it would be a sin to take part in them in any way whatever."
[81] Newton, as is well known, declares, in his letter to Bentley, that he can only explain gravitation by supposing the existence of a medium which transmits it. Yet, to our senses, the ether would not be a material thing. But, however that may be, celestial bodies do certainly act at a distance one upon another.