As long ago as 1865 I published, under the title, Unknown Natural Forces, a little monograph of a hundred and fifty pages which is still occasionally found in the book-shops, but has not been reprinted. I reprint here (pp. xiii-xxiii), what I wrote at that time in this critical study "apropos of the phenomena produced by the Davenport brothers and mediums in general." It was published by Didier & Co., book-sellers to the Academy, who had already issued my first two works, The Plurality of Inhabited Worlds and Imaginary Worlds and Real Worlds.
"France has just been engaged in an exciting debate, where the sound of voices was drowned in a great uproar, and out of which no conclusion has emerged. A disputation more noisy than intelligent has been raging around a whole group of unexplained facts, and so completely muddled the problem that, in place of illuminating it, the debate has only served to shroud it in deeper darkness.
"During the discussion a singular remark was frequently heard, to the effect that those who shouted the loudest in this court of assize were the very ones who were least informed on the subject. It was an amusing spectacle to see these persons in a death-grapple with mere phantoms. Panurge himself would have laughed at it.
"The result of the matter is that less is known to-day upon the subject in dispute than at the opening of the debates.
"In the mean time, seated upon neighboring heights were certain excellent old fellows who observed the writs of arrest issued against the more violent combatants, but who remained for the most part grave and silent, though they occasionally smiled, and withal did a deal of hard thinking.
"I am going to state what weight should be given to the opinions of those of us who do not rashly affirm the impossibility of the facts now put under the ban and who do not add their voices to the dominant note of opposition.
"I do not conceal from myself the consequences of such sincerity. It requires a good deal of boldness to insist on affirming, in the name of positive science, the POSSIBILITY of these phenomena (wrongly styled supernatural), and to constitute one's self the champion of a cause apparently ridiculous, absurd, and dangerous, knowing, at the same time, that the avowed adherents of said cause have little standing in science, and that even its eminent partisans only venture to speak of their approval of it with bated breath. However, since the matter has just been treated momentarily in fugitive writings by a group of journalists whose exacting labors wholly forbid a study of the psychic and physical forces; and since, of all this multitude of writers, the greater part have only heaped error upon error, puerility upon extravagance; and since it appears from every page they have written (I hope they will pardon me) that not only are they ignorant of the very a, b, c of the subject they have so fantastically treated, but their opinions upon this class of facts rest upon no basis whatever,—therefore I have thought it would serve a purpose if I should leave, as a souvenir of the long wrangle, a piece of writing better based and buttressed than the lucubrations of the above-mentioned gentlemen. As a lover of truth, I am willing to face a thousand reproaches. Be it distinctly understood that I do not for a moment deem my judgment superior to that of my confrères, some of whom are in other respects highly gifted. The simple fact is that they are not familiar with this subject, but are straying in it at random, wandering through a strange region. They misunderstand the very terminology, and imagine that facts long ago well authenticated are impossible. By way of contrast, the writer of these lines will state that for several years he has been engaged in discussions and experiments upon the subject. (I am not speaking of historical studies.)
"Moreover, although the old saw would have us believe that 'it is not always desirable to state the truth,' yet, to speak frankly, I am so indignant at the overweening presumption of certain polemical opponents, and at the gall they have injected into the debate, that I do not hesitate to rise and point out to the deceived public that, without a single exception, all the arguments brought up by these writers, and upon which they have boldly planted their banner of victory, prove absolutely nothing, NOTHING, against the possible truth of the things which they, in the fury of their denial, have so perverted. Such a snarl of opinions must be analyzed. In brief, the true must be disentangled from the false. Veritas, veritas!"
"I hasten to anticipate a criticism on the part of my readers by apprising them, on the threshold of this plea, that I am not going to take the Davenport brothers as my subject, but only as the ostensible motive or pretext of the discussion,—as they have been, for that matter, of the majority of the discussions. I shall deal in these pages with the facts brought to the surface again by these two Americans,—facts inexplicable (which they have put on the stage at Herz Hall here in Paris, but which none the less existed before this mise-en-scène, and which none the less will exist even should the Davenport brothers' representations prove to be counterfeit),—things which others had already exhibited, and still exhibit with as much facility and under much better conditions; occurrences, in short, which constitute the domain of the unknown forces to which have been given, one after another, five or six names explaining nothing. These forces, mind you, are as real as the attraction of gravitation, and as invisible as that. It is about facts that I here concern myself. Let them be brought to the light by Peter or by Paul, it concerns us little; let them be imitated by Sosie[1] or parodied by Harlequin, still less does it concern us. The question is, Do these facts exist, and do they enter into the category of known physical forces?
"It amazes me, every time I think of it, that the majority of men are so densely ignorant of the psychic phenomena in question, considering the fact that they have been known, studied, valued, and recorded for a good long time now by all who have impartially followed the movement of thought during the last few lustrums.