"It was this care, these scrupulous and cold-blooded tests, that so profoundly affected Bottazzi. These men were his friends. He knew their level-headed and remorseless accuracy. The fact that they considered the whole investigation biologic in character, and that the results of their experiments strengthened their theory of the physiological determinism of the phenomena, added to his eagerness to try for himself."
"Wait a moment," said Cameron. "What do you mean by 'physiological determinism'?"
"He means that the phenomena began and ended in the psychic's organism."
"Do you intend to convey that they considered the medium dishonest?"
"Oh no. Merely that they did not relate the phenomena to the intervention of the spirits of the dead."
"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Cameron.
"Merely!" exclaimed Harris. "'Merely' is good in that case."
"'After reading these articles with avidity,' Bottazzi's report begins: 'Professor Galeotti, my associate, and I looked at each other astounded, and the same thoughts in the same words came simultaneously to our lips: "We, too, must see, must touch with our hands—and at once—here in this laboratory where experiments of the phenomena of life are daily carried on, with the impartiality of men whose object is the discovery of scientific truth, here in this quiet place where sealed doors will be superfluous. Everything must be registered. Will the medium be able to impress a photographic plate? Will she be able to illuminate a screen treated with platino-cyanide of barium? Will she be able to discharge a gold-leaf electroscope without touching it?" And so we travelled on the wings of imagination, always having before us the plummet of the strictest scientific methods.'"
"Now you're getting into my horizon," said Miller. "That is the way I wished to proceed in Mrs. Smiley's case. Did Bottazzi get these things done?"
"You're as impatient as Miss Brush," I replied, highly amused at his eagerness. "First you must catch your medium. Bottazzi succeeded at last in getting Paladino's consent, but only through the good offices of Professor Richet, whom she deeply loves and reverences. Submissively she entered into this most crucial series of tests. She was no longer afraid of any scientist, but it was not precisely a joy to her. Bottazzi invited his friend Galeotti, Professor of General Pathology in the University of Naples; Dr. de Amicis, Professor of Dermatology; Dr. Oscar Scarpa, Professor of Electro-chemistry at the Polytechnic High School of Naples; Luigi Lombardi, Professor of Electro-technology at the same school; and Dr. Pansini, Professor Extraordinary of Medical Semiotics; and these gentlemen certainly made up a formidable platoon of investigation. The room in which the experiments took place was an isolated one, connected with the laboratory of experimental physiology, and belonged to that part of the university set aside for Bottazzi's exclusive use. Nothing could have been further from the ordinary stuffy back parlor of the 'materializing medium.' No women were present, and no outsider; as you see, conditions were as nearly perfect as the ingenuity of Bottazzi and his assistants could make them."