I can conceive the attractions of such a system, combining, as it does, the ingenuity and fulness of Platonism with something of the color and rhythm of modern science. If any concordat is to be made between religious enthusiasm unattached and science, I do not think the chances of spiritualism are to be despised. Just at present, however, although some scientific men have taken up spiritualism, there can be no doubt that, on the whole, spiritualism and science are at daggers drawn. There is no mistaking the utter loathing expressed in Professor Huxley's letter (Rep., p. 229), in which he declines to take any part in the committee's investigation, on the ground that, "supposing the phenomena to be true, they do not interest me." He has a perfect right to compare spiritualistic talk to "the chatter of old women and curates in a cathedral town"; but his anger has made him quite miss the logical point of the position. The privilege he declines as worthless is the opportunity, not of listening to such conversation, but of examining and testing the hitherto ignored faculty; and this no man can seriously reject as uninteresting.
There is no difficulty in understanding the bitterness with which modern science regards spiritualism. It had been for so long carrying everything before it; it had weighed so many things on earth and in the heavens; it had reduced so many apparently eccentric phenomena to law; its discoveries had been so brilliant, and its still more brilliant projections were so plausible, that it flattered itself that all idea of the supernatural was fairly relegated to the obscure past or to the obscurer future. The philosophy of the XIXth century was being fast reduced to a bare statement of the contents of sensation, and the philosophers of the day were looking for an easy victory over the most respectable of dogmatic traditions, when, lo! full in the calm scientific light, the singularly grotesque form of spiritualism lifts its head, and the warrior who had so loudly challenged the king to mortal combat finds himself set upon by the court fool. When earth, according to the poet's dream, should be "lapped in universal law," up starts a mass of phenomena not merely inexplicable by any known law, but, in popular estimation at least, incompatible with any hypothesis but that of supernatural agency. It has been the more intolerable that spiritualism had affected an imposing vocabulary of scientific terms, recommending itself to its audience by an appeal to partially known laws, such as magnetism and electricity, whilst really indulging in the most unblushing necromancy. Thus the scientific formulæ have been given somewhat the rôle of captives in the triumph of superstition. No wonder scientific men are angry. But whilst they "do well to be angry," I think they do by no means well to refuse to investigate the subject because on various accounts it is offensive to them.
Scientific men frequently complain that spiritualists will not submit their séances to the test of a public examination in broad daylight. Now, this is really not a fair statement of the case. Spiritualists say that they have found by experience that a certain class of phenomena require dark or twilight; but a vast number of independent physical manifestations do take place in broad daylight. On the other hand, when the scientific investigator insists upon interfering with the constituents of the séance, the arrangement of the circle, etc., the spiritualist answers, fairly enough, that, since under the most favorable conditions the success of the séance cannot be reckoned on, it would be absurd to allow the abandonment of what experience has shown to be a necessary condition of success. "With the phenomena of magic we can experimentalize but little; neither can we evoke the least of them at our good pleasure. We can but observe them where they present themselves, gather them into corresponding groups, and discover among them common features and common laws." (Perty, Mystisch. Erscheinungen—Vorrede, p. xi.) This being understood, spiritualists invite the representatives of science to make what observations they please in broad daylight, when, at least, they will be able to discount such disturbing conditions as they may not eliminate. It is an onus, certainly, for the investigator to have to form a part of what is going on; but this is no more than the detective undergoes when he plays the accomplice in order to discover the thief. Say that spiritualism is a folly, a disease, what you will, it is at least of the highest scientific interest and practical importance that we should understand its conditions and action as thoroughly as possible. If scientific men have no more serious scruple to keep them aloof than the dignity of their order—for, after all, this is what Mr. Huxley's excuses come to—the exigencies of the case require that it should be put aside. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.
Nothing is more calculated to bring out the inherent diversities of the human mind than the investigation of spiritualism; for it not only involves an examination of some of the most difficult problems relating to evidence, but, indirectly at least, an examination of the whole process by which each individual concerned rejects or assimilates his mental pabulum. Hence the extraordinary difficulty of conducting such an inquiry without incessant wrangling. The Committee of the Dialectical Society, to whose Report I have so often referred, is quite a case in point. Its Report is the record of a schism, of an irreconcilable clash of opinions. If the committee had waited until these had been reduced to harmony, the Report would never have been published. One of the principal members—Dr. Edmunds—was, I think, exceptionally tried. His own opinion was and is that spiritualism is a mixture of trickery and delusion; but his own dining-room table habitually took sides against him, and this in the most treacherous manner. It used to wait until he had left the room, and then, in the presence of the other investigators, run around with nobody touching it.
You might almost as well meddle with a man's digestion as with his belief. Prove that his convictions are groundless, and he feels as outraged as though you had affixed a register to his waistcoat which showed the world that his favorite dish had disagreed with him. Dr. Garth Wilkinson (Rep., p. 234) is by no means singular in his experience "that nearly all truth is temperamental to us, or given in the affections or intuitions, and that discussion and inquiry do little more than feed the temperament." And what a variety of temperaments will inevitably be found in any committee of investigation—men who, like Mr. Lewes, consider the possibility of an hypothesis which cannot be rigidly tested unworthy of consideration, or like Mr. Grattan Geary (Rep., p. 95), who, on finding that many eminent men are spiritualists, is simply impressed by the number of eminent men who are enjoying an unmerited reputation for sanity. After all, men make more account, as a general rule, of one little bit of experience, the real force of which is incommunicable, and which, when put into words for another's benefit, is often to the last degree trivial, than of all the arguments in the world. A charming example of this is given by Dr. H. More in a letter to Glanville, published at the beginning of the latter's Sadducismus Triumphatus: "I remember an old gentleman in the country of my acquaintance, an excellent justice of the peace, and a piece of a mathematician; but what sort of a philosopher he was you may understand from a rhime of his own making, which he commended to me on my taking horse in his yard, which rhime is this:
An ens is nothing till sense find out,
Sense ends in nothing, so naught goes about;
which rhime of his was so rapturous to himself that, at the reciting of the second verse, the old man turned himself about upon his toe as nimbly as one may see a dry leaf whisk'd round in the corner of an orchard-walk by some little whirlwind. With this philosopher I have had many discourses concerning the immortality of the soul and its distinction. When I have run him quite down by reason, he would laugh and say, 'That is logick, H.,' calling me by my Christian name. To which I replied, 'This is reason, Fr. L. (for so I and some others used to call him), but it seems you are for the new light and direct inspiration,' which, I confess, he was as little for as for the other; but I said so only by way of drollery to him in those times. But truth is, nothing but palpable experience could move him; and being a bold man, and fearing nothing, he told me he had tried all the ceremonies of conjuration he could to raise the devil or a spirit, and had a most earnest desire to meet with one, but never could do it. But this he told me: when he did not so much as think of it, while his servant was pulling off his boots in the hall, some invisible hand gave him such a clap on the back that it made all ring again. So, thought he, now I am invited to the converse of my spirit; and therefore, so soon as his boots were off and his shoes on, out he went into the yard and next field to find out the spirit that had given him this familiar clap on the back, but found none neither in the yard nor field next to it. But though he did not feel the stroke, albeit he thought it afterwards (finding nothing come of it) a mere delusion, yet, not long before his death, it had more force with him than all the philosophical arguments I could use to him, though I could wind him and nonplus as I pleased; but yet all my arguments, how solid soever, made no impression upon him. Wherefore, after several reasonings of this nature, whereby I would prove the soul's distinction from the body, and its immortality, when nothing of such subtile considerations did any more execution on his mind than some lightning is said to do, though it melts the sword, upon the fuzzy consistency of the scabbard, well, said I, Fr. L., though none of these things move you, I have something still behind, and what you yourself acknowledged to me, that may do the business. Do you remember that clap on the back when your servant was pulling off your boots in the hall? Assure yourself, said I, Fr. L., that goblin will be the first that will bid you welcome into the other world. Upon that his countenance changed most sensibly, and he was more confounded with this rubbing up of his memory than with all the rational and philosophical arguments I could produce."
Whilst admitting that the Report of the Dialectical Society indicates a very considerable initial success, I cannot but feel the undiminished importance of W. M. Wilkinson's rather caustic warning (Rep., p. 231): "The first thing in such an investigation is to assume nothing, not even that a committee of the Dialectical Society can 'obtain a satisfactory elucidation of the phenomena.' No committee has ever done so yet. A committee of professors of Harvard University, amongst whom was Agassiz, after they had made an examination, did not think proper to publish their report, though they had published their intention to do so, and were frequently and publicly asked for it." The London Society has, at least improved upon the example.
I have maintained throughout that neither the hypothesis of trickery nor of delusion can be sustained for a moment as an adequate explanation of the phenomena of spiritualism, on grounds which may be thus summarized: 1. Many of these phenomena outdo all conjuring. 2. They take place where the possibility of trickery has been eliminated. 3. The exhibition of imaginative excitement is, on the whole, inconsiderable, and there is no appreciable proportion between the degrees of excitement and the phenomena. But, at the same time, I am far from maintaining that there is no trickery amongst the mediums, and no predisposition in the company tending more or less to disqualify them from detecting it. I am inclined to think that more or less trickery forms part of the stock in trade of most mediums, but that its share in the production of phenomena is comparatively slight.
Mr. Browning's marvellous conception of Sludge the Medium is based, I admit, upon a real, existing unscrupulosity on the one side, and on a real, existing gullibility on the other; but these are magnified into colossal and perfectly unreal proportions so far as Sludge is to be taken as a representative of his class. In many cases a single fraud may fairly be taken to vitiate the whole projection. If in a chemical demonstration, for instance, we were to discover the secret substitution, by the operator, of an ingredient not in the programme, we might fairly conclude that the whole thing was a pretence; that there was nothing in it. But this is not necessarily so in the case of spiritualism; the lie or trick does not always imply the total absence of other force, but may be an initial ceremony, preparing the company by quickening their expectations, and propitiating the evil influence by an acceptable sacrifice of human honor.