Science in Short Chapters

by W. Mattieu Williams

He then proceeds to state the case of Science versus Spiritualism thus:—“The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 lbs. being lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known force; but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will render sensible a weight so small that it would take ten thousand of them to weigh one grain; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a power, professing to be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy body to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately-poised balance to move under test conditions.” “The Spiritualist tells of rooms and houses being shaken, even to injury, by superhuman power. The man of science merely asks for a pendulum to be sent vibrating when it is in a glass-case, and supported on solid masonry.” “The Spiritualist tells of heavy articles of furniture moving from one room to another without human agency. But the man of science has made instruments which will divide an inch into a million parts, and he is justified in doubting the accuracy of the former observations, if the same force is powerless to move the index of his instrument one poor degree.” “The Spiritualist tells of flowers with the fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living objects being carried through closed windows, and even solid brick walls. The scientific investigator naturally asks that an additional weight (if it be only the 1000th part of a grain) be deposited on one pan of his balance when the case is locked. And the chemist asks for the 1000th part of a grain of arsenic to be carried through the sides of a gas tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed.”

These and other requirements are stated by Mr. Crookes, together with further exposition of the principles of strict inductive investigation, as it should be applied to such an inquiry. A year after this he published an account of the experiments, which I described in a former letter, and added to his own testimony that of the eminent physicist and astronomer, Dr. Huggins and Serjeant Cox. Subsequently, that is, in the last number of the “Quarterly Journal of Science,” he has published the particulars of another series of experiments.

I will not now enter upon the details of these, but merely state that the conclusions of Mr. Crookes are directly opposed to those of the Spiritualists. He positively, distinctly, and repeatedly repudiates all belief in the operations of the supposed spirits, or of any other supernatural agency whatever, and attributes the phenomena he witnessed to an entirely different organ, viz.: to the direct agency of the medium. He supposes that a force analogous to that which the nerves convey from their ganglionic centres to the muscles, in producing muscular contraction, may by an effort of the will be transmitted to external inanimate matter, in such a manner as to influence, in some degree, its gravitating power, and produce vibratory motion. He calls this the psychic force.

Now, this is direct and unequivocal anti-spiritualism. It is a theory set up in opposition to the supernatural hypotheses of the Spiritualists, and Mr. Crookes’s position in reference to Spiritualism is precisely analogous to that of Faraday in reference to table-turning. For the same reasons as those above-quoted, the great master of experimental investigation examined the phenomena called table-turning, and he concluded that they were due to muscular force, just as Mr. Crookes concludes that the more complex phenomena he has examined are due to psychic force.

Speaking of the theories of the Spiritualists, Mr. Crookes, in his first paper (July, 1870), says: “The pseudo-scientific Spiritualist professes to know everything. No calculations trouble his serenity; no hard experiments, no laborious readings; no weary attempts to make clear in words that which has rejoiced the heart and elevated the mind. He talks glibly of all sciences and arts, overwhelming the inquirer with terms like ‘electro-biologise,’ ‘psychologise,’ ‘animal magnetism,’ etc., a mere play upon words, showing ignorance rather than understanding.” And further on he says: “I confess that the reasoning of some Spiritualists would almost seem to justify Faraday’s severe statement—that many dogs have the power of coming to more logical conclusions.”

I have already referred to the muddled misstatement of Mr. Crookes’s position by the newspaper writers, who almost unanimously describe him and Dr. Huggins as two distinguished scientific men who have recently been converted to Spiritualism. The above quotations, to which, if space permitted, I might add a dozen others from either the first, the second, or the third of Mr. Crookes’s papers, in which he as positively and decidedly controverts the dreams of the Spiritualists, will show how egregiously these writers have been deceived. They have relied very naturally on the established respectability of the “Quarterly Review,” and have thus deluded both themselves and their readers. Considering the marvelous range of subjects these writers have to treat, and the acres of paper they daily cover, it is not surprising that they should have been thus misled in reference to a subject carrying them considerably out of their usual track; but the offence of the “Quarterly” is not so venial. It assumes, in fact, a very serious complexion when further investigated.

The title of the article is “Spiritualism and its Recent Converts,” and the “recent converts” most specially and prominently named are Mr. Crookes and Dr. Huggins. Serjeant Cox is also named, but not as a recent convert; for the reviewer describes him as an old and hopelessly infatuated Spiritualist. Knowing nothing of Serjeant Cox, I am unable to say whether the reviewer’s very strong personal statements respecting him are true or false—whether he really is “one of the most gullible of the gullible,” etc., though I must protest against the bad taste which is displayed in the attack which is made upon this gentleman. The head and front of his offending consists in having certified to the accuracy of certain experiments; and for having simply done this, the reviewer proceeds, in accordance with the lowest tactics of Old Bailey advocacy, to bully the witness, and to publish disparaging personal details of what he did twenty-five years ago.

Dr. Huggins, who has had nothing further to do with the subject than simply to state that he witnessed what Mr. Crookes described, and who has not ventured upon one word of explanation of the phenomena, is similarly treated.

The reviewer goes out of his way to inform the public that Dr. Huggins is, after all, only a brewer, by artfully stating that, “like Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Lassell, and other brewers we could name, Dr. Huggins attached himself in the first place to the study of astronomy.” He then proceeds to sneer at “such scientific amateurs,” by informing the public that they “labor, as a rule, under a grave disadvantage, in the want of that broad basis of scientific culture which alone can keep them from the narrowing and pervertive influence of a limited specialism.”

The reviewer proceeds to say that he has “no reason to believe that Dr. Huggins constitutes an exception” to this rule, and further asserts that he is justified in concluding that Dr. Huggins is ignorant of “every other department of science than the small subdivision of a branch to which he has so meritoriously devoted himself.” Mark the words, “small subdivision of a branch.” Merely a twig of the tree of science is, according to this most unveracious writer, all that Dr. Huggins has ever studied.