sult of Dr. Hare's experiment, without any aid from his 'spirit friends.' Had our own Faraday taken part in such an investigation, he would have considered it his first duty, as a scientific man, to test the performance of his instruments; but this seems to have Beentirely beneath the consideration of a philosopher who was bent only upon obtaining a precise experimental proof of the immortality of the soul.' And yet this is the man whose spirit' scems to have been allowed by Messrs. Crookes and Huggins to direct their investigations.

As Mr. Crookes advances no less a claim than to have proved the existence of his New Force by the application of crucial tests, with carefully arranged apparatus, and in the presence of irreproachable witnesses,' we are forced to inquire not only how far the tests were really crucial, but how far the witnesses were competent. For, as we have already seen, a man may have acquired a high reputation as an investigator in one department of science, and yet be utterly untrustworthy in regard to another. This is what not merely the general public, but men who claim to guide its judgments, seem unable to understand. Any scientific man' is popularly supposed to be a competent authority upon obscure questions, for the elucidation of which are required the nice discrimination and the acute discernment of the sources of fallacy, which can only be gained by a long course of experience, based on special knowledge. And this is particularly the case when the inquiry is psychical rather than physical, and involves a knowledge of the modes in which the Mind of the observer is liable to be misled either by his own proclivities or by the arts of an intentional deceiver. If, it is triumphantly asked, we accept Dr. Huggins's testimony to the facts he has discovered by Spectrum-analysis, why should we refuse credence to his testimony as to the manifestations of Psychic Force? And if we do not accept his evidence as to the latter class of phenomena, how can we consistently rely upon it in regard to the former?' This question we shall endeavour to answer in a manner as little offensive as possible to Dr. Huggins, for whose personal as well as for whose scientific character we entertain the sincerest respect. And we must request him, on the one hand, to believe that nothing but what we deem the paramount interests of truth would induce us to utter a word in depreciation of his merit; and, on the other hand, to bear in mind that he has himself challenged such criticism, by having, as we consider, hastily and inconsiderately given the sanction of his high authority and of the

distinguished office he at present holds by favour of the President of the Royal Society, to the results of what is to say the leasta very inadequate investigation.

Dr. Huggins is one of a class of scientific amateurs who hold a most important position in our community, as helping to maintain for British Science that place which would be imperilled by the paucity of its professional defenders; men who, either born to independence, or honourably acquir ing it by their own exertions, apply themselves to scientific pursuits with as much earnest devotion as if their livelihood de

pended on their success. When such amateurs have shown the capacity, as well as the will, to labour for the advancement of Science in any department they may select, they are invariably welcomed by its professors as most valued allies, and receive at their hands the academic distinctions usually accorded only to those who have distinguished themselves in University studies. Like Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Lassell, and other brewers we could name, Dr. Huggins at tached himself, in the first instance, to the study of astronomy, and soon after the marvellous application, by Professors Bunsen and Kirkhoff, of the method of Spectrumanalysis to the study of the component elements of the sun, he associated himself with his friend and neighbour, the late Professor W. A. Miller, in the extension of the same method of inquiry to the planets, the fixed stars, and finally to the nebula. The success of their joint labours in this previously unexplored field was most complete. Questions were definitely resolved which bad baffled all the skill of the Herschels and the Rosses; and every extension of their inquiries opened out new and illimitable prospects beyond. Most deservedly, therefore, did they receive the plaudits of the whole scientific world, while learned Societies and Universities vied with each other in the bestowal of their well earned honours. No attestation could be higher to Mr. Huggins's unsurpassed ability as a spectroscopic observer than the resolution of the Council of the Royal Society (at the special instance of Dr. Robinson of Armagh) to devote a sum of 2000l. to the construction of a telescope expressly adapted to enable him to apply this method of analysis in the most efficient manner to the systematic study of the nebulæ. This telescope has been recently completed, and placed in the observatory provided by Dr. Huggins for its reception; the exclusive possession of this noble instru ment having been given him for a term of years, on his undertaking to devote all his disposable time to its use.

sented under other names as the results of Spiritual' or 'Psychic' agency.

The test experiment, on which the claim is advanced for Mr. Home that he possesses the power of altering the weight of bodies,' is obviously suggested by the last of Dr. Hare's. The apparatus consisted of a mahogany board, 36 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 1 inch thick. Under one end was screwed a strip of mahogany 1 inch wide, which served as foot or fulcrum, ing on the edge of a firm table. The other end of the board was hung to a spring balance supported by a substantial tripod stand, and this balance was fitted with a self-registering index, which recorded the maximum weight indicated by the pointer. The apparatus was so adjusted that the mahogany board was horizontal; and in this position its weight depressed the pointer so that it marked 3 lbs. The following is Mr. Crookes's account of what took place:

'Mr. Home placed the tips of his fingers lightly on the extreme end of the mahogany board which was resting on the support, whilst Dr. Huggins and myself sat, one on each side of it, watching for any effect which might be produced. Almost immediately the pointer of the balance was seen to descend. After a few seconds it rose again. This movement was repeated several times, as if by successive waves of the Psychic Force. The end of the board was observed to oscillate slowly up and down during the time.

'Mr. Home now of his own accord took a small hand-bell and a little card match-box, which happened to be near, and placed one under each hand, to satisfy us, as he said, that he was not producing the downward pressure. The very slow oscillation of the spring-balance became more marked, and Dr. Huggins, on watching the index, said that he saw it descend to 6 lbs. The normal weight of the board as so suspended being 3 lbs., the additional downward pull was therefore 34 lbs. On looking immediately afterwards at the automatic register, we saw that the index had at one time descended as low as 9 lbs., showing a maximum pull of 6 lbs.

'In order to see whether it was possible to produce much effect on the spring-balance by pressure at the place where Mr. Home's fingers had been I stepped upon the table and stood on one foot at the end of the board. Dr. Huggins, who was observing the index of the balance, said that the whole weight of my body (140 lbs.) so applied only sunk the index 13 lb., or 2 lbs. when I jerked up and down. Mr. Home had been sitting in a low easy-chair, and could not, therefore, had he tried his utmost, have exerted any material influence on these results. I need scarcely add that his feet, as well as his hands, were closely watched by all in the

room.

'It was particularly noticed that Mr. Home's fingers were not at any time advanced more than 1 inch from the extreme end, as shown

'The slight downward pressure shown by the balance when I stood on the board was owing probably to my foot extending beyond

this fulcrum.'

Now, on this we have simply to observe that the whole experiment is vitiated by the absence of any determination of the actual downward pressure of Mr. Home's fingers: the very point being assumed without any investigation, which ought to have been subjected to the most rigorous tests. Such determination, by a vertical indicator,' would have been the very first step in the inquiry if Professor Faraday had been conducting it; and until this test had been applied, in the presence of witnesses to whose trustworthiness and impartiality no excep tion can be taken, we hold ourselves excused from any call to explain the depression of the index which is affirmed by Mr. Crookes and Dr. Huggins to have taken place. The statement, however, that it took place in waves-or, as Serjeant Cox expresses it, in tremulous pulsations, not in the form of steady, continuous pressure, the indicator moving and falling incessantly during the Home managed to impart a rhythmical viexperiment strongly suggests that Mr. bration to the board by extending the pres sure of his fingers a little off its support, while the attention of the witnesses was kept fixed upon the index three feet off.*

* It is well known that a large part of the conjuror's art consists in the distraction of the spectator's attention from the critical points of his performance; and Houdin tells that he found this to be easier with clever men, who go to such representations to enjoy the illusions, than with ordinary men who see in them a challenge offered to their intelligence. The following anec dote of the late Earl of Rosse seems to us not a little instructive in this point of view. Having taken his children to see the performance of Frikell, one of the most dexterous of pure sleighthimself at the time to the artist's clever decep of-hand prestidigitateurs, he entirely surrendered tions. But, possessing a good memory, he was afterwards able to retrace every step of the performance; and by setting his reason to work, he succeeded in satisfying himself as to the precise

In his subsequent communication to the 'Spiritualist,' Mr. Crookes records the results of other experiments with this apparatus, one of them being a variation of that which Dr. Hare had made with the watervase. These, he asserts, altogether preclude the possibility that Mr. Home, and the ladymedium who was able to produce the like results, should have done so by their own muscular action; and yet it never seems to have occurred to him to test whether the same results could not be produced by throwing the board into rhythmical vibration by an intentional exertion of muscular action !

We must class Mr. Crookes's account of Mr. Home's performances with an accordion with Lord Lindsay's narrative of Mr. Home's moonlight sail. For all these performances took place within a cylindrical cage of hoops, laths, string, and wire, which was placed under a table in a room lighted with gas; the averment being that the accordion, first held in one of Mr. Home's hands, with its keys downwards, emitted distinct and separate notes in succession, and then played a simple air; whilst afterwards, on Mr. Home withdrawing his hand, the accordion floated inside the cage, without any visible support, and went on playing as before. Mr. Crookes's assistant, who looked under the table when Mr. Home had his hand on the accordion, reported that the accordion was expanding and contracting, but did not say whether or not its keys were moving; and though Mr. Crookes, his assistant, and Serjeant Cox afterwards saw the accordion floating unsupported in the cage (Dr. Huggins does not testify to this), they do not give us the slightest information as to whether the keys and the bellows of the accordion were at work while the instrument was continuing to utter its dulcet sounds.

It will be quite time for us to consider how this performance is to be explained, when it shall have been repeated in open daylight (without any cage), above instead of under a table, and in the presence of trustworthy witnesses, who should carefully record all the particulars in which Mr. Crookes's narrative is deficient. In the meanwhile, it is worthy of remark that it is the accordion which is usually selected as the favourite instrument of spirit-mediums; point in each trick at which the sleight of hand must have been practised. He then went a second time, with the determination of limiting his attention to these points, without allowing it to be distracted by the devices of the performer; and he was then able to detect a number of the 'passes" which had previously escaped his observation, admirably trained though this was by his astronomical and mechanical pursuits.

and that the performance on this instrument with one hand is a juggling trick often exhibited at country fairs.

It is admitted by Mr. Crookes that there is a great obstacle to the scientific investigation of Mr. Home's asserted powers, 'owing to our imperfect knowledge of the conditions which favour or oppose the manifestations of this force, to the apparently capricious manner in which it is exerted, and to the fact that Mr. Home himself is subject to unaccountable ebbs and flows of this force;' so that it has but seldom happened that a result obtained on one occasion could be subsequently confirmed and tested with apparatus specially contrived for the purpose.' Now, to us there is no mystery whatever. We have constantly found that when we have gone simply as spectators,-when our sceptical disposition was not known,-when no indication of incredulity or even of doubt was given, either on our own part or on that of others, by word, look, or sign,-when (in fact) the performers had it all their own way, like conjurors at a public performance, at which the spectators are prepared to be taken in, the conditions are all favourable to the flow of the peculiar force-Mesmeric, Psychic, or Spiritual, as its advocates may choose to designate it. When, on the other hand, the performers are aware that their proceedings are being scrutinised by critical and intelligent eyes; when they know that it would be fatal to their pretensions were they to be detected in deceptions which they can safely practise on the credulous; and when (to save appearances) they have accepted tests which they know must prevent them from even attempting these deceptions, the 'unaccountable ebb takes place, and the results are entirely negative. This is what happened to a committee of scientific men, which met Mr. Home some months ago at St. Petersburg. Mr. Home's force being at a minimum, no manifestations were vouchsafed. The same thing,' says Mr. Crookes, 'has frequently happened within my own experience. A party of scientific men met Mr. Home at my house, and the results were as negative as those at St. Petersburg. Instead, however, of throwing up the inquiry, we patiently repeated the trial a second and a third time, when we met with results which were positive.' We doubt not that during these séances Mr. Home was taking the measure of those who had met to take his; and that when he found them sufficiently impressed with the reality of his Psychic force to attribute to it the rippling of the surface of water in a basin, which was really produced by the tremor occasioned in Mr. Crookes's house by the passage of

*

a railway-train close to it, he considered them ripe for its further manifestation.

Having frequently heard the testimony of Mr. C. E. Varley to the physical marvels of Spiritualism cited as that of an eminent scientific man,' we have made some inquiry into his qualifications as a witness on such matters, and find that they are certainly not superior to those of Mr. Crookes. Though possessing considerable technical knowledge of electric telegraphy, his scientific attainments are so cheaply estimated by those who are best qualified to judge of them that he has never been admitted to the Royal Society, although he has more than once been a candidate for that honour. We quote the following merely as an example of the manner in which minds of this limited order are apt to become the dupes of their own imaginings:

'I have in broad daylight seen a small table with no one near it but myself, and not even touched by me or any visible person, raised off the floor and carried horizontally 10 feet through the air; and I have repeatedly seen a large dining-table lifted bodily off the floor, and when so supported in the air the table has moved in the direction that I mentally requested it to take. In this experiment, not only was the "new force" well developed, but in addition it obeyed my unspoken mental request, to convince me that there was present an "intelligence" that could, and did, read my thoughts.

'I have on a few occasions been able to see the Spirits themselves, sometimes to talk with them. They have frequently foretold things that were about to happen, and in most instances the events have occurred as predicted.'

We are now arrived at the climax-or, as some may perhaps think, the anti-climax of the marvels, which we are gravely called on to accept as well-authenticated facts. On the 20th of May last, Mr. Herne, of 61, Lamb's Conduit Street, was caught away whilst walking in the neighbourhood of whilst walking in the neighbourhood of Islington, in open day, and conveyed, by invisible agency, into a room in the house of Mr. Guppy, No. 1, Morland Villas, Highbury Hill Park, its doors and windows being all closed. A fortnight afterwards, a return visit was paid by Mrs. Guppy to Mr. Herne; the lady being brought by invisible agency into a room measuring twelve feet by ten, of which the doors and windows were closed and fastened, and coming 'plump down,' in a standing position, upon the centre of a table round which eleven persons were sitting, shoulder to shoulder, in a dark séance. Mrs.

*This is not an invention of our own, but a fact communicated to us by a highly intelligent witness, who was admitted to one of Mr. Crookes's séances.

Guppy was evidently not a consenting party to this transportation, for she was in a state of complete unconsciousness and of partial déshabille, having neither bonnet, shawl, nor shoes; and she seems to have been rudely interrupted by her spiritual captors whilst making up her household accounts, as she held an account-book in one hand, and a pen with the ink still wet in the other. These astounding phenomena are calmly narrated by a Mr. Benjamin Coleman, who is very severe upon scientific men for their incredu lity, but seems to consider it rather their misfortune than their fault, since he says, ' Had I been fettered by scientific education, I could not have allowed so "preposterous" and "impossible" an event to enter my brain.' Being himself perfectly unfettered, however, by any absurd prejudices, he had been led to anticipate and even to predict that these wonders would culminate in Mrs. Guppy-one of the largest and heaviest women of his acquaintance-being carried away; and we cannot but suspect that his prediction had something to do in bringing about its fulfilment. It is obvious that the party of eleven persons, who were sitting in the dark in Mr. Herne's apartments, were in that state of 'expectant attention' which is well known to physiologists to be productive as well as of of 'subjective sensations 'circle' of movements; and just as, in a Table-turners, when one leads off all the others follow suit, so any one who heard or felt anything (seeing being out of the question) which could be fancied to indicate Mrs. Guppy's presence on the table would readily excite the same belief in the minds of the

rest; just as Theodore Hook, in his celebratsuaded a London crowd not merely that he, ed experiment on popular credulity, perbut that they, could see the lion on the top of Northumberland House wag his tail. How, in a dark séance, it was ascertained not merely that Mrs. Guppy was present, but that she was in a state of déshabille, and that the ink was still wet in her pen, we are corded in another part of the same number not informed. The following incident, reof the Spiritualist,' seems to afford some clue

to the mystery :

'Last Friday week at a dark séance at the residence of Mr. Guppy, two live lobsters were placed on the hands of one of the sitters. It dleton, near Manchester, whispered to her mother that she wished the spirits would bring a live lobster instead of flowers. Mrs. Thom, who attended the circle merely as an inquirer, did not think it proper to repeat the request aloud, so neither the medium nor anybody else at the circle knew that a desire for a lobster had been expressed.'

was then made known that Miss Thom, of Pen