Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/272

 258 NEW BOOKS. evidence, after the fashion of Mr. Podmore, but of the mass of testimony oonsidered as a whole. Our author's theory is, in brief, that Home was an accomplished conjurer, and that part of his equipment, and perhaps of every medium's equipment, was the power to cause other people to experience definite hallucinations. Sir Wm. Crookes' theory, based on the results of experi- ment, was, and is still, that Home's phenomena were not clever pieces of conjuring, but were due to the operation of a peculiar physical force. Mr. Podmore's strictures are of two kinds. On the one hand, some of the effects observed in Home's presence are such as might have been produced by an expert conjurer, and unless we can be certain that all his actions were subjected to continuous observation, the presumption of sleight-of-hand is too strong to be resisted. But it is well known that continuous observation is impossible ; and no phenomenon can be above suspicion the testimony for which rests upon the need of continuous observation. With this view we are in emphatic agreement. Sir Wm. Crookes' experiments on Home's alteration of the weight of material objects cannot be held strictly to prove his own conclusion on account of a defect which is at least formal, i.e., the need and the impossibility in these experiments of continuous observation. But to recognise this is not to consider Mr. Podmore's own solution as proved. It is one thing to admit the abstract possibility of fraud ; it is another to fly to the conclusion that under the circumstances fraud could be, or was, actually practised. Now Mr. Podmore believes that this was the case. He tries to show how in particular instances the trick might have been, and probably was, done. We venture to say that no serious student of the whole evidence will think his explanations plausible, for the simple reason that whilst they may be acknowledged to fit the special instance chosen, they can not, without doing great violence to the recorded evi- dence, fit a number of other instances which our author does not quote. Thus when he postulates an invisible thread attached at one end to the hook of the spring-balance, and at the other to Home's feet or knees, he forgets hi the first place that the force required to depress the marker through a given number of degrees varies according to the angle at which it is applied. He forgets, again, that the balance was apparently affected, not only when Home was sitting near it with his hands on on j nd of the board, but when he was sitting at some distance from it, with his hands on the dining-room table, and his feet turned away from the balance, etc. .. . When, again, Mr. Podmore explains how the lath was made to move, by means of an invisible thread passed over the gaselier, it may be conceded that such an arrangement could account for movement in one plane. But he forgets the other instances in which the move- ment was more complex. The gaselier may have been as handy as he imagines, and the threads may have been as invisible as he would have us believe, but how complicated an arrangement of them would be needed to make the lath float round the table, with upward and down- ward jerks, until one end settled on Sir Wm. Crookes' hand, answered his questions by means of the usual taps, and even spelled out a long message in the Morse code ! Nor can we profess to be convinced by Mr. Podmore's hypothesis of hallucination. Sir Wm. Crookes was not a spiritualist. At or about the date of his seances with Home, he was at work on Thallium and its atomic weight, on Repulsion resulting from Radiation, on the Radiometer, and Radiant matters. Surely it is difficult to conceive his critical genius disarmed and lulled to a credulous slumber by the mere presence of a medium, however charming in manner, and affable in speech. For candour must compel Mr. Podmore to recognise that, so far as the evidence goes, there was little or nothing