MR. CROOKES AND SPIRITUALISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Having just returned from the Continent, I did not see the letter of "M. A." in your journal for August 31 until yesterday.
Your correspondent asks if I-will endorse a statement of your reviewer of "Spiritualism Answered by Science," that I have no more belief in the nonsense of spiritualism than have Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley.
Each person putting his own interpretation to the word " non- sense," this is a safe statement to be endorsed by any person, from Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley to the most credulous believer in spiritualistic marvels.
As far as I am concerned, I do not wish at present to commit myself to any more definite "confession of faith " than the one printed as a preface to the last edition of my reply to the etarterly Review article published by Messrs. Longmans.
As the position I wish to occupy in the examination oi the phe.
nomenal portion of the matter under discussion has been misunder- stood, I shall esteem it a favour if you will give publicity, in your widely-spread journal, to the remarks I make in the above-named
20 Mornington Road, London, N. W., September 6, 1872.
The following is the passage to which Mr. Crookas refers :—
"In presenting this pamphlet to the public, let me take the oppor- tunity of explaining the exact position which I wish to occupy in respect to the subject of Psychic Force and Modern Spiritualism. I have desired to examine the phenomena from a point of view as strictly physical as their nature will permit. I wish to ascertain the laws governing the appearance of very remarkable phenomena which at the present time are occurring to an almost incredible extent. That a hitherto unrecognised form of Force—whether it be called psychic force or ,r force is of little consequence—is involved in this occurrence, is not with me a matter of opinion but of absolute knowledge; but the nature of that force, or the cause Which immediately excites its activity, forms a subject on which I do not at present feel competent to offer an opinion. I wish, at least for the present, to be considered in the petition of an electrician at Valentin, examining by means of appropriate testing instruments certain electrical currents and pulsations passing through the Atlantic Gable; independently of their causation, and ignoring whether these phenomena are produced by imperfections in the testing instruments themselves—whether by earth-currents or by faults in the insulation—or whether they are produced by an intelligent operator at the other end of the line."
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