persons never hypnotised or mesmerised, and to whom no suggestion was made; after this comes ten pages on the planchette, on which no one relies without collateral evidence; and then an account of some foolish clergymen, who thought they had direct proof of Satanic agency; then comes Mrs. Culver's statement (called a "deposition before magistrates" in the text), to which we have already referred; then my own letter to the "Spectator" about Mr. G. H. Lewes's supposed proof of the imposture of Mrs. Hayden; then the oft-told story of Dr. Carpenter's interviews with Foster, from the "Quarterly Review" article; then more of Mr. Braid's "suggestion and expectancy" experiments, —and that is all! Not one solitary piece of careful investigation or unimpeachable evidence in these forty-two pages of what are announced as pieces justificatives! Let us now summarise briefly the results of our examination of Dr. Carpenter's book. We have given a few examples of how he has misrepresented the opinions of those opposed to his theories. Although he professes to treat the subject historically, we have shown how every particle of evidence is ignored which is too powerful to be explained away. As examples of this we have referred, in more or less detail, to the denial by high authorities of the reality of painless surgical operation during the mesmeric sleep; to the "Report of the Royal Académie de Medécine," supporting the reality of clairvoyance and the other higher phenomena of mesmerism; to experiments on clairvoyance, before French medical sceptics; to the evidence of educated and scientific men in Vienna as to the truth of Reichenbach's observations: to the personal evidence of Robert Houdin, Professor Gregory, Dr. Mayo, Dr. Haddock, Dr. Lee, Dr. Ashburner, Dr. Rostan, Dr. Teste, and Dr. Esdaile, as to tests demonstrating the reality of clairvoyance; to the evidence of the Dialectical Committee, of Dr. Lockhart Robertson, Serjeant Cox, Mr. Crookes, and myself, as to motion of solid bodies demonstrably not caused by muscular action; to the evidence of the Dialectical Committee, of the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, Mr. Crookes, and Professor Barrett, as to raps demonstrably not caused by the muscles or tendons of the medium; to the evidence of Mr. T. A. Trollope and myself as to the production of flowers, demonstrably not brought by the medium,— all of which evidence, and everything analogous to it, is totally ignored by Dr. Carpenter. Again, this work, professing to be "scientific," and therefore accurate as to facts and precise as to references, has been shown to be full of misstatements and misrepresentations. As examples we have-the statement that there is no evidence of the mesmeriser's power to act on a patient unconscious of his wish to do so, whereas I have shown that there is good medical evidence of this power; that Reichenbach did not submit his subjects to tests, whereas I have quoted many admirable tests, as well as the independent test-observa tions of Dr. Charpignon; that Rutter's magnenometer never acted when the operator did not know the substance influencing it, whereas Mr. Rutter states clearly and positively that it did; that the Royal Academy of Medicine first investigated clairvoyance in 1837 and declared it not proved, whereas they first investigated it in 1825, and reported favourably; that Professor Gregory was credulous, and took no precautions against imposture, which I have shown to be not the fact. Again we have numerous errors and misstatements (always against the mediums) in the accounts of the Misses Fox and Mrs. Culver, of the alleged "Katie King" exposure, and of the flower-séance chemically exposed. And, lastly, we have the statement, repeated under many forms, that when adequate investigation has taken place, and especially when "trained have been employed, trick or imposture has always been discovered. But this I have shown to be the grossest of all misstatements. Surely medical men are "trained experts," and we have nine members of the Royal Academy of Medicine investigating for five years, and a large number of French and English medical men devoting years of enquiry to this subject, and deciding that it is not imposture. Are not eminent physicists trained experts, so far ar least as the purely physical phenomena are concerned? But we have Prof. Hare, Prof. Gregory, and Mr. Crookes, who all devoted years of careful investigation to the subject; Prof. Barrett, who has come to it with a fresh and sceptical mind, stored with all the warnings that Dr. Carpenter can give him, and yet declares it to be reality, and neither imposture nor delusion; while another recent convert from extreme scepticism on this subject is Dr. Carter Blake, Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at Westminster Hospital, who last year wrote me that after months of careful examination he was satisfied that the phenomena called "Spiritual" are thoroughly genuine and worthy of scientific examination,-that he has arrived at this conclusion very slowly, and, referring to his recent investigations, he says-" Every experiment performed has been under the most rigorous test conditions, and the dishonest element which some professional mediums have shown has been rigorously eliminated. Yet, again, professional conjurors are surely "trained experts," and Dr. Carpenter has himself often referred to them as such, but the moment they go against him he ignores them. I have adduced, for the second time, the remarkable evidence of Robert Houdin to the reality of the clairvoyance of Alexis; Mr. T. A. Trollope informs us that another celebrated conjuror, Bosco, " utterly scouted the idea of the possibility of such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. Home being performed by any of the resources of his art ;" and lastly, at Glasgow, last year, Lord Rayleigh informed us that he took with him a professional conjuror to Dr. Slade's, that the phenomena happened with considerable perfection, while "the conjuror could not form the remotest idea as to how the effects were produced." We have now concluded what has been a painful task; but in the interests of truth it was necessary to show how completely untrustworthy is the self-appointed guide that the public so blindly follow. By ample references I have afforded to such of my readers as may be so inclined the means of testing the correctness of my charges against Dr. Carpenter; and if they do so they will, I feel convinced, not only lose all faith in his explanations of these phenomena, but will also find how completely ignorant of this, as of most scientific subjects, are those writers in our influential literary press who have, almost without exception, praised this book as a fair and complete exposition of the subject on which it treats. It also seems to me that an important question of literary morality is here involved. While maintaining as strongly as anyone that new or disputed theories should be subjected to the fullest and severest criticism, I yet hold that this should not involve either misrepresentation or what has been termed the "conspiracy of silence." It is, at the best, hard enough for new truths to make their way against the opposing forces of prepossession and indifference; and bearing this in mind, I would ask whether it is in the interests of human progress and in accordance with right principles, that those who have the ear of the public should put forth, under the guise of impartial history, a thoroughly one-sided and erroneous account of a disputed question. It may be said that errors and misstatements can be exposed, and will only injure the author of them; but unfortunately this is not so. The popular view of a subject like this is sure of a wide circulation, and writers in the daily and weekly papers increase its publicity, whereas few read the answer, and the press decline or refuse to make it known.. A striking proof of this statement has been quite recently furnished us. The letter given below was sent by Dr. Slade to Professor E. R. Lankester. It would seem to exhibit, in a high degree, the characteristics of truth, fairness, and charity. No answer was received. The press, moreover, refused to publish it, and the daily press, one and all, refused to insert it even as an adver tisement! "PROFESSOR E. R. LANKESTER. "DEAR SIR,--Dr. Slade having in some measure recovered from his very severe illness, and his engagement to St. Petersburg having been postponed (by desire of his friends there) till the autumn, desires me to make the following offer : He is willing to return to London for the express and sole purpose of satisfying you that the slate-writing occurring in his presence is in no way produced by any trickery of his. For this purpose he will come to your house unaccompanied by any one, and will sit with you at your own table, using your own slate and pencil; or, if you prefer to come to his room it will suit him as well. "In the event of any arrangement being agreed upon, Slade would prefer that the matter should be kept strictly private. "As he never can guarantee results, you shall give him as many as six trials, and more if it shall be deemed advisable. "And you shall be put to no charge or expense whatever. As the very existence of the press depends on popularity this is inevitable, but it none the less throws a great reponsibility on those who possess this popularity if they mislead public opinion by inaccuracy or suppression of facts. In his article on "Fallacies of Testimony" Dr. Carpenter, quoting Schiller, says, that the "real philosopher" is distinguished from the "trader in knowledge" by his always loving truth better than his system. If our readers will carefully weigh the facts now laid before them, they will be able to decide how far Dr. Carpenter himself belongs to the first or to the second of these categories. ALFRED R. Wallace. Text-Book of Structural and Physiological Botany. By Oтто W. THOME. Translated and Edited by ALFRED W. BENNETT, F.L.S. London: Longmans and Co. WE have here a translation of a German work which has found great approbation in its own country, and will probably experience an equally favourable reception in England. It embraces the whole range of elementary botany, and will prove a safe and convenient guide for the student in the earlier part of his career. The Editor, however, very judiciously reminds his readers that in Natural Science "the greater and the most useful part of the student's knowledge must always be acquired in the field, or with the dissecting knife in hand," the use of text-books being merely to put him in the right track for personal research, and to save him from the necessity of re-discovering what others have already "You on your part shall undertake that during the period of the sittings, and for one week afterwards, you will neither take, nor cause to be taken, nor countenance legal proceedings against him or me. "That if in the end you are satisfied that the slate-writing is produced otherwise than by trickery, you shall abstain altogether from further proceedings against us, and suffer us to remain in England, if we choose to do so, unmolested by you. If, on the other hand, you are not satisfied, you shall be at liberty to proceed against us, after the expiration of one week from the conclusion of the six or more experiments, if we are still in England. You will observe that Slade is willing to go to you without witnesses of his own, and to trust entirely to your honour and good faith. "Conscious of his own innocence, he has no malice against you for the past. He believes that you were very naturally deceived by appearances, which, to one who had not previously verified the phenomena under more satisfactory conditions, may well have seemed suspicious. "Should we not hear from you within ten days from this date, Slade will conclude that you have declined his offer. "I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant, 37, Spui-straat, The Hague, May 7th 1877. "J. SIMMONS." observed before him. The real educational value of Natural History, the development of the power of observation, will utterly escape those whose studies are confined to books. The successive chapters of the work are devoted to a consideration of the cell as an individual; the cell as a member of a group of similar cells; the construction of the plant out of cells; the external form of plants; the life of the plant; special morphology and classification; the changes in the vegetation of the globe during past geological epochs; and botanical geography. The last division is illustrated with a map, showing the twentyfour regions into which the earth is divided by Griesbach in his "Végetation der Erde "-a classification which Mr. Bennett thinks" too unqualified," both with regard to the boundaries between the regions and the characters which distinguish them from one another. It is interesting to compare these regions with the geographical divisions of the animal world, as laid down by Mr. Wallace. We must own to a little surprise at finding Madagascar classed as an "Oceanic Island," along with the Azores, Madeiras, and Canaries. The chapter on vegetable palæontology gives an accurate but necessarily very brief account of the flora of bygone ages. In the section on the "Life of the Plant," the influence of temperature, light, &c., upon vegetation is carefully described. The work is throughout abundantly illustrated, and will, we hope, prove useful to those real students who seek not to pass," but to know. 66 The Geology of England and Wales. A Concise Account of the Lithological Characters, Leading Fossils, and Economic Products of the Rocks; with Notes on the Physical Features of the Country. By HORACE B. WOODWARD, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of England and Wales. London: Longmans and Co. MANY as have been the geological works recently put forth in England, there was still, we believe, room for a condensed work of reference on the geology of our own country that should be fully on a level with the present state of the science. This want Mr. Woodward has supplied in what we must pronounce a very satisfactory manner. His treatise is well arranged, comprehensive, accurate, and concise. All unnecessary verbiage has been carefully avoided, so that the student is not placed under the necessity of seeking out the facts he wants amidst a dreary waste of padding. Of speculation there is little. The author declares himself to be what is technically called a "uniformitarian," but he judiciously adds that "in concluding that the physical forces. have been the same throughout geological time" we must guard VOL. VII. (N.S.) 2 G |