Miss Laura A. Luse, Ordway, Brown Co., Dacotah. 768 Rev. William Clark, Florence, Italy. 778 VIII. The Method of Political Economy. D. McG. Means, New York City. 801 Page 428, for Admiral of the Sea, read Admiral of the Red. [By Dr. H. ULRICI, Professor of Philosophy at Halle.] HONORED SIR: Accept my heartiest thanks for the glad surprise which your open letter had afforded me. It gave me a surprise: for when I asked you to express your opinion respecting the spiritistic phenomena that you had witnessed, I scarcely expected so prompt and willing a response. And it made me glad: for I am persuaded that the argued statement of the position on such a question, which such a prominent supporter of the "new philosophy" would make, must be helpful to its solution, especially since you assign to it a sort of scientific position. I was also well pleased that you afford me by means of your letter the desired opportunity to explain once more my opinion and convictions respecting the spiritistic manifestations, and so prevent my position from being misunderstood. I was also specially gratified that on the second page of your letter you plainly state that you use the word "reality" in the same sense that I do :-excluding thereby the production of these phenomena, by any sort of trickery; according to your judgment they "cannot possibly be explained as the mere subjective fancies of the observers; and since their objectivity and reality in the proper sense of these words cannot be gainsayed by anybody who has read even as much as my brief description of them." When I read these words I made up my mind to express my thanks to you in a brief Article in my "Philosophical Journal," adding only a few necessary explanations. But the farther I read, the more I became convinced that I had misunderstood your statement as above, or that your opinion and purpose in writing had really become changed while you were writing your reply. For you certainly imply that you consider Mr. Slade a juggler, and a skillful one, when you remark: "Dr. Christiani, an assistant in the Physiological Institute in Berlin, has successfully performed many of Slade's experiments; but the experiments performed by him were merest jugglery."* As you continue your remarks you distinctly brand Slade as a sleight of hand performer, adding the remark concerning the spiritistic phenomena of which you yourself were witness. "So far as those experiments are concerned which I myself saw, I think they would not fail to produce on the part of any unprejudiced person who had ever seen a good sleight of hand performer, the impression of skillful juggling." Although the experiments which you wit * By a strange oversight the last Article (New Englander, July, page 500, line 32) reads "without jugglery"-it should read "by merest. jugglery." ↑ In an Article in the "Deutschen Rundschau" Professor W. Preyer inserts a letter which he had received in final answer to his request for further information respecting these experiments of Dr. Christiani. Dr. C. there states that he had "successfully, many times, and before scientific audiences, performed some of the current spiritistic feats and of them some belonging to the best grades, such as the slate writing, the Slade-Zöllner knots, mind-reading, etc., etc." But instead of telling how he did these things, or the method by which he was able to reproduce Slade's performances, he enters into a general description of the methods to which jugglers resort, (his own were done in the same way), remarking :-"The principal difference between the performance of jugglers' tricks, and the conducting of a scientific experiment lies in this in the latter the experimenter, for the instruction of his audience, nessed are the same as those Zöllner describes, and although Slade emphatically denies on his own part that he is a juggler, or that his experiments are performed by any trickery; still according to your remarks above quoted, you have the opposite opinion, and in them you charge him with being a liar and deceiver. It seems to me that between your words before quoted, in which you recognize the objective reality of the spiritistic phenomena, and this declaration in which you assert their production "by trickery," there is a discrepancy which I despair of solving. There is another discrepancy in your explanation, as it seems to me, not quite so glaring indeed, but still worthy of notice. You say, with reference to the importance which I attach to the testimony of scientific authorities, such as Zöllner, W. Weber, Theo. Fechner, Scheibner, etc.: "It is doubtless true, however, that genuine scientific investigation of itself, in whatever field it may be occupied, develops such an unbiased theoretical interest in the truth, that it tends in matters of science to give unlimited confidence in the conscientious devotion of the investigator. Indeed it may be reasonably supposed that scientific investigation alone can produce absolute conviction in the discussion of theoretical questions; for science alone can make a right estimate of such questions. And now it follows as a matter of course, that this authority which you bring forward, by reason of his high scientific position, as constantly strips off all accessories when they divert from the main subject of thought, and constantly seeks to dispel all illusions, and clearly explains the conditions under which the experiment takes place. The juggler, on the contrary, always keeps these conditions secret, and in order to deceive or astonish his audience, surrounds himself with these accessories in great numbers; by skillful selection at the proper moment, throwing the emphasis upon them, so as to make them suggest a false explanation." This statement may be perfectly correct; but Slade's performance, as Zöllner has described it, bears, in my opinion, no resemblance to these jugglers' methods. At all events Dr. C. ought to have pointed out the likeness which he assumes. And certainly he would have better accomplished the end he sought, if he had plainly described his own methods of procedure by which he performed the slate-writing or the knot-tricks. A simple comparison then would have shown whether Slade's slate-writing and knots were the same as his own. Since he has not done this, the supposition of their identity must be, so far as I am concerned, only a supposition. |