IN WHICH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER GOES FORTH TO BATTLE
Professor Challenger was in a bad humour, and when that was so his
household were made aware of it. Neither were the effects of his wrath
confined to those around him, for most of those terrible letters which
appeared from time to time in the Press, flaying and scarifying some
unhappy opponent, were thunderbolt flashes from an offended Jove who sat
in sombre majesty in his study-throne on the heights of a Victoria flat.
Servants would hardly dare to enter the room where, glooming and
glowering, the maned and bearded head looked up from his papers as a
lion from a bone. Only Enid could dare him at such a time, and even she
felt occasionally that sinking of the heart which the bravest of tamers
may experience as he unbars the gate of the cage. She was not safe from
the acridity of his tongue, but at least she need not fear physical
violence, which was well within the possibilities for others.
Sometimes these Berserk fits of the famous Professor arose from material
causes. “Hepatic, sir, hepatic!” he would explain in extenuation after
some aggravated assault. But on this particular occasion he had a very
definite cause for discontent. It was Spiritualism!
He never seemed to get away from the accursed superstition--a thing
which ran counter to the whole work and philosophy of his lifetime. He
attempted to pooh-pooh it, to laugh at it, to ignore it with contempt,
but the confounded thing would insist upon obtruding itself once more.
On Monday he would write it finally off his books, and before Saturday
he would be up to his neck in it again. And the thing was so absurd! It
seemed to him that his mind was being drawn from the great pressing
material problems of the Universe in order to waste itself upon Grimm’s
fairy tales or the ghosts of a sensational novelist.
Then things grew worse. First Malone, who had in his simple fashion been
an index figure representing the normal clear-headed human being, had in
some way been bedevilled by these people and had committed himself to
their pernicious views. Then Enid, his ewe-lamb, his one real link with
humanity, had also been corrupted. She had agreed with Malone’s
conclusions. She had even hunted up a good deal of evidence of her own.
In vain he had himself investigated a case and proved beyond a shadow of
a doubt that the medium was a designing villain who brought messages
from a widow’s dead husband in order to get the woman into his power. It
was a clear case and Enid admitted it. But neither she nor Malone would
allow any general application. “There are rogues in every line of life,”
they would say. “We must judge every movement by the best and not by the
worst.”
All this was bad enough, but worse still was in store. He had been
publicly humiliated by the Spiritualists--and that by a man who admitted
that he had had no education and would in any other subject in the world
have been seated like a child at the Professor’s feet. And yet in
public debate ... but the story must be told.
Be it known then that Challenger, greatly despising all opposition and
with no knowledge of the real strength of the case to be answered, had,
in a fatal moment, actually asserted that he would descend from Olympus
and would meet in debate any representative whom the other party should
select. “I am well aware,” he wrote, “that by such condescension I, like
any other man of science of equal standing, run the risk of giving a
dignity to these absurd and grotesque aberrations of the human brain
which they could otherwise not pretend to claim, but we must do our duty
to the public, and we must occasionally turn from our serious work and
spare a moment in order to sweep away those ephemeral cobwebs which
might collect and become offensive if they were not dispersed by the
broom of Science.” Thus, in a most self-confident fashion, did Goliath
go forth to meet his tiny antagonist, an ex-printer’s assistant and now
the editor of what Challenger would describe as an obscure print devoted
to matters of the spirit.
The particulars of the debate are public property, and it is not
necessary to tell in any great detail that painful event. It will be
remembered that the great man of Science went down to the Queen’s Hall
accompanied by many rationalist sympathisers who desired to see the
final destruction of the visionaries. A large number of these poor
deluded creatures also attended, hoping against hope that their champion
might not be entirely immolated upon the altar of outraged Science.
Between them the two factions filled the hall, and glared at each other
with as much enmity as did the Blues and the Greens a thousand years
before in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. There on the left of the
platform were the solid ranks of those hard and unbending rationalists
who look upon the Victorian agnostics as credulous, and refresh their
faith by the periodical perusal of the _Literary Gazette_ and the
_Freethinker_.
There, too, was Dr. Joseph Baumer, the famous lecturer upon the
absurdities of religion, together with Mr. Edward Mould, who has
insisted so eloquently upon man’s claim to ultimate putridity of the
body and extinction of the soul. On the other side Mailey’s yellow beard
flamed like an oriflamme. His wife sat on one side of him and Mervin,
the journalist, on the other, while dense ranks of earnest men and women
from the Queen Square Spiritual Alliance, from the Psychic College, from
the Stead Bureau, and from the outlying churches, assembled in order to
encourage their champion in his hopeless task. The genial faces of
Bolsover, the grocer, with his Hammersmith friends, Terbane, the railway
medium, the Reverend Charles Mason with his ascetic features, Tom
Linden, now happily released from bondage, Mrs. Linden, the Crewe
circle, Dr. Atkinson, Lord Roxton, Malone, and many other familiar faces
were to be picked out amid that dense wall of humanity. Between the two
parties, solemn and stolid and fat, sat Judge Gaverson of the King’s
Bench, who had consented to preside. It was an interesting and
suggestive fact that in this critical debate at which the very core or
vital centre of real religion was the issue, the organised churches were
entirely aloof and neutral. Drowsy and semi-conscious, they could not
discern that the live intellect of the nation was really holding an
inquisition upon their bodies to determine whether they were doomed to
the extinction towards which they were rapidly drifting, or whether a
resuscitation in other forms was among the possibilities of the future.
In front, on one side, with his broad-browed disciples behind him, sat
Professor Challenger, portentous and threatening, his Assyrian beard
projected in his most aggressive fashion, a half-smile upon his lips,
and his eyelids drooping insolently over his intolerant grey eyes. On
the corresponding position on the other side was perched a drab and
unpretentious person over whose humble head Challenger’s hat would have
descended to the shoulders. He was pale and apprehensive, glancing
across occasionally in apologetic and deprecating fashion at his leonine
opponent. Yet those who knew James Smith best were the least alarmed,
for they were aware that behind his commonplace and democratic
appearance there lay a knowledge of his subject, practical and
theoretical, such as few living men possessed. The wise men of the
Psychical Research Society are but children in psychic knowledge when
compared with such practicing Spiritualists as James Smith--men whose
whole lives are spent in various forms of communion with the unseen.
Such men often lose touch with the world in which they dwell and are
useless for its everyday purposes, but the editorship of a live paper
and the administration of a wide-spread scattered community had kept
Smith’s feet solid upon earth, while his excellent natural faculties,
incorrupted by useless education, had enabled him to concentrate upon
the one field of knowledge which offers in itself a sufficient scope for
the greatest human intellect. Little as Challenger could appreciate it,
the contest was really one between a brilliant discursive amateur and a
concentrated highly-specialised professional.
It was admitted on all sides that Challenger’s opening half-hour was a
magnificent display of oratory and argument. His deep organ voice--such
a voice as only a man with a fifty-inch chest can produce--rose and fell
in a perfect cadence which enchanted his audience. He was born to sway
any assembly--an obvious leader of mankind. In turn he was descriptive,
humorous and convincing. He pictured the natural growth of animism among
savages cowering under the naked sky, unable to account for the beat of
the rain or the roar of the thunder, and seeing a benevolent or
malicious intelligence behind those operations of Nature which Science
had now classified and explained.
Hence on false premises was built up that belief in spirits or invisible
beings outside ourselves, which by some curious atavism was re-emerging
in modern days among the less educated strata of mankind. It was the
duty of Science to resist retrogressive tendencies of the sort, and it
was a sense of that duty which had reluctantly drawn him from the
privacy of his study to the publicity of this platform. He rapidly
sketched the movement as depicted by its maligners. It was a most
unsavoury story as he told it, a story of cracking toe joints, of
phosphorescent paint, of muslin ghosts, of a nauseous sordid commission
trade betwixt dead men’s bones on one side, and widows’ tears upon the
other. These people were the hyenas of the human race who battened upon
the graves. (Cheers from the rationalists and ironical laughter from the
Spiritualists.) They were not all rogues. (“Thank you, Professor!” from
a stentorian opponent.) But the others were fools (laughter). Was it
exaggeration to call a man a fool who believed that his grandmother
could rap out absurd messages with the leg of a dining-room table? Had
any savages descended to so grotesque a superstition? These people had
taken dignity from death and had brought their own vulgarity into the
serene oblivion of the tomb. It was a hateful business. He was sorry to
have to speak so strongly, but only the knife or the cautery could deal
with so cancerous a growth. Surely man need not trouble himself with
grotesque speculations as to the nature of life beyond the grave. We had
enough to do in this world. Life was a beautiful thing. The man who
appreciated its real duties and beauties would have sufficient to employ
him without dabbling in pseudo sciences which had their roots in frauds,
exposed already a hundred times and yet finding fresh crowds of foolish
devotees whose insane credulity and irrational prejudice made them
impervious to all argument.
Such is a most bald and crude summary of this powerful opening argument.
The materialists roared their applause; the Spiritualists looked angry
and uneasy, while their spokesman rose, pale but resolute, to answer the
ponderous onslaught.
His voice and appearance had none of those qualities which made
Challenger magnetic, but he was clearly audible and made his points in a
precise fashion like a workman who is familiar with his tools. He was so
polite and so apologetic at first that he gave the impression of having
been cowed. He felt that it was almost presumptuous upon one who had so
little advantage of education to measure mental swords for an instant
with so renowned an antagonist, one whom he had long revered. It seemed
to him, however, that in the long list of the Professor’s
accomplishments--accomplishments which had made him a household word
throughout the world--there was one missing, and unhappily it was just
this one upon which he had been tempted to speak. He had listened to
that speech with admiration so far as its eloquence was concerned, but
with surprise, and he might almost say with contempt, when he analysed
the assertions which were contained in it. It was clear that the
Professor had prepared his case by reading all the anti-Spiritualist
literature which he could lay his hands upon--a most tainted source of
information--while neglecting the works of those who spoke from
experience and conviction.
All this talk of cracking joints and other fraudulent tricks was
mid-Victorian in its ignorance, and as to the grandmother talking
through the leg of a table he, the speaker, could not recognise it as a
fair description of Spiritualistic phenomena. Such comparisons reminded
one of the jokes about the dancing frogs which impeded the recognition
of Volta’s early electrical experiments. They were unworthy of Professor
Challenger. He must surely be aware that the fraudulent medium was the
worst enemy of Spiritualism, that he was denounced by name in the
psychic journals whenever he was discovered, and that such exposures
were usually made by the Spiritualists themselves who had spoken of
“human hyenas” as indignantly as his opponent had done. One did not
condemn banks because forgers occasionally used them for nefarious
purposes. It was wasting the time of so chosen an audience to descend to
such a level of argument. Had Professor Challenger denied the religious
implications of Spiritualism while admitting the phenomena, it might
have been harder to answer him, but in denying everything he had placed
himself in an absolutely impossible position. No doubt Professor
Challenger had read the recent work of Professor Richet, the famous
physiologist. That work extended over thirty years. Richet had verified
all the phenomena.
Perhaps Professor Challenger would inform the audience what personal
experience he had himself had which gave him the right to talk of
Richet, or Lombroso, or Crookes, as if they were superstitious savages.
Possibly his opponent had conducted experiments in private of which the
world knew nothing. In that case he should give them to the world. Until
he did so it was unscientific and really indecent to deride men hardly
inferior in scientific reputation to himself, who actually had done such
experiments and laid them before the public.
As to the self-sufficiency of this world, a successful Professor with a
eupeptic body might take such a view, but if one found oneself with
cancer of the stomach in a London garret, one might question the
doctrine that there was no need to yearn for any state of being save
that in which we found ourselves.
It was a workmanlike effort illustrated with facts, dates and figures.
Though it rose to no height of eloquence it contained much which needed
an answer. And the sad fact emerged that Challenger was not in a
position to answer. He had read up his own case but had neglected that
of his adversary, accepting too easily the facile and specious
presumptions of incompetent writers who handled a matter which they had
not themselves investigated. Instead of answering, Challenger lost his
temper. The lion began to roar. He tossed his dark mane and his eyes
glowed, while his deep voice reverberated through the hall. Who were
these people who took refuge behind a few honoured but misguided names?
What right had they to expect serious men of science to suspend their
labours in order to waste time in examining their wild surmises? Some
things were self-evident and did not require proof. The onus of proof
lay with those who made the assertions. If this gentleman, whose name is
unfamiliar, claims that he can raise spirits, let him call one up now
before a sane and unprejudiced audience. If he says that he receives
messages, let him give us the news in advance of the general agencies.
(“It has often been done!” from the Spiritualists.) “So you say, but I
deny it. I am too accustomed to your wild assertions to take them
seriously.” (Uproar, and Judge Gaverson upon his feet.) If he claims
that he has higher inspiration, let him solve the Peckham Rye murder. If
he is in touch with angelic beings, let him give us a philosophy, which
is higher than mortal mind can evolve. This false show of science, this
camouflage of ignorance, this babble about ectoplasm and other mythical
products of the psychic imagination was mere obscurantism, the bastard
offspring of superstition and darkness. Wherever the matter was probed
one came upon corruption and mental putrescence. Every medium was a
deliberate impostor. (“You are a liar!” in a woman’s voice from the
neighbourhood of the Lindens.) The voices of the dead had uttered
nothing but childish twaddle. The asylums were full of the supporters of
the cult and would be fuller still if everyone had his due.
It was a violent but not an effective speech. Evidently the great man
was rattled. He realised that there was a case to be met and that he had
not provided himself with the material wherewith to meet it. Therefore
he had taken refuge in angry words and sweeping assertions which can
only be safely made when there is no antagonist present to take
advantage of them. The Spiritualists seemed more amused than angry. The
materialists fidgeted uneasily in their seats. Then James Smith rose for
his last innings. He wore a mischievous smile. There was quiet menace in
his whole bearing.
He must ask, he said, for a more scientific attitude from his
illustrious opponent. It was an extraordinary fact that many scientific
men, when their passions and prejudices were excited, showed a ludicrous
disregard for all their own tenets. Of these tenets there was none more
rigid than that a subject should be examined before it was condemned. We
have seen of late years, in such matters as wireless or heavier-than-air
machines, that the most unlikely things may come to pass. It is most
dangerous to say _a priori_ that a thing is impossible. Yet this was the
error into which Professor Challenger had fallen. He had used the fame
which he had rightly won in subjects which he had mastered in order to
cast discredit upon a subject which he had not mastered. The fact that a
man was a great physiologist and physicist did not in itself make him an
authority upon psychic science.
It was perfectly clear that Professor Challenger had not read the
standard works upon the subject on which he posed as an authority. Could
he tell the audience what the name of Schrenck Notzing’s medium was? He
paused for a reply. Could he then tell the name of Dr. Crawford’s
medium? Not? Could he tell them who had been the subject of Professor
Zollner’s experiments at Leipzig? What, still silent! But these were the
essential points of the discussion. He had hesitated to be personal, but
the Professor’s robust language called for corresponding frankness upon
his part. Was the Professor aware that this ectoplasm which he derided
had been examined lately by twenty German professors--the names were
here for reference--and that all had testified to its existence? How
could Professor Challenger deny that which these gentlemen asserted?
Would he contend that they also were criminals or fools? The fact was
that the Professor had come to this hall entirely ignorant of the facts
and was now learning them for the first time. He clearly had no
perception that Psychic Science had any laws whatever, or he would not
have formulated such childish requests as that an ectoplasmic figure
should manifest in full light upon this platform when every student was
aware that ectoplasm was soluble in light. As to the Peckham Rye murder
it had never been claimed that the angel world was an annex to Scotland
Yard. It was mere throwing of dust in the eyes of the public for a man
like Professor Challenger----
It was at this moment that the explosion occurred. Challenger had
wriggled in his chair. Challenger had tugged at his beard. Challenger
had glared at the speaker. Now he suddenly sprang to the side of the
chairman’s table with the bound of a wounded lion. That gentleman had
been lying back half asleep with his fat hands clutched across his ample
paunch, but at this sudden apparition he gave a convulsive start which
nearly carried him into the orchestra.
“Sit down, sir! Sit down!” he cried.
“I refuse to sit down,” roared Challenger. “Sir, I appeal to you as
chairman! Am I here to be insulted? These proceedings are intolerable. I
will stand it no longer. If my private honour is touched I am justified
in taking the matter into my own hands.”
Like many men who override the opinions of others, Challenger was
exceedingly sensitive when anyone took a liberty with his own. Each
successive incisive sentence of his opponent had been like a barbed
bandarillo in the flanks of a foaming bull. Now, in speechless fury, he
was shaking his huge hairy fist over the chairman’s head in the
direction of his adversary, whose derisive smile stimulated him to more
furious plunges with which he butted the fat president along the
platform. The assembly had in an instant become a pandemonium. Half the
rationalists were scandalised, while the other half shouted “Shame!
Shame!” as a sign of sympathy with their champion. The Spiritualists had
broken into derisive shouts, while some rushed forward to protect their
champion from physical assault.
“We must get the old dear out,” said Lord Roxton to Malone. “He’ll be
had for manslaughter if we don’t. What I mean, he’s not
responsible--he’ll sock someone and be lagged for it.”
The platform had become a seething mob while the auditorium was little
better. Through the crush Malone and Roxton elbowed their way until they
reached Challenger’s side, and partly by judicious propulsion, partly by
artful persuasion they got him, still bellowing his grievances, out of
the building. There was a perfunctory vote to the chairman, and the
meeting broke up in riot and confusion. “The whole episode,” remarked
_The Times_ next morning, “was a deplorable one, and forcibly
illustrates the danger of public debates where the subjects are such as
to inflame the prejudices of either speakers or audience. Such terms as
‘Microcephalous idiot!’ or ‘Simian survival!’ when applied by a
world-renowned Professor to an opponent, illustrate the lengths to which
such disputants may permit themselves to go.”
* * * * *
Thus by a long interpolation we have got back to the fact that Professor
Challenger was in the worst of humours as he sat with the
above-mentioned copy of _The Times_ in his hand and a heavy scowl upon
his brow. And yet it was that very moment that the injudicious Malone
had chosen in order to ask him the most intimate question which one man
can address to another.
Yet perhaps it is hardly fair to our friend’s diplomacy to say that he
had “chosen” the moment. He had really called in order to see for
himself that a man for whom, in spite of his eccentricities, he had a
deep reverence and affection, had not suffered from the events of the
night before. On that point he was speedily reassured.
“Intolerable!” roared the Professor, in a tone so unchanged that he
might have been at it all night. “You were there yourself, Malone. In
spite of your inexplicable and misguided sympathy for the fatuous views
of these people, you must admit that the whole conduct of the
proceedings was intolerable, and that my righteous protest was more than
justified. It is possible that when I threw the chairman’s table at the
President of the Psychic College, I passed the bounds of decorum, but
the provocation had been excessive. You will remember that this Smith or
Brown person--his name is most immaterial--dared to accuse me of
ignorance and of throwing dust in the eyes of the audience.”
“Quite so,” said Malone, soothingly. “Never mind, Professor. You got in
one or two pretty hard knocks yourself.”
Challenger’s grim features unbent and he rubbed his hands with glee.
“Yes, yes, I fancy that some of my thrusts went home. I imagine that
they will not be forgotten. When I said that the asylums would be full
if every man of them had his due, I could see them wince. They all
yelped, I remember, like a kennelful of puppies. It was their
preposterous claim that I should read their hare-brained literature
which caused me to display some little heat. But I hope, my boy, that
you have called round this morning in order to tell me that what I said
last night has had some effect upon your own mind, and that you have
reconsidered these views which are, I confess, a considerable tax upon
our friendship.”
Malone took his plunge like a man.
“I had something else in my mind when I came here,” said he. “You must
be aware that your daughter Enid and I have been thrown together a good
deal of late. To me, sir, she has become the one woman in the world, and
I shall never be happy until she is my wife. I am not rich, but a good
sub-editorship has been offered to me and I could well afford to marry.
You have known me for some time and I hope you have nothing against me.
I trust, therefore, that I may count upon your approval in what I am
about to do.”
Challenger stroked his beard and his eyelids drooped dangerously over
his eyes.
“My perceptions,” said he, “are not so dull that I should have failed to
observe the relations which have been established between my daughter
and yourself. This question, however, has become entangled with that
other which we were discussing. You have both, I fear, imbibed this
poisonous fallacy which I am more and more inclined to devote my life to
extirpating. If only on the ground of eugenics, I could not give my
sanction to a union which was built up on such a foundation. I must ask
you, therefore, for a definite assurance that your views have become
more sane. I shall ask the same from her.”
And so Malone suddenly found himself also enrolled among the noble army
of martyrs. It was a hard dilemma, but he faced it like the man that he
was.
“I am sure, sir, that you would not think the better of me if I allowed
my views as to truth, whether they be right or wrong, to be swayed by
material considerations. I cannot change my opinions even to win Enid. I
am sure that she would take the same view.”
“Did you not think I had the better last night?”
“I thought your address was very eloquent.”
“Did I not convince you?”
“Not in the face of the evidence of my own senses.”
“Any conjuror could deceive your senses.”
“I fear, sir, that my mind is made up on this point.”
“Then my mind is made up also,” roared Challenger, with a sudden glare.
“You will leave this house, sir, and you will return when you have
regained your sanity.”
“One moment!” said Malone. “I beg, sir, that you will not be
precipitate. I value your friendship too much to risk the loss of it if
it can, in any way, be avoided. Possibly if I had your guidance, I would
better understand these things that puzzle me. If I should be able to
arrange it would you mind being present personally at one of these
demonstrations so that your own trained powers of observation may throw
a light upon the things that have puzzled me.”
Challenger was enormously open to flattery. He plumed and preened
himself now like some great bird.
“If, my dear Malone, I can help you to get this taint--what shall we
call it?--_microbus spiritualensis_--out of your system, I am at your
service. I shall be happy to devote a little of my spare time to
exposing those specious fallacies to which you have fallen so easy a
victim. I would not say that you are entirely devoid of brains, but that
your good nature is liable to be imposed upon. I warn you that I shall
be an exacting enquirer and bring to the investigation those laboratory
methods of which it is generally admitted that I am a master.”
“That is what I desire.”
“Then you will prepare the occasion and I shall be there. But meanwhile
you will clearly understand that I insist upon a promise that this
connection with my daughter shall go no further.”
Malone hesitated.
“I give my promise for six months,” he said at last.
“And what will you do at the end of that time?”
“I will decide when the time comes,” Malone answered diplomatically, and
so escaped from a dangerous situation with more credit than at one time
seemed probable.
It chanced that as he emerged upon the landing, Enid, who had been
engaged in her morning’s shopping, appeared in the lift. Malone’s easy
Irish conscience allowed him to think that the six months need not start
on the instant, so he persuaded Enid to descend in the lift with him. It
was one of those lifts which are handled by whoever uses them, and on
this occasion it so happened that, in some way best known to Malone, it
stuck between the landing-stages, and in spite of several impatient
rings it remained stuck for a good quarter of an hour. When the
machinery resumed its functions, and when Enid was able at last to
reach her home and Malone the street, the lovers had prepared themselves
to wait for six months with every hope of a successful end to their
experiment.[E]