A rather startling paper in the current number of the “Quarterly
Journal of Science,” from the pen of William Crookes, F.R.S. (who
is well known in the scientific world by his discovery of the metal
thallium, his investigations of its properties and those of its
compounds, besides many other important researches, and also as the
able and spirited editor of the _Chemical News_), is now the subject of
much scientific gossip and discussion.
Mr. Crookes has for some time past been engaged in investigating some
of the phenomena which are attributed on one hand to the agency of
spiritual visitors, and on the other side to vulgar conjuring. Nobody
acquainted with Mr. Crookes can doubt his ability to conduct such an
investigation, or will hesitate for a moment in concluding that he has
done so with philosophical impartiality, though many think it quite
possible that he may have been deceived. None, however, can yet say how.
For my own part, I abstain from any conclusion in the meantime, until
I have time and opportunity to witness a repetition of some of these
experiments, and submitting them to certain tests which appear to me
desirable. Though struggling against a predisposition to prejudge, and
to conclude that the phenomena are the results of some very skillful
conjuring, I very profoundly respect the moral courage that Mr. Crookes
has displayed in thus publicly grappling with a subject which has
been soiled by contact with so many dirty fingers. Nothing but a pure
love of truth, overpowering every selfish consideration, could have
induced Mr. Crookes to imperil his hard-earned scientific reputation by
stepping thus boldly on such very perilous ground.
It is only fair, at the outset, to state that Mr. Crookes is not
what is called “a spiritualist.” This I infer, both from what he has
published and from conversation I have had with him on the subject.
He has witnessed some of the “physical manifestations,” and, while
admitting that many of these may be produced by the jugglery of
impostors, he has concluded that others cannot be thus explained; but,
nevertheless, does not accept the spiritual theory which attributes
them to the efforts of departed human souls.
He suspects that the living human being may have the power of exerting
some degree of force or influence upon bodies external to himself—may,
for instance, be able to counteract or increase the gravitation of
substances by an effort of the will. He calls this power the “psychic
force,” and supposes that some persons are able to manifest it much
more powerfully than others, and thus explains the performances of
those “mediums” who are not mere impostors.
There is nothing in this hypothesis which the sternest, the most
sceptical, and least imaginative of physical philosophers may not
unhesitatingly investigate, provided some first-sight evidence of
its possibility is presented to him. We know that the Torpedo, the
Gymnotus, the Silurus Electricus, and other fishes, can, by an effort
of the will, act upon bodies external to themselves. Faraday showed
that the electric eel exhibited some years ago at the Adelaide Gallery
was able, by an effort of its will, to make a magnetic needle suddenly
turn thirty degrees aside from its usual polar position; that this same
animal could—still by an effort of will—overpower the gravitation
of pieces of gold leaf, cause them to be uplifted and outstretched
from their pendent position, could decompose iodide of potassium, and
perform many other “physical manifestations,” simply by a voluntary
nervous effort, and without calling in the aid of any souls of other
departed eels.
Before this gymnotus was publicly exhibited it was deposited at
a French hotel in the neighborhood of Leicester Square. A burly
fishmonger’s man, named Wren, brought in the daily supply of fish to
the establishment, when some of the servants told him they had an eel
so large that he would be afraid to pick it up. He laughed at the idea
of being afraid of an eel, and when taken to the tub boldly plunged
in both hands to seize the fish. A hideous roar followed this attempt.
Wren had experienced a demonstration of the “psychic force” of the
electrical eel, and his terror so largely exaggerated the actual
violence of the shock, that he believed for the remainder of his life
that he was permanently injured by it. He had periodical spasms across
the chest, which could only be removed by taking a half-quartern of
gin. As he was continually narrating his adventure to public-house
audiences, and always had a spasm on concluding, which his hearers
usually contributed to relieve, the poor fellow’s life was actually
shortened by the shock from the gymnotus.
The experiments which Mr. Crookes relates in support of his psychic
force hypothesis are as follows:—In the first place he contrived
an apparatus for testing Mr. Home’s alleged power of modifying the
gravitation of bodies. As Mr. Home requires to lay his hands, or at
least his finger-ends, upon the body to be influenced, Mr. Crookes
attached one end of a long board to a suspended spring steelyard of
delicate construction; the other end of the board rested on a fulcrum
in such a manner that one half of the weight of the board was supported
by the fulcrum and the other half by the steelyard. The weight of the
board thus suspended was carefully noted, and then Mr. Home put his
fingers upon that end of the board immediately resting on the fulcrum
in such a manner that he could not by simple pressure affect the
dependent end of the board.
Dr. Huggins, the eminent astronomer, was present, and also Serjeant
Cox, besides Mr. Crookes. They all watched Mr. Home, the board, and
the steelyard; they observed first a vibration and fluctuation of the
index, and finally that the steelyard indicated an increase of weight
amounting to about three pounds. Mr. Crookes tried to produce the
same effect by mechanical pressure exerted in a similar manner, but
failed to do so. The details of the experiment are fully described and
illustrated by an engraving.
Another and still more striking experiment is described. Mr. Crookes
purchased a new accordion from Messrs. Wheatstone, and himself
constructed a wire cage open at top and bottom, and large enough for
the accordion to be suspended within it by holding it over the open
top, while the bottom of the cage rested on the floor. The accordion
was then handed to Mr. Home, who held it with one hand by the wooden
framework of the bottom of the instrument, as shown in an illustrative
drawing. The keys were thus hanging downwards and the bellows distended
by the weight of the instrument thus pendent. It was then held so that
it should be entirely surrounded by the wire-work of the cage, and the
results were, as before, watched keenly by Mr. Crookes, Dr. Huggins,
and Serjeant Cox. After a while the instrument began to wave about,
then the bellows contracted, and the lower part (_i.e._, the key-board
end) rose a little, presently sounds were produced, and finally the
instrument played a tune upon itself in obedience, as Mr. Crookes
supposes, to the psychic force which Mr. Home exerted upon it.
Before the publication of the paper describing these experiments a
proof was sent to both Dr. Huggins and Serjeant Cox, and each has
written a letter testifying to its accuracy, which letters are printed
with the paper in the “Quarterly Journal of Science.”
Here, then, we have the testimony of an eminent lawyer, accustomed
to sifting evidence, that of the most distinguished of experimental
astronomers, the man whose discoveries in celestial physics have justly
excited the admiration of the whole civilized world; and besides these,
of another Fellow of the Royal Society, who has been severely trained
in “putting nature to the torture” by means of the most subtle devices
of the modern physical and chemical laboratory.
Such testimony must not be treated lightly. It would be simple
impertinence for any man dogmatically to assert that these have been
deceived merely because he is unconvinced.
Though one of the unconvinced myself, I would not dare to regard the
investigations of these gentlemen with any other than the profoundest
respect. Still a suggestion occurs to me which may appear very brutal,
but I make it nevertheless. It is this:—That the testimony of another
witness—of an expert of quite a different school—should have been
added. I mean such a man as Döbler, Houdin, or the Wizard of the North.
He might possibly have detected something which escaped the scrutiny of
the legitimate scientific experimentalist.
There is one serious defect in the accordion experiment. The cage is
represented in the engraving as placed under a table; Mr. Home holds
the instrument in his hand, which is concealed by the table, and it
does not appear that either Mr. Crookes, Dr. Huggins, or Serjeant Cox
placed themselves under the table during the concertina performance,
and thus neither of them saw Mr. Home’s hand. Such, at least, appears
from the description and the engraving. A story being commonly
circulated respecting some of Mr. Home’s experiments in Russia,
according to which he failed entirely when a glass table was provided
instead of a wooden one, it would be well, if only in justice to Mr.
Home, to get rid of the table altogether.
It is very desirable that these experiments should be continued, for
two distinct reasons; first, as a matter of ordinary investigation for
philosophical purposes, and, secondly, as a means of demolishing the
most degrading superstition of this generation.
If Mr. Crookes succeeds in demonstrating the existence of the psychic
force and reducing it to law—as it must be reducible if it is a
force—then the ground will be cut from under the feet of spiritualism,
just as the old superstitions, which attributed thunder and lightning
to Divine anger, were finally demolished by Franklin’s kite. If, on
the other hand, the arch-medium, Mr. Home, is proved to be a common
conjuror, then surely the dupes of the smaller “mediumistic” fry
will have their eyes opened, provided the cerebral disturbance which
spiritualism so often induces has not gone so far as to render them
incurable lunatics.
It is very likely that I shall be accused of gross uncharitableness
in thus applying the term lunatic to “those who differ from me,” and
therefore state that I have sad and sufficient reasons for doing so.
The first spiritualist I ever knew, and with whom I had many
conferences on the subject many years ago, was a lady of most estimable
qualities, great intellectual attainments, and distinguished literary
reputation. I watched the beginning and the gradual progress of her
spiritual “investigations,” as she called them, and witnessed the
melancholy end—shocking delusions, intellectual shipwreck, and
confirmed, incurable insanity, directly and unmistakably produced by
the action of these hideous superstitions upon an active, excitable
imagination.
I well remember the growing symptoms of this case, have seen their
characteristic features repeated in others, and have now before me some
melancholy cases where the same changes, the same decline of intellect
and growth of ravenous credulity, is progressing with most painfully
visible distinctness.
The necessity for some strong remedy is the more urgent, inasmuch as
the diabolical machinery of the spiritual impostors has been so much
improved of late. The lady whose case I first referred to had reached
the highest stage of spiritualistic development—viz., the lunatic
asylum—before “dark séances” had been invented, or, at any rate,
before they were introduced into this country. When the conditions of
these séances are considered, it is not at all surprising that persons
of excitable temperament, especially women, should be morbidly affected
by them.
We are endowed with certain faculties, and placed in a world wherein
we may exercise them healthfully upon their legitimate objects. Such
exercise, properly limited, promotes the growth and vigor of our
faculties; but if we pervert them by directing them to illegitimate
objects, we gradually become mad. God has created the light, and fitted
our eyes to receive it; He has endowed us with the sense of touch, by
which we may confirm and verify the impressions of sight. All physical
phenomena are objects of sense, and the senses of sight and touch are
the masters of all the other senses.
Can anything, then, be more atrociously perverse, more utterly idiotic,
and I may even say impious, than these dark séance investigations? Is
it possible to conceive a more melancholy spectacle of intellectual
degradation than that presented by a group of human victims assembled
for the purpose of “investigating physical manifestations,” and
submitting, as a primary condition, to be blinded and handcuffed, the
room in which they sit being made quite dark, and both hands of each
investigator being firmly held by those of his neighbors. That is to
say, the primary conditions of making these physical investigations is
that each investigator shall be deprived of his natural faculties for
doing so.
When we couple this with the fact that these meetings are got
up—publicly advertised by adventurers who make their livelihood by the
fees paid by their hoodwinked and handcuffed customers—is it at all
surprising that those who submit to such conditions should finish their
researches in a lunatic asylum?
The gloom, the mystery, the unearthly objects of search, the mysterious
noises, and other phenomena so easily manipulated in the presence of
those who can see nothing and feel only the sympathetic twitching of
another pair of trembling hands, naturally excites very powerfully the
poor creatures who pay their half-crowns and half-guineas with any
degree of faith; and this unnatural excitement, if frequently repeated,
goes on increasing till the brain becomes incurably diseased.
Present space will not permit me to enter upon another branch of this
subject, viz.: the moral degradation and the perversion of natural,
unsophisticated, and wholesome theology, which these spiritual
delusions are generating.
I am no advocate for rectifying moral and intellectual evils by police
interference, or I should certainly recommend the bracing air of
Dartmoor for the mediums who publicly proclaim that their familiar
spirit “Katey” has lately translated a lady through a space of three
miles, and through the walls, doors, and ceiling of the house in which
a dark séance was being held, and placed her upon the table in the
midst of the circle so rapidly that the word “onions” she had just
written in her domestic inventory was not yet dried when the lights
were brought and she was found there.
This “lady,” which her name is Guppy, is, of course, another
professional medium, and yet there are people in London who gravely
believe this story, and also the appendix, viz.: that another member
of the mediumistic firm, finding that Mrs. G. was very incompletely
dressed, and much abashed thereby, was translated by the same spirit,
Katey, to her house and back again through the door-panel to fetch
proper garments. If I could justify the apprehension and imprisonment
of poor gipsy fortune-tellers, I certainly should advocate the close
confinement of Mrs. Guppy and her male associates, and thus afford
the potent spirit, Katey, an opportunity of further manifestation by
translating them through the prison walls and back to Lamb’s Conduit
Street.
(_The above letter appeared in the “Birmingham Morning News” of July
18, 1871; the following on November 15. It refers to an article in the
“Quarterly Review” of October, 1871._)
The interest excited by Mr. Crookes’s investigations on Psychic Force
is increasing; the demand for the “Quarterly Review” and the “Quarterly
Journal of Science” is so great that Mudie and other proprietors of
lending libraries have largely increased their customary supplies, and
are still besieged with further excess of demand. Not only borrowers,
but purchasers also are supplied with difficulty. I yesterday received
a post-card from a bookseller, inscribed as follows: “Cannot get a
‘Quarterly Review’ in the City, so shall be unable to send it to you
until to-morrow.” I have waited three days, and am now obliged to go to
the reading-room to make my quotations.
There is good and sufficient reason for this, independently of the
absence of Parliamentary and war news, and the dearth of political
revolutions. Either a new and most extraordinary natural force has
been discovered, or some very eminent men specially trained in
rigid physical investigation have been the victims of a marvelous,
unprecedented, and inexplicable physical delusion. I say unprecedented,
because, although we have records of many popular delusions of similar
kind and equal magnitude, and speculative delusions among the learned,
I can cite no instance of skillful experimental experts being utterly
and repeatedly deceived by the mechanical action of experimental test
apparatus carefully constructed and used by themselves.
As the interest in the subject is rapidly growing, my readers will
probably welcome a somewhat longer gossip on this than I usually devote
to a single subject.
Such an extension is the more demanded as the newspaper and magazine
articles which have hitherto appeared have, for the most part, by
following the lead of the “Quarterly Review,” strangely muddled the
whole subject, and misstated the position of Mr. Crookes and others. In
the first place, all the writers who follow the “Quarterly” omit any
mention or allusion to Mr. Crookes’s preliminary paper published in
July, 1870, which has a most important bearing on the whole subject, as
it expounds the object of all the subsequent researches.
Mr. Crookes there states that “Some weeks ago the fact that I was
engaged in investigating Spiritualism, so-called, was announced in
a contemporary (the “Athenæum”), and in consequence of the many
communications I have since received, I think it desirable to say a
little concerning the investigations which I have commenced. Views
or opinions I cannot be said to possess on a subject which I do not
profess to understand. I consider it the duty of scientific men, who
have learned exact modes of working, to examine phenomena which attract
the attention of the public, in order to confirm their genuineness, or
to explain, if possible, the delusions of the honest, and to expose the
tricks of the deceivers.”
He then proceeds to state the case of Science _versus_ Spiritualism
thus:—“The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 lbs. being
lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known force;
but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will
render sensible a weight so small that it would take ten thousand of
them to weigh one grain; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a
power, professing to be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy
body to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately-poised balance
to move under test conditions.” “The Spiritualist tells of rooms and
houses being shaken, even to injury, by superhuman power. The man of
science merely asks for a pendulum to be sent vibrating when it is in
a glass-case, and supported on solid masonry.” “The Spiritualist tells
of heavy articles of furniture moving from one room to another without
human agency. But the man of science has made instruments which will
divide an inch into a million parts, and he is justified in doubting
the accuracy of the former observations, if the same force is powerless
to move the index of his instrument one poor degree.” “The Spiritualist
tells of flowers with the fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living
objects being carried through closed windows, and even solid brick
walls. The scientific investigator naturally asks that an additional
weight (if it be only the 1000th part of a grain) be deposited on one
pan of his balance when the case is locked. And the chemist asks for
the 1000th part of a grain of arsenic to be carried through the sides
of a gas tube in which pure water is hermetically sealed.”
These and other requirements are stated by Mr. Crookes, together with
further exposition of the principles of strict inductive investigation,
as it should be applied to such an inquiry. A year after this he
published an account of the experiments, which I described in a former
letter, and added to his own testimony that of the eminent physicist
and astronomer, Dr. Huggins and Serjeant Cox. Subsequently, that is, in
the last number of the “Quarterly Journal of Science,” he has published
the particulars of another series of experiments.
I will not now enter upon the details of these, but merely state that
the conclusions of Mr. Crookes are directly opposed to those of the
Spiritualists. He positively, distinctly, and repeatedly repudiates
all belief in the operations of the supposed spirits, or of any other
supernatural agency whatever, and attributes the phenomena he witnessed
to an entirely different organ, viz.: to the direct agency of the
medium. He supposes that a force analogous to that which the nerves
convey from their ganglionic centres to the muscles, in producing
muscular contraction, may by an effort of the will be transmitted to
external inanimate matter, in such a manner as to influence, in some
degree, its gravitating power, and produce vibratory motion. He calls
this the _psychic force_.
Now, this is direct and unequivocal _anti_-spiritualism. It is
a theory set up in opposition to the supernatural hypotheses of
the Spiritualists, and Mr. Crookes’s position in reference to
Spiritualism is precisely analogous to that of Faraday in reference to
table-turning. For the same reasons as those above-quoted, the great
master of experimental investigation examined the phenomena called
table-turning, and he concluded that they were due to muscular force,
just as Mr. Crookes concludes that the more complex phenomena he has
examined are due to psychic force.
Speaking of the theories of the Spiritualists, Mr. Crookes, in his
first paper (July, 1870), says: “The pseudo-scientific Spiritualist
professes to know everything. No calculations trouble his serenity;
no hard experiments, no laborious readings; no weary attempts to
make clear in words that which has rejoiced the heart and elevated
the mind. He talks glibly of all sciences and arts, overwhelming the
inquirer with terms like ‘electro-biologise,’ ‘psychologise,’ ‘animal
magnetism,’ etc., a mere play upon words, showing ignorance rather than
understanding.” And further on he says: “I confess that the reasoning
of some Spiritualists would almost seem to justify Faraday’s severe
statement—that many dogs have the power of coming to more logical
conclusions.”
I have already referred to the muddled misstatement of Mr. Crookes’s
position by the newspaper writers, who almost unanimously describe him
and Dr. Huggins as two distinguished scientific men who have recently
been converted to Spiritualism. The above quotations, to which, if
space permitted, I might add a dozen others from either the first, the
second, or the third of Mr. Crookes’s papers, in which he as positively
and decidedly controverts the dreams of the Spiritualists, will show
how egregiously these writers have been deceived. They have relied
very naturally on the established respectability of the “Quarterly
Review,” and have thus deluded both themselves and their readers.
Considering the marvelous range of subjects these writers have to
treat, and the acres of paper they daily cover, it is not surprising
that they should have been thus misled in reference to a subject
carrying them considerably out of their usual track; but the offence of
the “Quarterly” is not so venial. It assumes, in fact, a very serious
complexion when further investigated.
The title of the article is “Spiritualism and its Recent Converts,”
and the “recent converts” most specially and prominently named are
Mr. Crookes and Dr. Huggins. Serjeant Cox is also named, but not as
a _recent_ convert; for the reviewer describes him as an old and
hopelessly infatuated Spiritualist. Knowing nothing of Serjeant
Cox, I am unable to say whether the reviewer’s very strong personal
statements respecting him are true or false—whether he really is “one
of the most gullible of the gullible,” etc., though I must protest
against the bad taste which is displayed in the attack which is made
upon this gentleman. The head and front of his offending consists in
having certified to the accuracy of certain experiments; and for having
simply done this, the reviewer proceeds, in accordance with the lowest
tactics of Old Bailey advocacy, to bully the witness, and to publish
disparaging personal details of what he did twenty-five years ago.
Dr. Huggins, who has had nothing further to do with the subject than
simply to state that he witnessed what Mr. Crookes described, and who
has not ventured upon one word of explanation of the phenomena, is
similarly treated.
The reviewer goes out of his way to inform the public that Dr. Huggins
is, after all, only a brewer, by artfully stating that, “like Mr.
Whitbread, Mr. Lassell, and other brewers we could name, Dr. Huggins
attached himself in the first place to the study of astronomy.” He
then proceeds to sneer at “such scientific amateurs,” by informing
the public that they “labor, as a rule, under a grave disadvantage,
in the want of that broad basis of scientific culture which alone can
keep them from the narrowing and pervertive influence of a limited
_specialism_.”
The reviewer proceeds to say that he has “no reason to believe that Dr.
Huggins constitutes an exception” to this rule, and further asserts
that he is justified in concluding that Dr. Huggins is ignorant of
“every other department of science than _the small subdivision of a
branch_ to which he has so meritoriously devoted himself.” Mark the
words, “small subdivision of a branch.” Merely a twig of the tree of
science is, according to this most unveracious writer, all that Dr.
Huggins has ever studied.
If a personal vindication were the business of this letter I could
easily show that these statements respecting the avocations, the
scientific training, and actual attainments of Dr. Huggins are gross
and atrocious misrepresentations; but Dr. Huggins has no need of my
championship; his high scientific position, the breadth and depth
of his general attainments, and the fact that he is not Huggins the
brewer, are sufficiently known to all in the scientific world, with the
exception of the “Quarterly” reviewer.
My object is not to discuss the personal question whether book-making
and dredging afford better or worse training for experimental inquiry
than the marvelously exact and exquisitely delicate manipulations of
the modern observatory and laboratory, but to protest against this
attempt to stop the progress of investigation, to damage the true
interests of science and the cause of truth, by throwing low libellous
mud upon any and everybody who steps at all aside from the beaten paths
of ordinary investigation.
The true business of science is the discovery of truth; to seek it
wherever it may be found, to pursue it through bye-ways as well as
highways, and, having found it, to proclaim it plainly and fearlessly,
without regard to authority, fashion, or prejudice. If, however, such
influential magazines as the “Quarterly Review” are to be converted
into the vehicles of artful and elaborate efforts to undermine the
scientific reputation of any man who thus does his scientific duty, the
time for plain speaking and vigorous protest has arrived.
My readers will be glad to learn that this is the general feeling of
the leading scientific men of the metropolis; whatever they may think
of the particular investigations of Mr. Crookes, they are unanimous in
expressing their denunciations of this article.
The attack upon Mr. Crookes is still more malignant than that upon Dr.
Huggins. Speaking of Mr. Crookes’s fellowship of the Royal Society, the
reviewer says: “We speak advisedly when we say that this distinction
_was conferred on him with considerable hesitation_;” and further that
“We are assured, on the highest authority, that he is regarded among
chemists as a specialist of specialists, _being totally destitute of
any knowledge of chemical philosophy, and utterly untrustworthy as
to any inquiry which requires more than technical knowledge for its
successful conduct_.”
The italics in these quotations are my own, placed there to mark
certain statements to which no milder term than that of falsehood is
applicable. The history of Mr. Crookes’s admission to the Royal Society
will shortly be published, when the impudence of the above statement
respecting it will be unmasked; and the other quotations I have
emphasized are sufficiently and abundantly refuted by Mr. Crookes’s
published works, and his long and able conduct of the _Chemical News_,
which is the only and the recognized British periodical representative
of chemical science.
If space permitted, I could go on quoting a long series of
misstatements of matters of fact from this singularly unveracious
essay. The writer seems conscious of its general character, for, in the
midst of one of his narratives, he breaks out into a foot-note, stating
that “_This_ is not an invention of our own, but a fact communicated
to us by a highly intelligent witness, who was admitted to one of Mr.
Crookes’s _séances_.” I have taken the liberty to emphasize the proper
word in this very explanatory note.
The full measure of the injustice of prominently thrusting forward
Dr. Huggins and Mr. Crookes as “recent converts” to Spiritualism will
be seen by comparing the reviewer’s own definition of Spiritualism
with Mr. Crookes’s remarks above quoted. The reviewer says that
“The fundamental tenet of the Spiritualist is the old doctrine of
communication between the spirits of the departed and souls of the
living.”
This is the definition of the reviewer, and his logical conclusion is
that Mr. Crookes is a Spiritualist because he explicitly denies the
fundamental tenet of Spiritualism, and Dr. Huggins is a Spiritualist
because he says nothing whatever about it.
If examining the phenomena upon which the Spiritualist builds his
“fundamental tenet,” and explaining them in some other manner,
constitutes conversion to Spiritualism, then the reviewer is a far more
thoroughgoing convert than Mr. Crookes, who only attempts to explain
the mild phenomena of his own experiments, while the reviewer goes
in for everything, including even the apotheosis of Mrs. Guppy and
her translation through the ceiling, a story which is laughed at by
Mr. Crookes and everybody else, excepting a few of the utterly crazed
disciples of the “Lamb’s Conduit Mediums” and the “Quarterly” reviewer,
who actually attempts to explain it by his infallible and ever
applicable physiological nostrum of “_unconscious cerebration_.”
No marvelous story either of ancient or modern date is too strong
for this universal solvent, which according to the reviewer, is the
sole and glorious invention of Dr. Carpenter. Space will not now
permit me to further describe “unconscious cerebration” and its vast
achievements, but I hope to find a corner for it hereafter.
I may add that the name of the reviewer is kept a profound secret, and
yet is perfectly well-known, as everybody who reads the article finds
it out when he reaches those parts which describe Dr. Carpenter’s
important physiological researches and discoveries.