The Press.
London, England, 1853-07-02 00:00:00

JULY 2, 1853.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TABLE-TURNING.

THE chief facts of " table•turniog"

" are now authenticated

beyond the reach of scepticism. Respecting their causes,
the conclusions arrived at show a wide and wonderful
divergence. lf, however, the grounds on which different
observers or experimenters have formed their conclusions
are examined, the reasons for the contrarieties they exhibit
will be sufficiently apparent. Some are frightened, others
bewildered ; many are ignorant of the very first principles
on which a scientific investigation should be pursued;
many more pass at once from irrational denial to a degree
of credulity equally irrational; and yet many more again
lose all power of distinct observation in an overwhelming
sense of the seemingly inexplicable and supernatural chre
rider of the phenomena and the agencies at work to
produce them. Few, or none, have hitherto appeared core
scions of all the conditions that should be Milled to make
the experiments trustworthy, or able to detect the symp-
toms by which the real causes and forces in operation are
correctly indicated. Thence it has arisen that, among the
many solutions that have been hazarded regarding the
problem, so many are evidently fallacious, while even the
best have appeared more ingenious than true, and have
consequently failed in satisfying the public, or even the
scientific, mind. As one reason why this unsatisfactory
state of things should have continued so long, it must be
added that at the first blush of the affair so much humbug
and charlatanry was attached to the subject, so many of the
alleged phenomena were manifestly mere legerdemain, and
so large an infusion of imposture could be detected in the
many performers who tried to work the idea profitably to
themselves, that almost all our really-qualified men of
science scouted the whole inquiry. They would not con-
cede to the subject even so much reality as to make it
worth the trouble of serious examination. Sir Michael
Faraday has now, however, stepped forward to rescue us
from the bewilderment in which we have hitherto
remained between the extremes of doubt and credulity—.
between the necessity of disbelieving the evidences of our
senses and the alternative of attributing the effects thus re-
vealed to the interference of agents from the spiritual world.
Complying at first, it world appear, with the requests
voluminously showered upon him at the Royal Society,
Sir M. Faraday began a series of experiments on the sub-
ject, simply on the principle that anything, however utterly
delusive or fraudulent iu character, which had attracted
the interest and puzzled the judgment of many thousand
persons, was worth investigation, if only on that account.
Afterwards it would seem that the developed phenomena
assumed a character which justified their elucidation, by
an elaborate scientific process, for their own sakes. In an
interesting paper he has now made public the results of
his experiments. First he remarks upon the various
explanations heretofore given :
"The effect produced by table-turners has been referred to
electricity, to magnetism, to attraction, to Nome unknown or
hitherto unrecognised physical power able to affect inanimate
bodies—to the revolution of the earth, and even to diabolical or
supernatural agency. The natural philosopher can investigate
all these supposed causes but the last ; that must, to biro, he too
notch connected with credulity or superstition to require any
attention on his part."

In order to test the accuracy of these several solutions,
Faraday then describes a variety of apparatus employed
and experiments tried. The results led him to the con-
clusion that, among the many hypotheses suggested, the
most feasible was that which assigned some involuntary,
or quasi involuntary, muscular action as the sole source
of the observed motions. Upon this point he multiplied
and diversified his experiments considerably :

"The rind point was to prevent the mind of the turner having
an undue influence over the effects produced in relation to the
nature of the substances employed. A bundle of plates, con-
Fisting of sandpaper, millboard, glue, glass, plastic clay, tin-
foil, cardboard, gutta-percha, vulcanised caoutchoue, wood, and
resinous cement, was therefore made up and tied together, and
being placed on a table, under the hand of a turner, did not pre-
vent the transmission of the !bower; the table turned or moveil
exactly us if the bundle had been away, to the full satisfact*
of all present. The experiment was repeated, with various
substances and persons, and at various times, with constant
success."
The ground being thus cleared, and the fact proved
that there was nothing in the nature of the body acted on
or interposed in the action, or in its magnetic, electric, etc.,
condition, which affected the result, the next point 'could
be safely attacked, viz., whether in the general pheno-
mena of table-moving it was the imposed hands which
moved the table or the table which moved the hands, after
being itself set in motion by some distinct influence. To
decide this question a simple arrangement of levers was
contrived, by which, if the hands moved first, or even
pressed in any direction laterally, an index would traverse
from left to right; if, on the other hand, the motion ori-
ginated in the table itself, the index movement would be
reversed. On applying this apparatus the singular result
was manifested that, while the parties operating sato the
index, it remained very steady; when it was hidden from
them, or they looked away from it. it wavered about,
though they believed that they always pressed directly
downward; and when the table did nut move there was
still a resultant of hand-force in the direction in which it
was wished the table should move, which, however, was
exercised quite unwittingly by the persons operating.
The fact that all the motion observable is due to in-
voluntary muscular aetion,-.0 a pressure exerted when

i •