, 1877-01-20

man ne would choose u I6It III Inquiries VI lHlS
kind. He had wasted time in which might
have been done good scientific work, simply
because after having-as he had always made
it his duty to do in times gone by, when he did
thoroughly investigate these things-allowed
himself the first time to be led, he
would for the second seance devise tests, and
would find either that the things did not
happen at all, Or that he was able to detect
a fraud. He was obliged to make one
other point of a general character. He was
sorry for a large proportion of his audience
to make it, but no medical man would object
to it-nameIy, that their is in the female sex
a tendency 10 a sort of enthusiastic yielding to
these views, which makes them lend them
selves unwitlingly, unconsciously to deception.
In fact, in these inquiries one must be on
ones guard even against members of ones
own family. Every medical man knew one
common form of deception in families PIE.
tended sickness and many a doctor Who ex.
posed it had been morally kicked out of the
house. It w8s not all who had the good
fortune of that eminent practitioner to whom
a married lady sent, asking him to take
medical charge of her family, because many
years before she had admired the accumen
with which he detected her own imposition.
We must begin with a knowledge Of. the
common tendencies to self.deoeption and
international deception, and it was only when
these two factors were completely eliminated
that We need begin to investigate in a scientific
mode. Then we must remember the difference
between things and our ideas of things.
Suppose at a seance he saw d small table dance
across the room in front Of q lady. He would
not be able to put down his head and see if she
spported it on one foot and danced across the
room on the other, as any good ballet
dancer could. A friend who believed
once told him of this performance lit was at a
time when large crinolines were worm, and be
suggested enclosing the lower part Of the table
in a case of wire and paper, so that it might
afterwards be observed whether the paper was
broken. His friend said, "If it is done
without disturbing the paper, then what will
you say 2" u will say then" replied DIR.
Carpenter, it is a thing deserving further
investigation. daughter and applause The
paper cage was put round the feet of the
little table, and be never afterwards heard of
it dancing up and down. That test was
sufficient, 10 DR.. Carpenters mind, to dispose
of that particular CASE. But each case must
be investigated on its merits, and tests dew Used
for each particular thing. DIR. Carpenter then
referred to the explanation of table-turning as
the result of involuntary muscular action, as
explained in a Friday evening lecture at the
Royal Institution by himself, and approved by
Faraday, who afterwards was induced By the
Royal Society 10 make the experiments, which
conducted him again to the same conclusion.
Faraday devised an index to show the
lateral motion of the hands. When those
who sat at the table saw this index
move, they restrained the lateral action
of the hands Involuntary begun, and in
these circumstances the table never went round.
To show the necessity of strict investigation,
DIR Carpenter related that a lady told him she
had seen a light table in her drawing room go
round without being touched by hands. But
he found on inquiry that she had in perfect good
faith omitted to mention that a hat was placed
upon it, and that this hat was toached by hands
in the usual way. A gentleman asked DR..
Carpenter to come and see a table which be.
came light and heavy at the will of a person
who stood in another part Of the room. But
the gentleman's brother wrote to tell Dr..
Carpenter that the hands of two persons were
openly placed on the table, and that it was
through the pressure of their hands it became
light and heavy. His friend had in good faith
omitted this important particular. Robert
Houdin did a like trick by alternately making
and unmaking a magnet by which the table
was held to the floor and to the Arab on
whom the trick was played, and who tried to
lift the table, put it in the form of taking away
or restoring bis (the Arab'sJ strength. DR..
Carpenter recommended TO his hearers a little
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