The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-05-11

the case Of Lieut.. Raymond Lodge fills
work Of 400 pages by his father.
1t does not serve to account. as
kindly but hasty sceptics have done,
for the Lodge and Doyle statements
by natural credulity born OF parental
sorrow, since both these writers were
believers long before. Conan Doyle
was on record as an amateur investi-
gator from his medical student days,
and his heraldings of a new revela-
ton" seem to have been written before
his son was killed.
While Sir Oliver Lodge presumably
views the Raymond case, as proof,
only as cap-sheaf to a great stock
Of earlier and clinching evidence, he
explains that he publishes II in spite
Of the pain OF exposing his family
grief and its alienation to scoffers, for
the comfort other mourners can derive
from it. And Conan Doyle observes:
THE clear call for our help comes
from those who have had loss and
yearn to reestablish connection.
. I am in touch with thirteen
mothers who are in correspondence
with their dead sons 1T has since ap-
peared in the news that he is in touch
with twenty-four. and that only two
such attempts to communicate have
falled.l In only one case. so
far as know, was the parent ac-
quainted with psychic matters before
the war"
There you have the stronger of two
reasons why the war has so changed
the attitude Of so many English homes
toward psychic matters In this
country. heavy as the A e. r. losses
proportionally were. we do not know
what casualties are. by comparison
with England.
The other reason, operating where
there was no personal bereavement,
is the wars general sharpening Of
the human craving for a faith In the
unknown beyond the grave.
This article is no argument, pro or
con. Of the proposition that the dead
survive and their spirits communi-
cate with us; and the various rela-
tionship of scientific spirituallsm and
orthodox religions are outside its field
1t is simply a reporters birdseye view
pie heretofore indifferent.
AS a matter of reporting, It can be
noted that modern study OF the su-
pernormal arose in circumstances
somewhat like the present ones, to the
extent that in the '70s and sos many
men Of conscience. intellect and sci
entific training felt a desperate need
Of a faith in a future life which they
could accept. This also was because
of a war, of what Andrew D. White
has called "the warfare between sci
ence and theology" Any one reading
the history Of scientific spirituaiism
will notice that organized research,
and impressive conversions among
sceptical experimenters, began soon
after Darwinism had challenged the
strictest orthodoxy and while the pop
ular conflict was in full swing, bitter
with a bitterness which the younger
generations Of to-day can scarcely re-
alize.
The often cited list of converts and
believers includes the names OF Sir
William Crookes. the great physicist
and chemist, recently died, Alfred
Russell Wallace (who. by the way, Is
credited Jointly with his rival. Darwin,
with the thesis OF biological evolu-
tion), DIR. James Richet Camille F'lam-
marion, the celebrated French astron-
omer, Cesare Lombroso, the Italian
criminologist. Sir William F. Barrett,
a distinguished physicist, and others
of corresponding rank outside the
physical sciences. including prominent
representatives OF the British army
and navy and the Church Of Eng
land.
AS the spiritualists argue, II is mel
Their good sense nor good manners to
rate such a constellation OF such men
as lunatics, liars, fools or unqualified
witnesses The intelligent sceptie
casts about for some better explana-
ton OF their belief. One Of these ex-
plantations IL they an had natures pre-