Psychic force and modern spiritualism : a reply to the "Quarterly review" and other critics / by William Crookes.
- William Crookes
- Date:
- 1871
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Psychic force and modern spiritualism : a reply to the "Quarterly review" and other critics / by William Crookes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![The following parallel passages show that my reviewer and myself differ but little in our estimates of the qualities required for scientific investigation. (Quarterly Journal of Science, July, 1870.; “ It will be of service if I here illus¬ trate the modes of thought current among those who investigate science, and say what kind of experimental proof science has a right to demand before admitting a new department of knowledge into her ranks. We must not mix up the exaCt and the inexaCt. The supremacy of accuracy must be absolute.” . . . “ The first requisite is to be sure of facts ; then to ascer¬ tain conditions; next, laws. Accu¬ racy and knowledge of detail stand foremost amongst the great aims of modern scientific men. No observa¬ tions are of much use to the student of science unless they are truthful and made under test conditions.” . . . “ In investigations which so completely baffle the ordinary ob¬ server, the thorough scientific man has a great advantage. He has fol¬ lowed science from the beginning through a long line of learning; and he knows, therefore, in what direc¬ tion it is leading; he knows that there are dangers on one side, uncer¬ tainties on another, and almost abso¬ lute certainty on a third ; he sees to a certain extent in advance. But, where every step is towards the mar¬ vellous and unexpected, precautions and tests should be multiplied rather than diminished.” . . . “ Inves¬ tigators must work; although their work may be very small in quantity if only compensation be made by its intrinsic excellence.” The review is so full of perverse, prejudiced, or unwarranted mis-statements, that it is impossible to take note of them all. Passing over a number I had marked for animadversion, I must restrain myself to exemplifying a few of them. The reviewer says that in my paper of July, 1870, my conclusion was “ based on evidence which I admitted to be scientifically incomplete.” Now in that paper I gave no experimental evidence whatever. After testifying emphatically as to the genuineness of two of the phenomena, I gave an outline of certain tests which in my opinion ought to be applied, and, in a foot note, I said that my preliminary tests in this direction had been satisfactory. Is this admitting that I had not employed such tests ? Is it fair to say that my results were “based on evidence which I admitted to be scientifically incomplete ?” CQuarterly Review, Oct., 1871.J “ Part at least of this predisposi¬ tion” [towards spiritualism] “de¬ pends on the deficiency of early scien¬ tific training. Such training ought to include—1. The acquirement of habits of correCt observation of tbe phenomena daily taking place around us ; 2. The cultivation of the power of reasoning upon these phenomena, so as to arrive at general principles by the inductive process ; 3. The study of the method of testing the validity of such inductions by experiment; and 4. The deductive application of principles thus acquired to the pre¬ diction of phenomena which can be verified by observation.”](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3057075x_0011.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
