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102 CRITICAL NOTICES: without inquiry into the means by which their condemnation was secured. Public curiosity must content itself with assurances that all the high priests of Science concur in the condemnation and regard all discussion of the case as fraught with the gravest danger to the republic, that their existence is avouched only by a conspiring syndicate of all the superstitions, and that to doubt the infallibility of the very summary court martial which relegated them to the company of Beelzebub in the ' Island of the Devil/ in the time and under the logical auspices of David Hume, is high treason to Science and subversive of the whole natural order of the universe. Such are the sentiments of the conservative party which would rather run the risk of sacrificing a little inopportune truth than upset men's minds and the authority of Science, and which, needless to say, is full of honourable men actuated by a sincere sense of public duty. Yet they would do well to recognise the existence, on the other side, of a growing number of " intel- lectuals " who are convinced of the necessity of a revision of the wholesale condemnation of these phenomena. These 'revisionists' are not without their internal differences ; some demand revision as a matter of policy, others as compliance with the principle of fiat justitia mat coelum (though they probably do not believe that the heavens would fall or the order of nature be subverted by the recognition of any fact however strange) ; some believe that much new truth may be learned from inquiries which others expect only to extend our knowledge of the nature and possibilities of human error. But they agree that the doubts which existed in the public conscience as to the treatment which this side of experience had received in the past could be removed, not by assertions and de- nunciations a priori, but only by a serious and sustained investiga- tion in detail. And so they organised themselves in 1882 into the Society for Psychical Eesearch, in which Mr. Podmore has been from the first a most active and valuable member. He is consequently one of the very few who are (or ever have been) entitled to speak with authority on the subject, and his pronounce- ments appear to all the greater advantage by reason of the manner in which they are put forth. For Mr. Podmore has produced a singularly interesting survey of his subject, written in a lucid and effective style and adorned with many terse and caustic phrases. His results are briefly these Spiritualism is a religious rather than a scientific movement, and its votaries are in general little concerned to assist in a scientific study of their ' experiences '. Their ' mediums' are without exception detected cheats, and more- over just now hardly any are available, while their exhibitions do not present even a primd facie case for investigation. The stronger evidence for past marvels is ingeniously minimised. The Dialectical Society's Eeport is criticised for not giving the names of the sub-committee which succeeded in table-turning without contact. Zollner is regarded as a victim of Slade's conjuring tricks, and as having given him opportunities for fraudulent