The theology of spirits, of course, is neither here nor there.  A ‘spirit’ will say anything or everything.  But Mr. C. C. Massey when he saw a chair move at a word (and even without one), in the presence of such a double-dyed impostor as Slade, had as much right to believe his own eyes as M. de Gasparin, and what he saw does not square with M. de Gasparin’s private ‘Trewth’.  The chair in Mr. Massey’s experience, was ‘unattached’ to a piece of string; it fell, and, at request, jumped up again, and approached Mr. Massey, ’just as if some one had picked it up in order to take a seat beside me’. {319a}

Such were the idola specus, the private personal prepossessions of M. de Gasparin, undeniably an honourable man.  Now, in 1877, his old adversary, Dr. Carpenter, C.B., M.D., LL.D, F.R.S., F.G.S., V.P.L.S., corresponding member of the Institute of France, tout ce qu’il y a de plus officiel, de plus decore, returned to the charge.  He published a work on Mesmerism, Spiritualism, etc. {319b} Perhaps the unscientific reader supposes that Dr. Carpenter replied to the arguments of M. de Gasparin?  This would have been sportsmanlike, but no, Dr. Carpenter firmly ignored them!  He devoted three pages to table-turning (pp. 96, 97, 98).  He exhibited Mr. Faraday’s little machine for detecting muscular pressure, a machine which would also detect pressure which is not muscular.  He explained answers given by tilts, answers not consciously known to the operators, as the results of unconscious cerebration.  People may thus get answers which they do expect, or answers which they do not expect, as may happen.  But not one word did Dr. Carpenter say to a popular audience at the London Institution about M. de Gasparin’s assertion, and the assertion of M. de Gasparin’s witnesses, that motion had been observed without any contact at all.  He might, if he pleased, have alleged that M. de Gasparin and the others fabled; or that they were self-hypnotised, or were cheated, but he absolutely ignored the evidence altogether.  Now this behaviour, if scientific, was hardly quite sportsmanlike, to use a simple British phrase which does credit to our language and national character.  Mr. Alfred Wallace stated a similar conclusion as to Dr. Carpenter’s method of argument, in language of some strength.  ’Dr. Carpenter,’ he said, ’habitually gives only one side of the question, and completely ignores all facts which tell against his theory.’ {320} Without going so far as Mr. Wallace, and alleging that what Dr. Carpenter did in the case of M. de Gasparin, he did ‘habitually,’ we may briefly examine some portions of his book which, perhaps, leave something to be desired.  It is written with much acuteness, with considerable fairness, and is certainly calculated to convince any reader who has not been perplexed by circumstances on which Dr. Carpenter throws little light.