Part 32

Space will not permit a dissertation here on the particular curve required. This has, I believe, been carefully calculated in constructing the Crystal Palace orchestra. Viewed from a distance, the whole orchestra is curiously like a huge wide-opened mouth that only requires to close a little and open a little more, according to the articulations of the choir, to represent the vocal effort of one gigantic throat.

There is, I think, one fault in the shape of this mouth. It extends too far laterally in proportion to its perpendicular dimensions. The angles of the mouth are too acute; the choir extends too far on each side. The singers should be packed more like those of the Birmingham Festival Choir.

There is an acoustic limit to the magnitude of choirs. Sound travels at about 1100 feet per second, and thus, if one of the singers of a choir is 110 feet nearer than another singer to any particular auditor, the near singer will be heard one-tenth of a second before the more distant, though they actually sing exactly together. In rapid staccato passages this would produce serious confusion, though in such music as most of Handel’s it would be scarcely observable.

Some observations which I have made convince me that the actual choir of the Handel Festivals has reached, if not exceeded, the acoustic limits even for Handel’s music, and decidedly exceeds the limits permissible for Mendelsshon and most other composers.

I found that when standing on the floor of the building in front of the orchestra, and on one side, I could plainly distinguish the wave of difference of time due to the traveling of the sound, and in all the passages which required to be taken up smartly and simultaneously by the opposite sides of the choir, the effect was very disagreeable.

The defect, however, was not observable from the press gallery, which is placed as nearly as may be to the focus of the orchestral curve, so that radial lines drawn from the auditor to different parts of the orchestra do not differ so much in length as to effect perceptible differences in the moment at which the different sounds reach the ear.

My conclusion, therefore, is that if any amendment is to be made in the numbers of the Handel Festival choir, it should rather be done by a reduction than an increase; that the four thousand voices should rather be reduced to three thousand than increased to five thousand. With greater severity of selection as regards quality, power, and training of each individual voice, and with better packing, the three thousand would be more effective than the four thousand.

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM.

A rather startling paper in the current number of the “Quarterly Journal of Science,” from the pen of William Crookes, F.R.S. (who is well known in the scientific world by his discovery of the metal thallium, his investigations of its properties and those of its compounds, besides many other important researches, and also as the able and spirited editor of the Chemical News), is now the subject of much scientific gossip and discussion.

Mr. Crookes has for some time past been engaged in investigating some of the phenomena which are attributed on one hand to the agency of spiritual visitors, and on the other side to vulgar conjuring. Nobody acquainted with Mr. Crookes can doubt his ability to conduct such an investigation, or will hesitate for a moment in concluding that he has done so with philosophical impartiality, though many think it quite possible that he may have been deceived. None, however, can yet say how.

For my own part, I abstain from any conclusion in the meantime, until I have time and opportunity to witness a repetition of some of these experiments, and submitting them to certain tests which appear to me desirable. Though struggling against a predisposition to prejudge, and to conclude that the phenomena are the results of some very skillful conjuring, I very profoundly respect the moral courage that Mr. Crookes has displayed in thus publicly grappling with a subject which has been soiled by contact with so many dirty fingers. Nothing but a pure love of truth, overpowering every selfish consideration, could have induced Mr. Crookes to imperil his hard-earned scientific reputation by stepping thus boldly on such very perilous ground.

It is only fair, at the outset, to state that Mr. Crookes is not what is called “a spiritualist.” This I infer, both from what he has published and from conversation I have had with him on the subject. He has witnessed some of the “physical manifestations,” and, while admitting that many of these may be produced by the jugglery of impostors, he has concluded that others cannot be thus explained; but, nevertheless, does not accept the spiritual theory which attributes them to the efforts of departed human souls.

He suspects that the living human being may have the power of exerting some degree of force or influence upon bodies external to himself—may, for instance, be able to counteract or increase the gravitation of substances by an effort of the will. He calls this power the “psychic force,” and supposes that some persons are able to manifest it much more powerfully than others, and thus explains the performances of those “mediums” who are not mere impostors.

There is nothing in this hypothesis which the sternest, the most sceptical, and least imaginative of physical philosophers may not unhesitatingly investigate, provided some first-sight evidence of its possibility is presented to him. We know that the Torpedo, the Gymnotus, the Silurus Electricus, and other fishes, can, by an effort of the will, act upon bodies external to themselves. Faraday showed that the electric eel exhibited some years ago at the Adelaide Gallery was able, by an effort of its will, to make a magnetic needle suddenly turn thirty degrees aside from its usual polar position; that this same animal could—still by an effort of will—overpower the gravitation of pieces of gold leaf, cause them to be uplifted and outstretched from their pendent position, could decompose iodide of potassium, and perform many other “physical manifestations,” simply by a voluntary nervous effort, and without calling in the aid of any souls of other departed eels.

Before this gymnotus was publicly exhibited it was deposited at a French hotel in the neighborhood of Leicester Square. A burly fishmonger’s man, named Wren, brought in the daily supply of fish to the establishment, when some of the servants told him they had an eel so large that he would be afraid to pick it up. He laughed at the idea of being afraid of an eel, and when taken to the tub boldly plunged in both hands to seize the fish. A hideous roar followed this attempt. Wren had experienced a demonstration of the “psychic force” of the electrical eel, and his terror so largely exaggerated the actual violence of the shock, that he believed for the remainder of his life that he was permanently injured by it. He had periodical spasms across the chest, which could only be removed by taking a half-quartern of gin. As he was continually narrating his adventure to public-house audiences, and always had a spasm on concluding, which his hearers usually contributed to relieve, the poor fellow’s life was actually shortened by the shock from the gymnotus.

The experiments which Mr. Crookes relates in support of his psychic force hypothesis are as follows:—In the first place he contrived an apparatus for testing Mr. Home’s alleged power of modifying the gravitation of bodies. As Mr. Home requires to lay his hands, or at least his finger-ends, upon the body to be influenced, Mr. Crookes attached one end of a long board to a suspended spring steelyard of delicate construction; the other end of the board rested on a fulcrum in such a manner that one half of the weight of the board was supported by the fulcrum and the other half by the steelyard. The weight of the board thus suspended was carefully noted, and then Mr. Home put his fingers upon that end of the board immediately resting on the fulcrum in such a manner that he could not by simple pressure affect the dependent end of the board.

Dr. Huggins, the eminent astronomer, was present, and also Serjeant Cox, besides Mr. Crookes. They all watched Mr. Home, the board, and the steelyard; they observed first a vibration and fluctuation of the index, and finally that the steelyard indicated an increase of weight amounting to about three pounds. Mr. Crookes tried to produce the same effect by mechanical pressure exerted in a similar manner, but failed to do so. The details of the experiment are fully described and illustrated by an engraving.

Another and still more striking experiment is described. Mr. Crookes purchased a new accordion from Messrs. Wheatstone, and himself constructed a wire cage open at top and bottom, and large enough for the accordion to be suspended within it by holding it over the open top, while the bottom of the cage rested on the floor. The accordion was then handed to Mr. Home, who held it with one hand by the wooden framework of the bottom of the instrument, as shown in an illustrative drawing. The keys were thus hanging downwards and the bellows distended by the weight of the instrument thus pendent. It was then held so that it should be entirely surrounded by the wire-work of the cage, and the results were, as before, watched keenly by Mr. Crookes, Dr. Huggins, and Serjeant Cox. After a while the instrument began to wave about, then the bellows contracted, and the lower part (i.e., the key-board end) rose a little, presently sounds were produced, and finally the instrument played a tune upon itself in obedience, as Mr. Crookes supposes, to the psychic force which Mr. Home exerted upon it.

Before the publication of the paper describing these experiments a proof was sent to both Dr. Huggins and Serjeant Cox, and each has written a letter testifying to its accuracy, which letters are printed with the paper in the “Quarterly Journal of Science.”

Here, then, we have the testimony of an eminent lawyer, accustomed to sifting evidence, that of the most distinguished of experimental astronomers, the man whose discoveries in celestial physics have justly excited the admiration of the whole civilized world; and besides these, of another Fellow of the Royal Society, who has been severely trained in “putting nature to the torture” by means of the most subtle devices of the modern physical and chemical laboratory.

Such testimony must not be treated lightly. It would be simple impertinence for any man dogmatically to assert that these have been deceived merely because he is unconvinced.

Though one of the unconvinced myself, I would not dare to regard the investigations of these gentlemen with any other than the profoundest respect. Still a suggestion occurs to me which may appear very brutal, but I make it nevertheless. It is this:—That the testimony of another witness—of an expert of quite a different school—should have been added. I mean such a man as Döbler, Houdin, or the Wizard of the North. He might possibly have detected something which escaped the scrutiny of the legitimate scientific experimentalist.

There is one serious defect in the accordion experiment. The cage is represented in the engraving as placed under a table; Mr. Home holds the instrument in his hand, which is concealed by the table, and it does not appear that either Mr. Crookes, Dr. Huggins, or Serjeant Cox placed themselves under the table during the concertina performance, and thus neither of them saw Mr. Home’s hand. Such, at least, appears from the description and the engraving. A story being commonly circulated respecting some of Mr. Home’s experiments in Russia, according to which he failed entirely when a glass table was provided instead of a wooden one, it would be well, if only in justice to Mr. Home, to get rid of the table altogether.

It is very desirable that these experiments should be continued, for two distinct reasons; first, as a matter of ordinary investigation for philosophical purposes, and, secondly, as a means of demolishing the most degrading superstition of this generation.

If Mr. Crookes succeeds in demonstrating the existence of the psychic force and reducing it to law—as it must be reducible if it is a force—then the ground will be cut from under the feet of spiritualism, just as the old superstitions, which attributed thunder and lightning to Divine anger, were finally demolished by Franklin’s kite. If, on the other hand, the arch-medium, Mr. Home, is proved to be a common conjuror, then surely the dupes of the smaller “mediumistic” fry will have their eyes opened, provided the cerebral disturbance which spiritualism so often induces has not gone so far as to render them incurable lunatics.

It is very likely that I shall be accused of gross uncharitableness in thus applying the term lunatic to “those who differ from me,” and therefore state that I have sad and sufficient reasons for doing so.

The first spiritualist I ever knew, and with whom I had many conferences on the subject many years ago, was a lady of most estimable qualities, great intellectual attainments, and distinguished literary reputation. I watched the beginning and the gradual progress of her spiritual “investigations,” as she called them, and witnessed the melancholy end—shocking delusions, intellectual shipwreck, and confirmed, incurable insanity, directly and unmistakably produced by the action of these hideous superstitions upon an active, excitable imagination.

I well remember the growing symptoms of this case, have seen their characteristic features repeated in others, and have now before me some melancholy cases where the same changes, the same decline of intellect and growth of ravenous credulity, is progressing with most painfully visible distinctness.