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HPB-SB-10-479: Difference between revisions
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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Sir,- In my letter which you published...|10-478}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |Sir,- In my letter which you published...|10-478}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|from what I considered an unfair attack, I find that I made use of words which are held to involve an accusation of wilful untruth against Mr. Massey. This was not my meaning. I wished to imply that while, ''in that matter'', Mr. Fletcher was quite free from blame, the accusation was made and supported in a way which I and many others thought both unfair and reprehensible. Inasmuch as my words go beyond this meaning, I willingly and unreservedly retract them and apologise to Mr. Massey for having hastily written them.}} | ||
I have not at hand the numbers of the ''Spiritualist'' containing the controversy, and must therefore defer an exact statement of what I consider so especially reprehensible till next week. But I may now clear the way by a few remarks on the expression which was the subject of the accusation and controversy. The words used were (as I am informed on good authority)—“If American mediums have ruined Spiritualism, I will do my best to uplift it, &c., &c.;” and this was said to be an attack on Slade, because he was the latest American medium who had been accused of imposture. But everyone knows (or ought to know) that almost all popular notions of Spiritualism in England and almost all the obloquy it has endured, have been derived from American mediums. Mrs. Hayden, Mr. Foster, Mr. Home, and the Davenport Brothers, have all been treated as impostors for the last twenty years, and theirs are the names most constantly referred to by Dr. Carpenter and others in their attacks on Spiritualism. More recently, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes were “exposed” by a body of London Spiritualists, and afterwards in America another alleged “exposure” of the same mediums led to the celebrated declaration of R. D. Owen, which did so much harm to the cause. Then we had Mrs. Fay, whose sensational performances were so violently attacked by Dr. Carpenter, and her “exposer,” Mr. Bishop, supposed by some to have been medium and juggler combined. Surely here is an ample list of American mediums whose doings have injured the cause of Spiritualism in England, and it was to the last four or some of them that I and many other Spiritualists at once understood Mr. Fletcher to refer; yet he was accused of meaning to insult Slade, of whom he was known by his friends to think very highly! The facts I have stated above being so well known, Mr. Fletcher very properly refused to mention names, but he ''did'' deny that he referred to Slade, and that ought to have closed the controversy. Although myself a friend of Mr. Slade and one who gave evidence in his favour, I can yet fully endorse Mr. Fletcher’s statement—that Spiritualism in England owes much of its bad repute to American mediums—not, as I believe, on account of their own bad conduct, but due rather to errors of judgment, and to the prevailing ignorance of the laws and conditions of spiritual phenomena even among Spiritualists themselves. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Alfred R. Wallace.}} | |||
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... | Sir,—I have read with dismay Mr. Wallace’s letter which you printed in your issue of September 24th, for I feel as though I had sustained a personal loss through the blow which that letter gives to the estimate in which I have held the judgment of its distinguished writer. | ||
The suggestion that the accusation of “wilful untruth and exposure” is properly “applicable to Mr. Fletcher’s opponent” is too ridiculous to be seriously discussed by any one who has taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with what Mr. Massey has accomplished during the last four years’ work, which has over and over again given evidence of a sensitive loyalty which has led Mr. Massey almost over the bounds of legitimate self-sacrifice. Mr. Massey’s fair fame may well be left to take care of itself, and indeed it would be as great an impertinence to defend as it is to assail it. If, as I strongly suspect, Mr. Wallace wrote carelessly and without appreciating the force of the words that he used, I think that he owes it to himself to admit manfully that such is the case. | |||
But that which dismays me—a somewhat sceptical though much interested observer—is the damage which Mr. Wallace has inflicted upon his own reputation—a reputation which is of the highest possible value to those who concern themselves with the facts and theories with which his name is associated. That so eminent an observer should have considered “with great care” the evidence given in the matter in dispute and yet have written the letter which I have just read, is little less than disastrous. It really suggests a doubt, not unfrequently suggested, both by friends and opponents, in reference to psychological studies, whether “scientific men,” however illustrious, are not often found to be strangely deficient in the power of appreciating the value of evidence in matters in which the exact testimony of the senses is unattainable. | |||
The dispute, if it deserves the name, is too long for me to discuss fully in your columns, but, to put a common-sense test, I would ask your readers whether any moderately well informed person who read Mr. Fletcher’s remarks which commenced the controversy, could or did understand them as referring to any person except Mr. Slade. Mr. Fletcher was taxed over and over again with referring to Mr. Slade, and after a good deal of beating about the bush he at last took refuge in a bare denial, which carried the case no further than it was before. Such a denial of a meaning which, and which alone, fitted the questioned words was worthless, unless accompanied by such explanation as it was possible for a reasonable man to accept. The failure to give such explanation on the part of the accused person resulted, for all practical purposes, in “conviction,” and I cannot see how either Mr. Massey or yourself could have arrived at any other conclusion upon the facts which were made public. | |||
Every one will agree with Mr. Wallace’s dislike of the personalities to which he alludes, but he must remember that in this case an attack, as improper as it was gratuitous, had been deliberately made public, and that it at once became the duty of Mr. Slade’s supporters to meet and crush it as publicly as it had been made. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Lex.}} | |||
Lincoln’s Inn, September 25th. | |||
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... | Sir,—In his letter to the ''Irish Times'' (copied into your paper this week) “Anti-Spiritualist” records a phenomenon too likely to be overlooked in estimating the value of his testimony. He tells us “a dog … was found to ''be perfectly saturated with perspiration'', and trembling violently”—from fright at the freaks of spirits. As no dog ever was, or ever could be, “saturated with perspiration,” (being an animal that does not perspire through the skin) we have here an amusing instance of the imaginative touches too often, I am afraid, added to descriptions of this kind. And this suggests a remark as to the frequently recorded “recognitions” at materialisation ''seances'', where usually the light is much too bad for any distinct perception of features at a little distance. We habitually speak of “the evidence of our senses,” as if the mind or imagination had nothing to do with our perceptions. But in fact, the memory fills up the outlines of every familiar object, when obscurely seen, and makes that appear a perfect sense-picture, of which in truth the most recognisable elements are contributed by the {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-480}} | ||
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