Science and Psychical Research

Abstract

I WOULD like to thank Mr. Campbell Swinton for his letter criticising my article on “Science and Psychical Research” in NATURE for July 31 last. With what he says on the subject of spiritualism I agree almost entirely; but I had hoped that my article drew a clear distinction between spiritualism and psychical research. Unfortunately, the two are evidently confounded in Mr. Swinton's mind, though they are as distinct as, let us say, astrology is from astronomy, or alchemy from chemistry. If a physicist thought of taking up astronomy, would he read up a text-book of astrology to gain his first ideas of the subject? Or if he desired to study chemistry, would he begin with a history of alchemy? Yet this is just what such a man would be doing who thought to find in a book like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's the elements of psychical research. Let me recommend to Mr. Swinton instead the careful perusal of Prof. Charles Richet's work “Thirty Years of Psychical Research.”