Alfred Russel Wallace : Alfred Wallace : A. R. Wallace :
Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)
Eusapia Palladino (S520a: 1896)
Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: A letter to the Editor of the Daily Chronicle printed on page
three of its 24 January 1896 issue. To link directly to this page connect with:
http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S520A.htm
Sir,--As your reviewer, in noticing the new and
enlarged edition of my book on "Miracles and Modern Spiritualism," has
confined his remarks to my record of Prof. Oliver Lodge's experiences
with Eusapia Palladino, perhaps you will permit me to state that the whole
body of the work was printed before that medium came to Cambridge; and,
further, that I consider the Cambridge experiments, so far as they are
recorded, only prove that Eusapia might have deceived, not that
she actually and consciously did so. And even if she did cheat
at Cambridge, that fact in no way gets rid of the genuine phenomena previously
witnessed and tested by a large number of eminent men of science. In a
letter dated Nov. 2, 1895, and printed in Light last Saturday,
Prof. Lodge says:--"Eusapia has shown that she employs artifice and deceives;
so much is certain. She has just as certainly shown that she can cause
genuine phenomena. That is my opinion." Professor Richet, who has had
a far more extended experience with the medium than any of the Cambridge
observers, in a long letter to Mr. Myers, published in the "Journal of
the Society for Physical Research" of December last, declares that nothing
new was proved at Cambridge, that all the signs of fraud were known to
himself and all the other Continental observers, and that this knowledge
was communicated to Messrs. Lodge and Myers. Yet, in spite of this knowledge,
both these gentlemen were convinced that the phenomena witnessed by them
in France were genuine, as also are Professor Richet and Professor Chiaia,
of Naples, who has investigated the phenomena occurring with Eusapia for
ten years. Thirty years' experience of analogous phenomena, with many
mediums and under the most varied conditions, leads me to accept confidently
the conclusions of those inquirers who have devoted the most time and
thought to the investigation.
Jan. 22.
Alfred R. Wallace.
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