idiocy. To accept them without investigation is weakness and folly. Why seek to press on so eagerly and prematurely into regions to which our poor powers cannot yet attain? The way is full of snares and bottomless pits. The phenomena we are treating in these pages do not perhaps throw new light upon the solution of the great problem of immortality, but they invite us to remember that there are in man elements to study, to determine, to analyze,—elements still unexplained, and which belong to the psychic realm.

"There has been much talk about Spiritualism in connection with these phenomena. Some of its defenders have thought to strengthen it by supporting it on so weak a basis as that. The scoffers have thought they could positively ruin the creed of the psychics, and, hurling it from its base, bury it under a fallen wardrobe (l'éboulement d'une armoire).[2] Now the first-named have rather compromised than assisted the cause: the others have not overturned it after all. Even if it should be proved that Spiritualism consists only of tricks of legerdemain, the belief in the existence of souls separate from the body would not be affected in the slightest degree. Besides, the deceptions of mediums do not prove that they are always tricky. They only put us on our guard, and induce us to keep a stern watch upon them.

"As to the psychological question of the soul and the analysis of spiritual forces, we are just where chemistry was at the time of Albert the Great: we don't know.

"Can we not then keep the golden mean between negation, which denies all, and credulity, which accepts all? Is it rational to deny everything that we cannot understand, or, on the contrary, to believe all the follies that morbid imaginations give birth to, one after another? Can we not possess at once the humility which becomes the weak and the dignity which becomes the strong?

"I end this plea, as I began it, by declaring that it is not for the sake of the brothers Davenport, nor of any sect, nor of any group, nor, in short, of any person whatever, that I have entered the lists of controversy, but solely for the sake of facts the reality of which I ascertained several years ago, without having discovered their cause. However, I have no reason to fear that those who do not know me will take a fancy to misrepresent my thought; and I think that those who are acquainted with me know that I am not accustomed to swing a censer in any one's honor. I repeat for the last time: I am not concerned with individuals. My mind seeks the truth, and recognizes it wherever it finds it. 'Gallus escam quærens margaritam reperit.'"[3]

A certain number of my readers have been for some time kindly expressing a wish for a new edition of this early book. But strictly speaking I could not do this without considerably enlarging my original plan and composing an entirely new work. The daily routine of my astronomical labors has constantly hindered me from devoting myself to that task. The starry heaven is a vast and absorbing field of work, and it is difficult to turn aside (even for a relaxation in itself scientific) from the exacting claims of a science which goes on developing unceasingly at a most prodigious rate.

Still, the present work may be considered as, in a sense, an enlarged edition of the earlier one. The foregoing citation of a little book written for the purpose of proving the existence of unknown forces in nature has seemed to me necessary here; useful in this new volume, brought out for the same purpose after more than forty years of study, since it may serve to show the continuity and consistent development of my thought on the subject.

MYSTERIOUS PSYCHIC FORCES

CHAPTER I

ON CERTAIN UNKNOWN NATURAL FORCES

I purpose to show in this book what truth there is in the phenomena of table-turnings, table-movings, and table-rappings, in the communications received therefrom, in levitations that contradict the laws of gravity, in the moving of objects without contact, in unexplained noises, in the stories told of haunted houses,—all to be considered from the physical and mechanical point of view. Under all the just mentioned heads we can group material facts produced by causes still unknown to science, and it is with these physical phenomena that we shall specially occupy ourselves here; for the first point is to definitely prove, by sufficient observations, their real existence. Hypotheses, theories, doctrines, will come later.

In the country of Rabelais, of Montaigne, of Voltaire, we are inclined to smile at everything that relates to the marvellous, to tales of enchantment, the extravagances of occultism, the mysteries of magic. This arises from a reasonable prudence. But it does not go far enough. To deny and prejudge a phenomenon has never proved anything. The truth of almost every fact which constitutes the sum of the positive sciences of our day has been denied. What we ought to do is to admit no unverified statement, to apply to every subject of study, no matter what, the experimental method, without any preconceived idea whatever, either for or against.

We are dealing here with a great problem, which touches on that of the survival of human consciousness. We may study it, in spite of smiles.

When we consecrate our lives to an idea, useful, noble, exalted, we should not hesitate for a moment to sacrifice personalities; above all, our own self, our interest, our self-esteem, our natural vanity. This sacrifice is a criterion by which I have estimated a good many characters. How many men, how many women, put their miserable little personality above everything else!

If the forces of which we are to treat are real, they cannot but be natural forces. We ought to admit, as an absolute principle, that everything is in nature, even God himself, as I have shown in another work. Before any attempt at theory, the first thing to do is to scientifically establish the real existence of these forces.

Mediumistic experiences might form (and doubtless soon will form) a chapter in physics. Only it is a kind of transcendental physics which touches on life and thought, and the forces in play are pre-eminently living forces, psychic forces.

I shall relate in the following chapter the experiments I made between the years 1861 and 1865, previous to the penning of the protest, reprinted in the long citation above given (in the Introduction). But, since in certain respects they are summed up in those I have just had, in 1906, I will begin by describing the latter in this first chapter.

In fact, I have recently renewed these investigations with a celebrated medium,—Mme. Eusapia Paladino, of Naples, who has been several times in Paris; namely, in 1898, 1905, and, very recently, in 1906. The things I am going to speak of happened in the salon of my home in Paris,—the last ones in full light without any preparation, very simply, as if during after-dinner talks.

Let me add that this medium came to Paris during the first months of the year, 1906, at the invitation of the Psychological Institute, several members of which have been recently engaged in researches begun long ago. Among these savants I will mention the name of the lamented Pierre Curie, the eminent chemist, with