Chapter I

of the present book. Dr. Crawford himself seems to be regarding his tests from the point of view of Mass alone and to be thinking that he is on the track of a new kind of Matter; but his results fit in still better with the long-established facts of levitation and with the new doctrine of Motion that is fast being accepted in Progressive Circles. It is difficult to believe that a living woman can be deprived of a considerable portion of her Mass without sustaining serious physiological injury. It is also difficult to believe that the removed Mass when laid on the floor or on the drawing-board can be invisible. But there is not any difficulty at all in supposing Motion to have been removed from the medium, the chair, the drawing-board and the platform, without any change of either visibility or appearance in any of the entities concerned. When water at 70° Fahr. is cooled down to 50° Fahr. it loses a something we call heat, but the human eye cannot detect any difference in the liquid. When a bowled cricket ball is arrested by the bat it loses a something we call sensible motion, but its outward appearance remains unvaried. We need not therefore expect a human body or a chair to look otherwise than as usual simply because it loses some or all of its latent Motion.

That the knowledge here discussed may be applied practically and that material substances may thus be rendered weightless and so removed from the influence of gravitation is not a mere theory. It is an actual fact: levitation occurs. What now remains to be done is to harness the acquired knowledge and experience into the service of aerial navigation. Certain Progressive Circles are at work. Whether success will be achieved first by Dr. Crawford in his Goligher laboratory, or by Mr. Edison in his “spook factory” where the workmen agree to become recluses for a period of many months, or by the capable director of the still more mysterious establishments in Florence where many a medium has been passed under review during the last two years, or by, haply, some other investigator of whom the present writer has not yet heard, is a matter that must for the time being be allowed to rest on the knees of the gods. What has already been accomplished in public and the remarkable advances now taking place privately are a sufficient answer to the question _Cui bono?_ Speaking with the dead is a practice that is proving of benefit to England and the world at large.

SCIENS.

HOW TO SPEAK WITH THE DEAD

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