HOME AM) FARADAY.

i-R. HOME is always ready to challenge inquiry as to the •

In spiritual phenomena which attend him, but he is not fortunate in arranging the preliminaries. It so happens that five

years ago, in April or May, 1863, he accepted provisionally the challenge of the editors of this journal to come down to our office and here hold a sjance,—we giving a pledge that we would de- scribe honourably and minutely in our columns whatever phenomena might here occur, whether the office table should ascend in heavy flight to the ceiling, or the editors themselves should be lifted in preternatural ecstasy from the earth where they are but too wont to tread. Mr. llome at that time, as at this, was in " weak health," and while hoping to accept our challenge " in June," was finally compelled by that weak health to leave for the Continent before doing so ; and he never renewed the engagement, though solicited by us so to do. if we remember rightly, Mr. Home also made the doubt which we were compelled to express as to the satisfac- tory character of an explanation tendered by him as to a preter- natural event in his Incidents of .1/y Life which did not seem to us consistent with history, a preliminary ground of difficulty, as evincing a disposition on our part not to treat him fairly. We find, in May, 1868, with great regret, that Mr. home is still in weak health ; that he is still willing to hold a seance "in June" with Dr. Tyndall if his health will allow him ; and that he is still disposed to object to anything in Dr. Tyndall's state of mind which seems to him inconsistent with the spirit of a student of spiritualism. We do not say that this disposition of Mr. Home's, after evincing at first the greatest willingness and even desire for inquiry, to find difficulties iu the preliminaries which even- tually prevent that inquiry, proves his insincerity. But we do say that we think it a matter which bond fide spiritualists and believers in Mr. Home have great reason to regret, that he shows so little disposition to meet the inquiry which he courts. Whatever have been the conditions imposed by Mr. Faraday, on which we shall have occasion to say something further on, we, at least, imposed no conditions at all on Mr. Home. We promised to narrate truthfully and with the most exhaustive accuracy, anything that might happen in any seance held at this office in the columns of the Spectator, without demanding the slightest profession of faith by Mr. Home. We were not in the position of such a man as Faraday, who might fairly ask for some justification for even entering on an inquiry that looked at the first blush like the inves- tigation of a mare's nest. We had no scientific reputation to lose, and were anxious, as human beings, to see some of the class of phenomena vouched for by men so eminent and of a repute so honourable as Professor De Morgan. But Mr. Home's weak health prevented him from gratifying us not only in 1863, before he went abroad, but during the five years which have since elapsed. Yet the phenomena have since continued, they attended him without intermission in the cab in which he went with Mrs. Lyon down to the City when she was about to transfer stock into his name ; but no interval in Mr. Home's weak health has occurred in which he has been able to carry out his first provisional offer to gratify our curiosity as to the nature of the phenomena Which accompany him. Can he wonder that men are apt to say that the spiritual agents in these phenomena are unduly biassed, and are more apt to act when it is profitable to Mr. Home that they should act ? We, for our parts, entirely deny that when we made the offer, we did so in a spirit of indomitable scepticism. We sincerely wished, while of course inclined to disbelieve that any remarkable thing would happen, to see what sort of pheno- mena had arrested the attention of so considerable au intel- lect as Professor De Morgan's,—and if we are now hardened in our scepticism, it is Mr. Home's own disinclination to pro- mote investigation which has made us so. He speaks of Fara- day's " conditions " as unphilosophical prejudgmen!s of the result of a scientific inquiry. We shall see immediately how far they were so. But Mr. Faraday's own philosophical experi- ments were at least not of the kind which were arrested by hos- tile prepossessions on the part of his audience. He might have regretted the hostile prejudice which some of his audience enter- tained as to his theories of electro-magnetism, but he would not the less freely have submitted his scientific evidences, so far as it lay in his own power, to their examination. Still less can we say of the man who knowingly sacrificed great wealth as an analytic chemist to pursue the higher scientific investigations, that he was fortunate in obtaining great results when it was for his own private advantage, but exceedingly unfortunate in being able to arrange even the preliminaries of open inquiry, when the results of that inquiry might possibly have thrown a slur upon his fame. Mr. Home, who, notwithstanding " weak health," finds that spiritual agents are ready to rap their applause even in a cab in motion, when it is in motion towards the City with a prospect of a transfer of stock into his name at the end of the journey, is surely unjust either to his own character, or his unseen friends, or both, when on the ground of ill-health he postpones indefinitely the opportunity, doubtless earnestly desired by his crowd of invisible sup- porters, to convince our minds of their existence and of their activity.

But how about Mr. Faraday's conditions ? Mr. Home's friends, and Mr. Home, relying on his friends, have represented that Mr. Faraday would not investigate unless he had a "programme of the performance previously put into his hands." Mr. Home and his friends, asserting that the phenomena are quite beyond their own power of prediction, would naturally have declined so silly a con- dition, had it ever been made. They even assert that they did decline it, though it was not made, or even hinted. Faraday's letter to Sir Emerson Tenuent has been found, and was published in the Pall Mall of this day week. It consists of a series of questions on which Faraday asks for information before beginning the investigation, but it does not insist on any particular answer to any one of them. His sole condition is that he will not meet any " whose minds are not at liberty to investigate according to the general principles I have expressed,"—the questions themselves being mere modes of eliciting clearly how far these general principles command the adhesion of Mr. Home. The general principles themselves we understand to be as follows :—that all investigators " must consent and desire to be as critical on the matter, and as full of test-investigation in regard to the subject, as any natural philosopher is in respect of the germs of his discoveries." It is clear from the letter that had Mr. Home heartily accepted this principle, and had the replies to Mr. Faraday's queries proved this, Mr. Faraday would have been willing and anxious to join in the investigation. To illustrate this matter, we will suggest answers such as Mr. Home might, so far as concerns his profession of faith, have sincerely given, and which we are sure would amply have satisfied Mr. Faraday. Suppose, for instance, the following answers had been given by the late Mr. Robert Bell to Mr. Faraday's catechism :— Question 1. Who wishes me to go ?—to whose house e—for what purpose ?

Answer. Sir Emerson Tennant, Mr. Home, and I wish it. To Mrs. Crawford Parks' house. For the purpose of investigating to what cause, intelligent or unintelligent, conscious or unconscious, the raps, writings, and other phenomena of spiritualism are due.

Question 2. Does Mr. Home wish me to go? Answer. Yes.

Question 3. Is he willing to investigate as a philosopher, and as such to have no concealments, no darkness, to be open in communication, and to aid inquiry all that he can?

Answer. Certainly no concealments. He courts inquiry. As to "darkness," there are certain of these phenomena which are more remarkable and frequent in the gloom than in the light. But these need not be investigated at all until the phenomena are proved to be at least genuine ; and if they are investigated, Mr. Home is anxious to give any other guarantees of good faith which Mr. Faraday can devise for the experiments made in a darkened room.

Question 4. Does ho make himself responsible for the effects, and identify himself more or less with their cause? Answer. Certainly not.

Question 5. Would ho be glad if their delusive character were estab- lished and exposed, and would he gladly help to expose it ; or would he be annoyed and personally offended ?

Answer. Assuredly ho would be glad, if they are delusions, to have the delusions exposed ; and would do all in his power to contribute to their exposure. He is, however, strongly of opinion at present that this is impossible. But ho will fool no more annoyance than is inevitable to a man who has been the victim of a mistake, if it can be so proved, and will be glad to be free of the error, however humiliating to his own acute- ness.

Question 6. Does ho consider the effects natural or supernatural ? If natural, what are tho laws which govern them ? or does he think they are not subject to laws ? If supernatural, does he suppose them to be miracles or the work of spirits ? If the work of spirits, would an insult to the spirits be considered as an insult to himself ?

Answer. Mr. Home at present considers the effects to be due to dis- embodied, or at least now unembodied, spirits. Whether such effects should be called natural or supernatural he does not know. It is a question of terms. Ho thinks them subject to laws just so far as human actions are, probably not further. Mr. Home has never made up his mind exactly what a miracle is, and, therefore, cannot say whether he thinks them miracles. An insult to the spirits could be no insult to himself. Many of them he knows to be silly, and some of them wicked. They can look after their own susceptibilities without any help from Mr. Home.

Question 7. If the effects are miracles, or the work of spirits, does he admit the utterly contemptible character, both of them and their results, up to the present time, in respect either of yielding information or instruction, or supplying any force or action of the least value to mankind ?

Answer. No. ho does not. He thinks many of the spirits, as before said, very silly, vulgar, and uneducated. But he considers the physical demonstration that a spirit, however silly, can exist and act without a visible body, a matter of great moment to mankind. More- over, all the spirits are not silly. They have, now and then, as he believes, done a good thing. They saved a wrecked crew once, by a manifestation to the captain of a vessel in the same latitude, who was told to steer to their aid. And they sometimes speak wisely. The late Mrs. Home has often said wise things for instance, as related in Mr. Home's Incidents of my Life.

Question S. If they be natural effects without natural law, can they be of any use or value to mankind ? Answer. Mr. Home does not understand this question, and cannot answer it.

Question 9. If they be the glimpses of natural action not yet reduced to law, ought it not to be the duty of every one who has the least influence in such actions personally to develop them, and aid others in their development by the utmost openness and assistance, and by the applica- tion of every critical method, either mental or experimental, which the mind of man can devise ?

Answer. Assuredly. This exactly expresses Mr. Home's deepest belief.

Now, supposing Mr. Robert Bell had given such answers as these to Mr. Faraday's questions,—all, answers which, as far as we know, Mr. Home would profess to endorse,—does any one doubt for a moment that Faraday would have entered into the investigation ? The simple truth is, that Mr. Home courts investigation, but courts also slips between the cup and the lip, courts preliminary difficulties in the form of weak health, prepossessions on the part of inquirers, and such like, to stave off the investigation when it comes to the point. Mr. Home says that Faraday's conditions preliminary to inquiry were insulting. We think we have shown that they were not so,—that they were only assumed to be insult- ing because Mr. Home chose to make a difficulty of preliminary incredulity. He says, "hydrogen gas or the spectrum analysis would have felt insulted by being submitted to such condi- tions." It is new to us to hear this. But however insulting hydrogen gas might have thought such conditions, hydrogen gas would not have refused to burn when lighted, for any keenness of susceptibility on the point. The spectrum analysis would not have taken refuge in mere blackness from any soreness as to the analyst's state of mind. Why Mr. Home finds in Dr. Tyndall's approbation of Mr. Faraday's course a good excuse for further postponing the investigation, we can well understand. We suspect that if anysuch investigation could have infiuencedfavourably Vice- Chancellor Giffard's judgment, it would have been challenged in Court,—even in spite of Mr. Home's " weak health," and the general incredulity of the Chancery Bar.