ial charge of
Alfred Russel Wallace; Cromwell Varley, chief of Electrical Engineers
and Telegraphers; and Professor Morgan, president of the Mathematical
Society. This committee, after careful investigation, reported
voluminously to this effect: 'The phenomena exist.... There is a force
capable of moving heavy bodies without material contact, which force is
in some unknown way dependent upon the presence of human beings.'"

"Which was a long way from saying that spiritism was true," remarked
Miller.

"It certainly was sufficiently vague, you would think, to be harmless;
but several of the committee refused to join in even this cautious
report, insisting that the conclusions ought to be verified by some
other scientist. They suggested Sir William Crookes, who was at this
time in the early prime of his life and a renowned chemist--just the man
for the work. This suggestion was acted upon by Crookes a little later,
and his report on this 'psychic force' had a good deal to do with the
formation of the now famous Society for Psychical Research."

"I'd hate to be held responsible for that," said Miller, with humorous
intent--"of all the collections of 'hants' and witches."

"On the Continent scientific observation had already begun. Count Agenor
de Gasparin, of Valleyeres, was one of the first to take up this problem
of telekinesis in the modern spirit. He made a long and complicated
study of table-tipping in 1853, and published his conclusions in two
large volumes in Paris a year later. His experiments were careful and
searching, and drew the line squarely between the supernatural and the
natural. He said, positively, 'The agency is not supernatural; it is
physical, and determined by the will of the sitters,' and may be called
the Charles Darwin of the subject. A year later Professor Marc Thury, of
Geneva, added his testimony. He also said: 'The phenomena exist, and are
mainly due to an unknown fluid, or force, which rushes from the organism
of certain people.' To this force he gave the name 'psyscode.' The
spirit hypothesis, he was inclined to think, was not impossible or even
absurd. He used _absurd_ in the scientific sense, of course."

"It is the most natural thing in the world to me," said Mrs. Smiley. "I
would be desolate without it."

"Some ten years later Flammarion, the renowned French astronomer, began
his studies of these unknown forces, and for a long time fought the
battle alone in France as Sir William Cr