a hot verbal warfare. The members of the society were all present
excepting Mrs. Harris, who had been greatly upset by her own
performance. Bart Brierly, the painter, was there to defend the mystery
of life against our scientific friend Miller, whose conception of the
universe was very definite indeed. Mrs. Quigg supported Miller. Young
Howard was everywhere in the lists, and his raillery afforded Cameron a
great deal of amusement.

I contented myself with listening for the first half-hour, but at last
took occasion to say to Miller: "Like all violent opponents of the
metapsychical, you know very little of the subject you are discussing.
To sustain this contention, let me ask if you have ever read the account
of Sir William Crookes's experiments with psychic force?"

Miller confessed that he had not. "I have avoided doing so, for I
respect Crookes as a chemist," he added.

I continued: "Crookes began by pooh-poohing the whole subject of
spiritualism, very much as you do, Miller; but after three years of
rigid investigation, he was forced to announce himself convinced of the
truth of many of the so-called spirit phenomena. It is instructive to
recall that when he was willing to hazard his scientific reputation on a
report of this character to the Royal Society, of which he was a member,
his paper was thrown out. The secretary refused even to enter it upon
the files of the institution."

"I know about that," replied Miller, "and I consider the secretary
justified. To his thinking, Crookes had lost his head."

"No matter what he thought," I replied. "Any paper by a man of
Crookes's standing, with his knowledge of chemistry and of life, and his
long training in exact observation, should have been considered. The
action of the secretary was due simply to prejudice, and many of those
who voted to ignore that report are to-day more than half convinced that
Sir William has been justified. Each of his experiments has been
repeated and his findings verified by scientific men of Europe. It is a
pleasure to add that our own Smithsonian Institution published two of
his speculative papers some years ago. So it goes--the heresy of to-day
is the orthodoxy of to-morrow."

"Didn't Crookes afterward repudiate that early report?" asked Miller.

"On the contrary, in 1898, upon being elected to the presidency of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, he said (I think I
can recall almost his exact words): 'No incident