Читать книгу Metapsychical Phenomena: Methods and Observations - J. K. Maxwell - Страница 3

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Asked by my friends in France to introduce the author, Dr. Maxwell, to English readers, I willingly consented, for I have reason to know that he is an earnest and indefatigable student of the phenomena for the investigation of which the Society for Psychical Research was constituted; and not only an earnest student, but a sane and competent observer, with rather special qualifications for the task. A gentleman of independent means, trained and practising as a lawyer at Bordeaux, Deputy Attorney-General, in fact, at the Court of Appeal, he supplemented his legal training by going through a full six years’ medical curriculum, and graduated M.D. in order to pursue psycho-physiological studies with more freedom, and to be able to form a sounder and more instructed judgment on the strange phenomena which came under his notice. Moreover, he was fortunate in enlisting the services of one who appears to be singularly gifted in the supernormal direction, an educated and interested friend, who is anxious to preserve his anonymity, but is otherwise willing to give every assistance in his power towards the production and elucidation of the unusual things which occur in his presence and apparently through his agency.

In all this they have been powerfully assisted by Professor Charles Richet, the distinguished physiologist of Paris, whose name and fame are almost as well known in this country as in his own, and who gave the special evening lecture to the British Association on the occasion of its semi-international meeting at Dover in 1899.

In France it so happens that these problems have been attacked chiefly by biologists and medical men, whereas in this country they have attracted the attention chiefly, though not exclusively, of physicists and chemists among men of science. This gives a desirable diversity to the point of view, and adds to the value of the work of the French investigators. Another advantage they possess is that they have no arrière-pensée towards religion or the spiritual world. Frankly, I expect they would confess themselves materialists, and would disclaim all sympathy with the view of a number of enthusiasts in this country, who have sought to make these ill-understood facts the basis for a kind of religious cult in which faith is regarded as more important than knowledge, and who contemn the attitude of scientific men, even of those few who really seek to observe and understand the phenomena.

From Dr. Maxwell’s observations, so far, there arises no theory which he feels to be in the least satisfactory: the facts are recorded as observed, and though theoretical comments are sometimes attempted in the text, they are admittedly tentative and inadequate: we know nothing at present which will suffice to weld the whole together into a comprehensive and comprehensible scheme. But for the theoretical discussion of such phenomena the work of Mr. Myers on Human Personality is of course far more thorough and ambitious than the semi-popular treatment in the present book. And in the matter of history also, the English reader, familiar with the writings of Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Podmore, will not attribute much importance to the few historical remarks of the present writer. He claims consideration as an observer of exceptional ability and scrupulous fairness, and his work is regarded with the greatest interest by workers in this field throughout the world.

There is one thing which Dr. Maxwell does not do. He does not record his facts according to the standard set up by the Society for Psychical Research in this country: that is to say, he does not give a minute account of all the details, nor does he relate the precautions taken, nor seek to convince hostile critics that he has overlooked no possibility, and made no mistakes. Discouraged by previous attempts and failures in this direction, he has regarded the task as impossible, and has not attempted it. He has satisfied himself with three things:—

 1st. To train himself long and carefully as an observer;

 2nd. To learn from, and be guided by, the phenomena as they occur, without seeking unduly to coerce them;

 3rd. To give a general account of the impression made upon him by the facts as they appeared.

For the rest, he professes himself indifferent whether his assertions meet with credence or not. He has done his best to test the phenomena for himself, regarding them critically, and not at all in a spirit of credulity; and he has endangered his reputation by undertaking what he regards as a plain duty, that of setting down under his own name, for the world to accept or reject as it pleases, a statement of the experiences to which he has devoted so much time and attention, and of the actuality of which, though he in no way professes to understand them, he is profoundly convinced.

Equally convinced of their occurrence is Professor Richet, who has had an opportunity of observing many of them, and he too regards them from the same untheoretical and empirical point of view; but he has explained his own attitude in a Preface to the French edition, as Dr. Maxwell has explained his in ‘Preliminary Remarks,’—both of which are here translated—so there is no need to say more; beyond this:—

The particular series of occurrences detailed in these pages I myself have not witnessed. I may take an opportunity of seeing them before long; but though that will increase my experience, it will not increase my conviction that things like some of these can and do occur, and that any other patient explorer who had the same advantages and similar opportunity for observation, would undergo the same sort of experience, that is to say, would receive the same sensory impressions, however he might choose to interpret them.

That is what the scientific world has gradually to grow accustomed to. These things happen under certain conditions, in the same sense that more familiar things happen under ordinary conditions. What the conditions are that determine the happening is for future theory to say.

Dr. Maxwell is convinced that such things can happen without anything that can with any propriety whatever be called fraud; sometimes under conditions so favourable for observation as to preclude the possibility of deception of any kind. Some of them, as we know well, do also frequently happen under fraudulent and semi-fraudulent conditions; but those who take the easy line of assuming that hyper-ingenious fraud and extravagant self-deception are sufficient to account for the whole of the facts, will ultimately, I think, find themselves to have been deceived by their own a priori convictions. Nevertheless we may agree that at present the Territory under exploration is not yet a scientific State. We are in the pre-Newtonian, possibly the pre-Copernican, age of this nascent science; and it is our duty to accumulate facts and carefully record them, for a future Kepler to brood over.

What may be likened to the ‘Ptolemaic’ view of the phenomena seems on the whole to be favoured by the French observers, viz. that they all centre round living man, and represent an unexpected extension of human faculty, an extension, as it were, of the motor and sensory power of the body beyond its apparent boundary. That is undoubtedly the first adit to be explored, and it may turn out to lead us in the right direction; but it is premature even to guess what will be the ultimate outcome of this extra branch of psychological and physiological study. That sensory perception can extend to things out of contact with the body is familiar enough, though it has not been recognised for the senses of touch or taste. That motor activity should also extend into a region beyond the customary range of muscular action is, as yet, unrecognised by science. Nevertheless that is the appearance.

The phenomena which have most attracted the attention and maintained the interest of the French observers, have been just those which convey the above impression: that is to say, mechanical movements without contact, production of intelligent noises, and either visible, tangible, or luminous appearances which do not seem to be hallucinatory. These constantly-asserted, and in a sense well-known, and to some few people almost familiar, experiences, have with us been usually spoken of as ‘physical or psycho-physical phenomena.’ In France they have been called ‘psychical phenomena,’ but that name is evidently not satisfactory, since that should apply to purely mental experiences. To call them ‘occult phenomena’ is not distinctive, for everything is occult until it is explained; and the business of science is to contemplate the mixed mass of heterogeneous appearances, such as at one time formed all that was known of Chemistry, for instance, or Electricity, and evolve from them an ordered scheme of science.

To emphasise the fact that these occurrences are at present beyond the scheme of orthodox psychology or psycho-physiology, in somewhat the same way as the germ of what we now call Metaphysics was once placed after, or considered as extra to, the course of orthodox Natural Philosophy or Physics, Professor Richet has suggested that they be styled ‘meta-psychical phenomena,’ and that the nascent branch of science, which he and other pioneers are endeavouring to found, be called for the present ‘Metapsychics.’ Dr. Maxwell concurs in this comparatively novel term, and as there seems no serious objection to it, the English version of Dr. Maxwell’s record will appear under this title.

The book will be found for the most part eminently readable—rather an unusual circumstance for a record of this kind—and the scrupulous fairness with which the author has related everything he can think of which tells against the genuineness of the phenomena, is highly to be commended. Whatever may be thought of the evidence it is manifestly his earnest wish never to make it appear to others better than it appears to himself.

If critics attack the book, as they undoubtedly will, with the objection that though it may contain a mass of well-attested assertions by a competent and careful observer, yet his observations are set down without the necessary details on which an outside critic can judge how far the things really happened, and how far the observer was deceived—let it be remembered that this is admitted. Dr. Maxwell’s defence is, that to give such details as will satisfy a hostile critic who was not actually present is impossible—in that I am disposed to agree with him—he has therefore not attempted the task; and I admit, though I cannot commend, his discretion.

It may be said that the attempt to give every detail necessarily produces a dreary and overburdened narrative. So it does. Nevertheless I must urge—as both in accordance with my own judgment of what is fitting, and in loyalty to the high standard of evidence, and the more stringent rules of testimony, inaugurated by the wise founders of the Society for Psychical Research—that observers should always make an effort to record precisely every detail of the circumstances of some at least of these elusive and rare phenomena; so as to assist in enabling a fair judgment to be formed by people who are not too inexperienced in the conditions attending this class of observation, and at any rate to add to the clearness of their apprehension of the events recorded. The opportunities for research are not yet ended, however, and I may be allowed to express a hope that in the future something of this kind will yet be done, when the occasion is favourable, after a study of such a record as that of the Sidgwick-Hodgson-Davy experiments in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. iv. Our gratitude to Dr. Maxwell would thus be still further increased.

And now, finally, I must not be understood as making myself responsible for the contents of the book, nor for the interjected remarks, nor for the translation. The author and translator must bear their own responsibility. My share in the work is limited to expressing my confidence in the good faith of Dr. Maxwell—in his impartiality and competence,—and while congratulating him on the favourable opportunities for investigation which have fallen to his lot, to thank him, on behalf of English investigators, for the single-minded pertinacity and strenuous devotion with which he has pursued this difficult and still nebulous quest.

Oliver Lodge.