The scientific basis of delusions : a new theory of trance, and its bearings on human testimony / by George M. Beard.

  • Beard, George M. (George Miller), 1839-1883.
Date:
1877
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The scientific basis of delusions : a new theory of trance, and its bearings on human testimony / by George M. Beard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The delusion's that the darkness connected with this subject has sheltered, will die, are dying already; they would die even it they could not be scientifically explained, for witchcraft has been dead a hundred years, although to this moment its phenomena, though fully understood, have never yet been pub- licly and in detail elucidated. But as the delusions disappear, the facts of trance and of the involuntary life, which together constitute the real scientific substratum of delusions, will pro- portionately rise in dignity and in interest. When the Egyptian architect, as you remember, erected by the royal command, a light-house on the shore of the Mediter- ranean, he placed, as he was directed to do, the name of the reigning king conspicuously on the top, but in perishable plaster, which soon crumbled and fell; and beneath, on the enduring marble, the future saw the name of the architect himself. So the delusions of which we have been speaking, which have attracted so much of the world’s wonder, will dis- appear; but in their place, and out of the phenomena that gave them support will be recognized a positive addition to human knowledge, which, in time, must take its place side by side with other sciences, and become the common and perma- nent possession of mankind. subsequently, the real fallacy in the procedure was, so far as I can learn, never suggested. The study of trance, which was practically the subject of Prof. Barrett’s paper, is well worthy of the attention of the British Association; but only acknowledged authorities in cerebral physiology and pathology are competent to prepare, or should be suffered to read essays on that subject before any body that calls itself scientific. . Another evidence that this subject is yet far from the organized stage, is that when Mr. Crookes began his investigations in so-called spiritualism, the press urged him on, as though an eminent chemist and physicist were competent to deal with the mooted questions in physiology; and. to com- plete the absurdity, his reports of what he thought he saw were formally replied to by other chemists and physicists, on the doubly erroneous as- sumption that his experiments were rightly reported, and that any one outside of experts in that branch of physiology was competent to rightly estimate and reply to them. What Mr. Crookes and his associates did, or tried to do, with the medium, Home, will, in this world, never be known. Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, but the number of those in the world who are capable of reporting correctly and authoritatively in regard to any alleged new discoveries in that branch, is very limited; and in the department under consideration, to which we are but just