A history of popular opposition to new ideas or new truths would fill a volume of many hundred pages, and would constitute a melancholy human document. This opposition is doubtless almost as old as human thought itself. Plato, in his Republic, tells us that when Socrates stated his conviction that only philosophers should be appointed rulers of the people and of the state, his listener, Adeimantus, replied:
“Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don’t prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be ‘pared by their fine wits,’ and no mistake.”
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the bigotry and intolerance of the Middle Ages when men burned, tortured and killed one another because of the slightest difference in point-of-view, the interpretation of a word or the rendition of some Biblical text. Those days, we trust, have gone forever; but the spirit which inspired that opposition and those cruelties is still strong, and the basic resistance to any ideas running counter to those of the Herd is still a fundamental part of human nature. Nowadays this usually takes the form of ridicule or attempted disproof of the ideas offered, but the psychological mechanism involved is fundamentally the same. Let us take a few examples of this, drawn from our own times—or within the past century—and we shall see that scientific truths which today are accepted by us as a matter-of-course were at first received with the utmost incredulity and aroused the greatest opposition—largely from the scientific men of the time.
When railways were first constructed, engineers predicted that they could never become practicable; and that the wheels of the locomotives would simply whirl round and round without moving forward. In the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1838, Arago, hoping to throw cold water on the ardor of the partisans of the new invention, spoke of the inertia of matter, of the tenacity of metals, and of the resistance of the air. M. Prudhom said that “it is a ridiculous and vulgar notion, that railways will increase the circulation of ideas.” In Bavaria, the Royal College of Doctors having been consulted, declared that railways, if they were constructed, would cause the greatest deterioration in the health of the public, because such rapid movement would cause brain trouble among travelers, and vertigo among those who looked at moving trains.
I myself remember that an expert mathematician once explained to me how heavier-than-air flying machines could never become practicable, because gravity would overcome any possible upward pull by the engines and wings of the machine.
It is a matter of history how the banks of the Hudson River were lined with jeering crowds, to see the utter failure of Fulton’s steam boat, which nevertheless steamed majestically up the river.
When it was first proposed to lay a submarine cable between Europe and America, in 1855, one of the greatest authorities on physics, Babinet, a member of the Institute, wrote:
“I cannot regard this project as serious; the history of currents might easily afford irrefutable proof that such a thing is an impossibility, to say nothing of new currents that would be created all along the electric line, and which are very appreciable even in the short cable crossing from Calais to Dover. . . .” (Revue des Deux Mondes.)
The first bathtub in the United States was installed by Adam Thompson, a wealthy grain and cotton dealer of Cincinnati, in 1842. He had lately returned from London where he had heard that the Prime Minister had such a device. On December 20, 1842, he had a party of gentlemen to dinner, all of whom tried out the new invention. The following day, the story was in the papers and Thompson was attacked both by doctors and politicians. We do not find that Thompson was required to pay a fine, but the discussion in connection with the bathtub resulted in various measures for the restriction of its use. The Common Council of Philadelphia considered an ordinance to prevent any such bathing between the months of November and March! Virginia had a tax of $30.00 a year on all bathtubs and extra heavy water rates. In Boston there was an ordinance forbidding their use except on medical advice!
Camille Flammarion tells us:
“I was present one day at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences. It was a day to be remembered, for its proceedings were absurd. Du Moncel introduced Edison’s phonograph to the learned assembly. When the presentation had been made, the proper person began quietly to recite the usual formula as he registered it upon his roll. Then a middle-aged academician, whose mind was stored—nay, saturated with traditions drawn from his culture in the classics, rose, and, nobly indignant at the audacity of the inventor, rushed towards the man who represented Edison, and seized him by the collar, crying, ‘Wretch! We are not to be made dupes of by a ventriloquist!’ This member of the Institute was Monsieur Bouillard. The day was the 11th of March, 1878. The most curious thing about it was that, six months later, on September 30th, before a similar assembly, the same man considered himself bound in honor to declare that, after a close examination, he could find nothing in the invention but ventriloquism, and that ‘it was impossible to admit that mere vile metal could perform the work of human phonation.’ The phonograph, according to his idea of it, was nothing but an acoustic illusion.”
Murdoch, who invented the gas light, was ridiculed by a Committee of the English Parliament, because he was so “crazy” as to claim that a lamp could burn without a wick. Galvani was called the “frog’s dancing master,” because of his experiments on frogs’ legs, stimulated by weak electric currents. Harvey was ridiculed and professionally ostracized because of his advocacy of the circulation of the blood. It is a matter of history that no physician more than forty years of age at the time of his discovery ever accepted it. The inventor of the umbrella barely escaped from being killed by an angry crowd because he was interfering with “God’s rain.” Only by running through a shop was he enabled to escape his pursuers. In 1890 doubts were still expressed as to the reality of thunderbolts, and the “Specter of the Brocken” was said not to exist, because it could not be explained.
Lavoisier, one of the most learned men of his day, wrote a report to the French Academy, asserting that stones could not fall from the skies—it was contrary to common sense to think so. Gassendi asserted the same thing. In Provence, in 1627, a meteorite weighing thirty kilograms had fallen. Gassendi saw it, touched it, examined it—and attributed it to an explosion of the earth in some unknown region.
The evidence afforded by fossils, evolution, and a thousand other things, had been opposed and ridiculed in the same manner. Indeed, it would be possible to fill many pages with illustrations of precisely the same character. Hypnotism was utterly condemned by the French Academy of Sciences and by the Faculty of Medicine. Men waited before they would believe in it (and even after!) to see the result of an operation by Jules Cloquet, for cancer of a woman’s breast, which was performed without pain, after she had been previously hypnotized. The early advocates of mesmerism and hypnotism were ridiculed and attacked on all sides in a most shameful manner. It was said that the subjects of these painless operations were merely “hardened rogues” who submitted to the ordeal for pay. When Dr. Tanner fasted forty days, medical men said he was a humbug, and few believed him. Now, scores of like cases are on record, and have been studied by nutrition experts. For years psychologists opposed the theory of the subconscious mind, contending that everything was the result of “unconscious cerebration.” And so it goes; the list could be continued almost indefinitely.
And this same opposition exists today, in a greater or lesser degree, to all forms of psychic phenomena! We still see them ridiculed, misrepresented, maligned by press and public. Very few psychologists today would accept the reality of telepathy—to say nothing of more startling manifestations! Even many psychical researchers will not accept the reality of “physical phenomena.” Only very gradually are these phenomena gaining acceptance and becoming recognized by official science. It is our duty to continue piling up well authenticated cases of the type until their reality can no longer be doubted. This, however, can only be brought about by well-controlled, scientifically-conducted researches in which no loop-hole for fraud or possible error can be found. This is a fundamental requisite, if our subject is to gain ultimate acceptance. The Societies for Psychical Research have made great headway in this direction; we should see to it that the work is carried on in such a manner that the scientific world, press and public will eventually be forced to acknowledge its reality and authenticity.
Excerpt from The Psychic World