And as regards the other subjects, to which must be added the alleged marvels of the Spiritualists, there have indeed been one or two isolated series of observations by competent inquirers, but for the most part the learned have held themselves free to ascribe the phenomena without investigation to fraud and hysteria, and the unlearned to "magnetism," "psychic force," or the Devil. For whilst men of science, preoccupied for the most part with other lines of inquiry, have kept themselves aloof, the vacant ground was naturally occupied by the ignorant and credulous, and by those who looked to win a harvest from ignorance and credulity. It is not of course implied that all persons who interested themselves in such matters came under one or other of these categories. There were many sensible men and women amongst them, but they lacked for the most part the special training necessary for such inquiries, or they failed through want of co-operation and support. No serious and organised attempt at investigation was made until, in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research was founded in London, under the presidency of Professor Henry Sidgwick. He and his colleagues were the pioneers in the research, and their example has been widely followed. Two years later an American society under the same title (now a flourishing branch of the English society) was founded in Boston; and there are at the present time societies with similar objects at Berlin, Munich, Stockholm, and elsewhere. Moreover, the Société de Psychologie Physiologique, which was founded in Paris, under the presidency of M. Charcot, in 1885, has devoted much attention to some forms of telepathy.