"I cannot be on the committee; I avoid everything of that kind, that I may keep my stupid mind a little clear. As to being on a committee and not working, that is worse still. * * * "Ever yours and Mrs. Percy's, "M. FARADAY." It is well known that he waged implacable war with the Spiritualists. Eighteen years ago tables took to spinning mysteriously under the fingers of ladies and gentlemen who sat or stood around the animated furniture; much was said about a new force, much too about strange revelations from another sphere, but Faraday made a simple apparatus which convinced him and most others that the tables moved through the unconscious pressure of the hands that touched them. The account of this will be found in the _Athenæum_ of July 2, 1853. Three weeks afterwards he wrote to his friend Schönbein: "I have not been at work except in turning the tables upon the table-turners, nor should I have done that, but that so many inquiries poured in upon me, that I thought it better to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know at once what my views and thoughts were. What a weak, credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened,--what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man! How full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities it is!" But the believers in these occult phenomena, some of them holding high positions about the Court, would not let him alone; and there are many indications of the annoyance and irritation they caused him. He declined to meet the professors of the mysterious art, and the following letter will serve to show the way in which he regarded them:-- "ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Nov. 1, 1864_. "SIR, "I beg to thank you for your papers, but have wasted more thought and time on so-called spiritual manifestation than it has deserved. Unless the spirits are utterly contemptible, _they_ will find means to draw my attention. "How is it that your name is not signed to the testimony that you give? Are you doubtful even whilst you publish? I've no evidence that any natural or unnatural power is concerned in the phenomena that requires investigation or deserves it. If I could consult the spirits, or move them to make themselves honestly manifest, I would do it. But I cannot, and am weary of them. "I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, "M. FARADAY."