The proceedings against Monck plainly showed that he had at any rate a firm belief in his own psychic powers, and although Eglinton was detected in a trick upon more than one occasion there is irrefutable evidence to prove that in other instances when he assisted at séances any normal mode of production of the phenomena seen there was quite impossible. A large number of Miller’s manifestations also were genuine.[110] The same may be said of very many mediums. This means, in fine, that although the manifestations of almost any medium may in some cases have been artificially contrived, such phenomena are not on any account to be adjudged _always_ fraudulent, and even if the charge of imposture could be brought home far more conclusively than has so far been possible as regards the majority of sensitives, yet it were a false inference indeed to deduce therefrom that all phenomena are equally fraudulent and devised. It is only the recklessly illogical mind and the loose thinker who will in the face of absolutely conclusive proof of genuine manifestations continue to maintain that a certain quota of quackery can invalidate the whole. Writers of the temper of Messrs. Edward Clodd, Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson must, of course, be expected to condemn Spiritism without knowing the facts or weighing the evidence as an obvious absurdity which calls for no serious refutation. But this, I think, matters little. The superstitious dogmatism of the materialist is gravely discredited nowadays. True, the sort of book he produces is widely circulated and very successful within certain limits. We should expect tenth-rate ideas which could only emanate from a lack of understanding, a total want of imagination, and no training in metaphysics or philosophy, to have a direct appeal to the immature intelligences, the uneducated vulgar and the blatant yet presumptuous ignorance, which alone are eager for this kind of outmoded fare.