This book embodies the first attempt to appraise on a large scale writings hostile to psychic research. It seeks to deal fairly with persons who, through the course of more than a century, have expressed their disbelief in any facts "psychic" or "supernormal," according to the understood meaning of these terms. It proposes to ascertain with what degree of knowledge these persons are equipped to deal with the subject, to see whether the logic they employ is such as is employed in other types of investigation or is of a sort deemed good enough only for this, and generally to analyze and set forth their polemical methodology. All of these persons are respectable, and some of them illustrious, representatives of the classes to which they belong, physical scientists, psychologists, university and college instructors, physicians, clergymen, magicians and what-not. There are more than one hundred of these to be heard in this book.