Read Ebook: Fact and Fable in Psychology by Jastrow Joseph

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The division of the sciences reflects the diversity of human interests; it represents the economical adaptation of organized thought to the conditions of reality; and it likewise recognizes the intrinsically and objectively distinct realms and aspects, in which and under which phenomena occur. It is obvious that the sciences were shaped by human needs; that physics and chemistry and geology and biology and psychology do not constitute independent departments of nature's r?gime, but only so many aspects of complex natural activities; that a cross-section of the composite happenings of a cosmic moment would reveal an endlessly heterogeneous concomitance of diverse forms of energy acting upon diverse types of material; that, as we confine our attention somewhat arbitrarily to one or another component of the aggregate, we become physicists, or chemists, or geologists, or biologists, or psychologists; that, indeed, Nature is all things to all men. There is, furthermore, a community of spirit between the several sciences, as there is a logical unity of method and purpose within the realm of each. However ignorant they may be of one another's facts, the chemist and the psychologist readily appreciate one another's purposes, and find a bond of sympathy in the pursuit of a commonly inspired though differently applied method. The search for objective truth, the extension of the realm of law and regularity, the expansion and organization of the army of facts constantly marshaled and reviewed and made ready for service, the ever widening development of principles and the furthering of a deeper insight into their significance,--these are ideals for the advancement of science, far easier of expression than of execution, but the clear and accepted formulation of which itself attests a highly developed stage of accurate thought. A clear-cut conception of the purposes and methods of scientific investigation and of the scope of the several sciences is a dearly bought product of generations of well-directed, as also of misdirected, effort. The path of progress leading to this achievement has been tortuous and indirect; there has been much expenditure of energy that resulted merely in marking time, in going through the movements of locomotion but with no advance, in following a false trail, or, through a loss of the sense of direction, in coming back after a circuitous march to an earlier starting-point. It is easy, when a certain height is reached, to look down and back, and see how much more readily the ascent might have been accomplished; but it is a very different matter to form a successful plan for attaining the next higher commanding point. It is inevitable that there shall be differences of opinion as to course and manoeuvre, and errors of judgment of commission and omission; but such diversity is quite consistent with an underlying co?peration and singleness of purpose. It is in the inspiration and in the execution of that purpose that science becomes differentiated from the unscientific and non-scientific.

Between the organized effort and well-recognized plan of action of science and the chaotic movements of the untutored mind, there is a marked contrast. The savage, like the child, constantly meets with the unexpected; every experience lying outside his narrow beaten track stirs him with a shock and often fills him with fear--the handmaid of ignorance. He is apt to picture nature as a fearful monster, and to people the world with tyrannical beings. Step by step the region of the known expands, and suggests the nature of the unknown; men expect, they foresee, they predict. The apparent chaos of mutually inimical forces gives way to the profound harmony of unifying law. And yet the unknown and the borderland that separates it from the known are always near by, to tempt curiosity and the spirit of adventure.

The problem here to be considered relates to the attitude which may most properly and profitably be taken with regard to the outlying phenomena of the mind. Are they outcasts, to be treated in a spirit of charity and forbearance? Are they the true owners of the land, driven off, like the Indian before the white man, by the relentless march of civilization to a prescribed reservation? Are they the unjustly deposed and rightful heirs, soon to be restored to their kingdom by a fairer and more searching examination of their title? Or are they, gypsy-like, of obscure origin, surviving in a civilization which they are in but not of, attempting to eke out an uncertain existence by peddling relics of antiquated lore to the curious and the credulous?

If the term may at all be brought within the circle of the sciences, it certainly there assumes a somewhat unique position. It naturally becomes the analogue, or it may be the rival of Psychology; yet its precise status and its logical relations to other departments of scientific research are far from obvious. The modern conception of Psychology is generously comprehensive; it encompasses the endlessly variable and complex processes of human mentality; it pursues with enthusiasm the study of developmental processes of intelligence in childhood, in the animal world, in the unfoldment of the race; it studies, for their own value, the aberrant and pathological forms of mental action, and brings these into relation with, and thus illuminates the comprehension of the normal. It forms affiliations with physiology and biology and medicine, with philosophy and logic and ethics, with anthropology and sociology and folk-lore; it borrows freely from their materials, and attempts to interpret the materials thus borrowed from the psychological point of view and to infuse into them its distinctive spirit. Surely Psychical Research should be able to find a nook in so commodious a home; if the problems of Psychical Research are legitimate members of the psychological family, some provision should be possible for their reception within the old homestead. Nor does this group of problems represent a difference of school, in some such way as the homoeopathists represent a secession from the regular school of medicine; nor can it be regarded as the special study of the unusual and the abnormal in the sphere of mind, and thus stand in the relation which teratology or pathology bears to physiology and anatomy: for in that event it would constitute a simple division of Abnormal Psychology, and although Psychical Research has close alliance with the latter, it cannot be, and is unwilling to be regarded as a subordinate portion of that domain.

From a survey of the literature of Psychical Research one might readily draw the inference that whereas Psychology studies the recognized and explicable phases of mental phenomena, Psychical Research is occupied with the disputed and mysterious. One might also conclude that whereas Psychology is concerned with the phenomena commonly associated with mental activities and their variation under normal as also under unusual and pathological circumstances, Psychical Research is interested in the demonstration of supernormal faculties, and in the establishment of forms of mentality that diverge from and transcend those with which every-day humanity is permitted to become familiar; and that, moreover, in some of its excursions Psychical Research does not limit itself to mental manifestations, but investigates undiscovered forms of physical energy, and seriously considers whether behind and beyond the world of phenomena there is another and a different world, in which the established order and the mental and material laws of this planet do not obtain. But the unwarranted character, not to say absurdity, of such a differentiation or classification is at once apparent, if we attempt to carry it over into other departments of science. Speculations in regard to the constitution of the earth's centre or as to the future of our planet, if legitimate in character, are as readily incorporable into geology as the consideration of more definite and better known phenomena; biologists recognize that there are mythical as well as anomalous portions of their domain, but do not consider that freaks of nature either destroy the validity of anatomical and physiological principles, or demand a totally distinct and transcendent organization or method for their study. The chemist may become interested in the examination of what was really done when it was supposed that other metals were converted into gold; the physicist may become interested in the applications of electricity and magnetism, of optical reflections and images in the production of stage illusions; but the conception of chemistry and of physics naturally embraces considerations of the growth, the errors, and the applications of these sciences. And while these comparisons do not furnish a complete parallel to the relation that seems to pertain between Psychology and Psychical Research, yet it is as true in the one case as in the others, that the differentiation of a group of problems on the basis of unusualness of occurrence, of mysteriousness of origin, of doubtful authenticity, or of apparent paradoxical or transcendent character, is as illogical as it is unnecessary. The legitimate problems of Psychical Research are equally and necessarily genuine problems of Psychology, that require no special designation. They need not be especially important, nor interesting, nor profitable, nor well comprehended problems of Psychology, but they belong there if they are scientific problems at all. The objection to Psychical Research is not a verbal one; it is an objection to the separation of a class of problems from their natural habitat, an objection to the violent transplanting of a growth from its own environment. It is a protest against the notion that while the psychologist may be listened to with respect and authority in one portion of his topic, the layman and the member of the Society for Psychical Research are equally or more competent to pronounce judgments in a closely allied field. It is a protest against the view that for the comprehension of such processes as sensation and perception a course in Psychology may be useful, but that telepathy may be established by any moderately intelligent but not specially informed percipient and agent; or that the study of hallucinations is indeed a complex and difficult subject, but haunted houses, and phantasms of the living, offer a proper occupation for a leisure hour. All this is wrong and absurd; and yet it is hardly an exaggeration to declare that a majority of those who profess a deep interest in, and express an opinion about the one group of topics, would be surprised to have demanded of them a familiarity with the data of Psychology as a prerequisite to an intelligent co?peration in Psychical Research. If the problems of Psychical Research, or that portion of the problems in which investigation seems profitable, are ever to be illuminated and exhibited in an intelligible form, it will only come about when they are investigated by the same methods and in the same spirit as are other psychological problems, when they are studied in connection with and as a part of other general problems of normal and abnormal Psychology. Whether this is done under the auspices of a society or in the psychological laboratories of universities is, of course, a detail of no importance. It is important, however, what the trend, and the spirit, and the method, and the purpose of the investigation may be; as it is equally important, what may be the training, and the capabilities, and the resources, and the originality, and the scholarship of the investigators.

As the occult interest recedes to an obscure position in the background, and as the foreground and middle distance come to be suffused with the light of critical discernment and of the scientific spirit of inquiry, the "psychical researcher" approximates to the psychological point of view. This essentially psychological interest is necessarily a strong one in some of the distinctive problems of Psychical Research, and often mingles with other interests to form a curious composite. It may be a morbid, an uninformed, a misguided, a dilettante interest, but its psychological character may be noted without implication of any further comment of approval or disapproval. Favorably interpreted, this psychological interest is an interest in the intrinsic nature and analysis of mental processes,--an interest in tracing the various threads that compose the twisted strands of consciousness, in following the kaleidoscopic transformations wrought by attention and association, in observing the play of habit, the subtle processes of illusion and misinterpretation, the unexpected intrusion of the subconscious, and likewise in the pursuit of these as exemplified in concrete instances; among others, in such alleged phenomena as are commonly described as "mesmeric, psychical, and Spiritualistic."

The anthropological interest, above referred to, is to my mind a most valid one, and is best represented in Mr. Andrew Lang's volume, "Cock Lane and Common Sense." Mr. Lang there examines the stories of ghosts and apparitions, and clairvoyance, and spiritual knocks and raps, and strange influences, and haunted places, not at all for determining how little or how much these things are true, but how they come to be believed in. How is it that the same tale is told, the same powers credited, the same manifestations produced, in evidence of the supernatural? In savage as well as in ancient magic, in the stories current in former centuries as well as in our own day and generation, there is a pronounced generic similarity. There is certainly as strong an interest in the investigation of the growth and distribution of these beliefs as of the other clusters of belief which anthropology and folk-lore consider. And, moreover, recently acquired knowledge of hypnotic and automatic phenomena, of hyperaesthesia and nervous disease, shed much light on the obscure tales of the past, and assist the comprehension of how such beliefs could have originated. In brief, Mr. Lang outlines the programme for a "Comparative Psychical Research," and tells us that "we follow the stream of fable, as we track a burn to its head, and it leads us into shy and strange scenes of human life, haunted by very fearful wild fowl, and rarely visited, save by the credulous. There may be entertainment here, and, to the student of his species, there may be instruction." Part of the instruction will consist in gaining an increased familiarity with the psychological conditions which produce and foster these narratives and beliefs, and with their social and traditional significance; in concluding, with Mr. Lang, "that the psychological conditions which begat the ancient narratives produce the new legends."

The application of our knowledge of hypnotism to the explanation of alleged supernormal and unusual sensibilities is particularly interesting to the "psychical researcher"; the general enlargement of our knowledge of these conditions, irrespective of such an application, represents the aim of the psychologist. The latter may indeed cite Mr. Lang's dictum that "science is only concerned with truth, not with the mischievous inferences which people may draw from truth," as an excuse for his own declination to co?perate in the correction of such mischievous inferences. But the civic conscience of the psychologist may convince him that the removal of error is often an indispensable requisite to the dissemination of truth.

We here naturally approach what has, on the whole, formed the most conspicuous problem of Psychical Research--that associated with the term "telepathy." It will contribute to clearness of distinction to consider separately the question, whether the evidence accumulated in any wise justifies the conclusion, that there exists a form of communication occasionally going on between mind and mind apart from the recognized channels of sensation. This, too, is a strictly logical question, and is so presented in the following essay. We are here concerned with the status of telepathy in its relation to Psychology and Psychical Research; this it is possible to indicate briefly. First, if there really exist this extra-normal, fitful and occasional, uncertain and sporadic form of communication, and if it can be conceived of in psychological terms, it forms an interesting, possibly even a momentous contribution to our knowledge of mental processes. In the present status of the alleged conditions of operations of telepathy, it will hardly modify seriously the direction or scope of the development of Psychology. It being unnecessary to cross bridges before coming to them, it may be sufficient to observe that up to the present there exists no decided prospect either of the demonstration of the reality of this process or of its psychological formulation; and far less either of its inclusion within the science of Psychology, or of its practical utilization. When the day comes when the incontestable establishment of telepathy, as indeed of any totally novel contribution to Psychology, shall require a revision of psychological principles, Psychology will certainly have to be revised. What, then, many will retort, can be more important for the psychologist than to devote himself to the investigation of telepathy, to decide whether his Psychology needs reconstruction or not? The answer is near at hand: there is no obligation upon any science to reconstruct its basal principles whenever it is suggested that these are incorrect or inadequate. It is not the suggestion of their inadequacy that is significant, but the concrete facts and evidence available to prove their inadequacy. If a new view can establish itself by its logical cogency and displace an accepted doctrine, if new facts, adequately established, make necessary a revision of current generalizations, no scientist and no science will protest. The present status of telepathy is simply not a formidable candidate for this distinction.

That the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research contain valuable material in creditable quantity is evident to any unprejudiced reader; in many ways they are neither so bad nor so good as they are painted to be. That "psychical researchers," though pursuing their labors with different motives, have in one direction and another contributed to the advance of Psychology, I have attempted to make clear. Furthermore, the activity of this Society has been prominent in making the borderland of science of to-day present a far more hopeful aspect than ever before. It has substituted definiteness of statement, careful examination, recognition of sources of error, close adherence to as carefully authenticated fact as is attainable, for loose and extravagant speculation, for bare assertion and obscuring irrelevancy. It has made possible a scientific statement and a definiteness of conception of problems, even where its proposed solution of them may be thought misleading or inadequate. But in my opinion the debit side of the ledger far outbalances the credit side. The influence which Psychical Research has cast in favor of the occult, the enrollment under a common protective authority of the credulous and the superstitious, and the believers in mystery and in the personal significance of things, is but one of the evils which must be laid at its door. Equally pernicious is the distorted conception, which the prominence of Psychical Research has scattered broadcast, of the purposes and methods of Psychology. The status of that science has suffered, its representatives have been misunderstood, its advancement has been hampered, its appreciation by the public at large has been weakened and wrongly estimated, by reason of the popularity of the unfortunate aspects of Psychical Research, and of its confusion with them. Whatever in the publications of Psychical Research seems to favor mystery and to substantiate supernormal powers is readily absorbed, and its bearings fancifully interpreted and exaggerated; the more critical and successfully explanatory papers meet with a less extended and less sensational reception. Unless most wisely directed Psychical Research is likely, by not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing, to foster the undesirable propensities of human nature as rapidly as it antagonizes them. Like indiscriminate almsgiving, it has the possibilities of affording relief and of making paupers at the same time. Particularly by the unwarranted acceptance of telepathy as a reality or as a working hypothesis, and the still more unwarranted use of this highly hypothetical process as a means of explaining more complex and obscure phenomena, has it defeated one of the most important purposes which it might have served.

The popular as well as the more critical acceptance of Psychical Research, both of the term and of the conceptions associated with it, has disseminated a totally false estimate on the part of the public at large of the scope and purposes of modern Psychology; and has quite possibly given an unfortunate twist to the trend of recent psychological thought. The right appreciation of scientific aims and ideals by the intelligent and influential public has come to be almost indispensable to the favorable advancement of science. Psychology can less afford than many another science to dispense with this helpful influence; and no science can remain unaffected by persistent misinterpretation of its true end and aims. If Psychical Research is to continue in its present temper, it becomes essential to have it clearly understood just how far its purposes and spirit are, and how much farther they are not, in accord with the purposes and the spirit of Psychology. The optimistic psychologist anticipates the day when he will no longer be regarded, either in high life or in low life, as a collector of ghost stories or an investigator of mediums. The disuse of the unfortunate term "Psychical Research," and far more, the modification of the conceptions animating this type of investigation, the pursuit of its more intrinsically psychological problems in a more truly psychological spirit, and perhaps, most of all, the disassociation of the term "Psychology" from the undesirable and irrelevant connotations of Psychical Research, are all consummations devoutly to be desired.

THE LOGIC OF MENTAL TELEGRAPHY

What will be pronounced strange or curious is largely determined by the range and composition of the common body of knowledge to whose laws and uniformities the phenomena in question apparently fail to conform. What is passing strange to one generation may become easily intelligible to the next. We all have eyes that see not for all but a limited range of facts and views; and we unconsciously fill out the blind-spots of our mental retinae according to the habits and acquisitions of the surrounding areas. We observe and record what interests us; and this interest is in turn the outcome of a greater or lesser endowment, knowledge, and training. A new observation requires, as a rule, not a new sense-organ or an additional faculty, nor even more powerful or novel apparatus, but an insight into the significance of quite lowly and frequent things. Most of the appearances of the earth's crust, which the modern geologist so intelligently describes, were just as patent centuries ago as now; what we have added is the body of knowledge that makes men look for such facts and gives them a meaning. And although "the heir of all the ages," we can hardly presume to have investigated more than a modest portion of our potential inheritance; future generations will doubtless acquire interests and points of view which will enable them to fill some of the many gaps in our knowledge, to find a meaning in what we perchance ignore or regard as trivial, and to reduce to order and consistency what to us seems strange or curious or unintelligible. And future generations, by virtue of a broader perspective and a deeper insight, may give little heed to what we look upon as significant,--much as we pronounce irrelevant and superstitious the minute observances whereby primitive folk strive to attract the good fortunes and to avoid the dangers of human existence.

The possibility of the transference of thought, apart from the recognized channels of sensation, has been too frequently discussed, with the suppressed or unconscious assumption that our knowledge of the means whereby we ordinarily and normally, consciously and unconsciously, convey to others some notion of what is passing in our own minds, is comprehensive and exhaustive. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Whenever a mode of perception, no matter how limited or apparently trivial, has been thoroughly investigated, there have been discovered, or at least suggested, unrecognized possibilities of its use and development. And no result of experimental inquiry is more constantly illustrated than the extent to which inferences from sensations and the exercise of faculties may proceed without arousing consciousness of their existence. Many color-blind persons remain quite ignorant of their defect; and it was only after the description of his own notable deficiencies by Dalton that the general prevalence of color-blindness became recognized. The fact that a portion of every one's retina is as blind as his finger-tip escaped observation until about two centuries ago; and this because the normal use of our eyes does not present the conditions of its easy detection; and for a like reason we persistently refuse to see the double images that are constantly formed upon our retinae. With the same unconsciousness that we receive sensations and draw inferences from them, do we give to others indications of what is going on in our minds, and read between their words and under their expressions what "half reveals and half conceals the thoughts that lie within." It is important to emphasize the serious limitations as yet attaching to our knowledge of the detailed possibilities of normal perception and inference, in order to realize the corresponding hesitancy with which we should regard any series of facts, no matter how apparently inexplicable, as evidence of a supernormal kind of mental telegraphy.

A further principle important in this connection, and one which is likewise borne out by experimental inquiry, is the general similarity in our mental machinery in matters great and small, and the resulting frequency with which similar trains of thought may be carried on by different persons as the outcome of similar but independent brain-functioning. There is a natural tendency to exaggerate the individuality of our own ways of thought and expression; and yet but little reflection is necessary to suggest how easily this fond belief may be at least partially delusive. In certain lines of thought, such as mathematics, we should regard it as strange if two thinkers, starting with the premises determined by the problem in hand, should not reach the same conclusion; in others, such as economic or political questions, we observe the preponderance of evidence in one direction, and yet can appreciate the grounds of a contrary opinion; and while in still other cases we regard the verdict as a matter of taste or of individual preference, it may be questioned whether this is so unmotived or lawless a process as is commonly assumed. While we properly expect more mental community in certain lines than in others, we have good grounds for believing that it exists everywhere and only awaits the proper modes of investigation to reveal it in its full extent and significance. With the marvelously increased facilities for the dissemination and transportation of thought, the range of such mental community is certain to be correspondingly extended. Coincidences arising from the bringing together of widely separated and apparently unrelated happenings are sure to multiply, when the means of bringing them together are so vastly increased. Each man's world is enlarged by the enlargement of the whole. It becomes possible for him to come into relation with infinitely more persons and events, and the resulting coincidences are nowadays more likely to be noticed and recorded.

If we consider the logical ease with which the successful solution of one portion of a problem suggests the next step; how imperceptibly and yet effectively sentiments and points of view and the spirit of the time are disseminated; how many persons there are in this busily reflective era occupied with similar thoughts and schemes, and how readily they may come into communication; how many are anxiously studying the popular taste and demand to determine what literary venture or mechanical invention is likely to be timely and successful; how the possession of a common inheritance, patriotic interests, education, literature, political arena, social usages, newspaper intelligence, household conveniences, and the endless everyday factors of our complex, richly detailed existence all contribute to our common life,--shall we wonder that some two or half a dozen intellects should give expression to similar thoughts at nearly the same time? Would it not be infinitely more wonderful if such coincidences did not constantly occur? In the more original contributions to literature, science, and inventions, such thought-correspondences should be rarer; and certainly this is true. Contrast the number of striking similarities in the higher walks of literature and science with those that occur in small inventions. Hardly a day passes without the coincidence of two persons thinking of devices for accomplishing the same purposes, so essentially similar that patents could not be given to both. It is certainly not difficult to understand why several different patterns of typewriting machines should be invented nearly simultaneously, and it would not be altogether mysterious if, at the first, two inventors had independently reached the idea of a writing-machine at nearly the same time. The experience of offering an article to an editor and receiving a reply to the effect that another article dealing with a similar topic in a similar way was already awaiting the compositor is not unusual. It is true that these coincidences are of a minor order, but it seems desirable to emphasize the frequency of these minor forms in order to suggest the law-abiding character of the rarer or the more striking forms; for this is just what the normal distribution of such phenomena would lead us to expect.

It would be pleasant to believe that the application of the doctrine of chances to problems of this character is quite generally recognized; but this recognition is so often accompanied by the feeling that the law very clearly applies to all cases but the one that happens to be under discussion, that I fear the belief is unwarranted. Moreover, the notion seems to prevail that these coincidences should occur with equal frequency to all persons; while, in fact, the law of probability provides for the most various distribution among individuals. However, the attempt, and it may be the sincere attempt, to apply proper conceptions of probability and improbability to such problems often fails, because of an unfortunate mental attitude which presents, with an outward acquiescence in the objective view of the problem, an inward conviction in which the subjective interpretation is really dominant; for this and other reasons, this objective method of viewing the matter, however pertinent, is not the most important.

One of the most deplorable attitudes towards the borderland phenomena of which mental telegraphy or telepathy forms a type, is that which insists upon an exact and detailed explanation of concrete personal experiences, and regards these as so essentially peculiar that it refuses to consider them in connection with the many other instances of the same class, without reference to which a rational explanation is unattainable. This tendency, to insist that the laws of science shall be precisely and in detail applicable to individual experiences possessing a personal interest for us, has wrought much havoc; it has contributed to superstition, fostered pseudo-science, and encouraged charlatanism. To antagonize this tendency it is necessary to insist upon the statistical nature of the inquiry. We should certainly be familiar in this statistic-filled age with the law-abiding character of individual happenings when considered in large groups. So many types of facts depending upon individual and heterogeneous motives shoot together and form curves of surprising regularity; the number of marriages or of misdirected letters, the falsification of ages or the distribution of heights of individuals, and countless other items that in individual cases seem accidental, or capricious, or due to a host of minute and unaccountable factors, none the less present a striking statistical regularity. The owners of a gaming-table, counting upon the statistical regularity of the accidental, are assured of a steady income; they are interested long enough to obtain an extensive view of the fluctuations, and to see the law that guides the whole. Not so the individual player; he is interested only in that particular portion of the game in which his money is at stake. He detects mysterious laws of fortune and freaks of luck; sees in a series of coincidences or momentary successes the proofs of his pet schemes, and dismisses the general doctrine of chances with disdain, because it is not obviously applicable to his case. This influences the losers as well as the winners; both are absorbed in their own minute portions of the game, and forget that the law makes distinct provision for temporary losses and gains, great and small, but is as indifferent to the times and order of such occurrences as to the personality of those affected.

The distinction between the individual and the statistical aspect of a problem may be further illustrated in the much-discussed question of the differences in brain characteristics of men and women. When the claimants for woman's equality point to the acknowledged inability of an anatomist to determine whether a particular brain belonged to a man or a woman as conclusive evidence of their contention, they unconsciously assume that the problem is capable of determination in the individual specimen. A sounder logic would insure greater caution. The differences in question may be certainly established and typical, and yet depend upon statistical, not upon individual data. Give the anatomist a goodly number of fairly selected brains and tell him that all the women's brains are in one group, and all the men's brains in another, and he will tell you which group is feminine, which masculine; and this more than offsets his failure in the former test. It establishes a statistical regularity. Individually we may argue that many women of our acquaintance have larger heads than the men; that the English, are not taller than the French, because the Frenchmen we have chanced to meet have been quite as tall as the Englishmen of our acquaintance; that the laws of chance do not apply to the gaming-table, because on that basis we should have come out even and not as losers; and that coincidences cannot explain our strange mental experiences, because they are altogether too peculiar and too frequent. It is only in the most complete stages and in the more definite realms that knowledge becomes applicable accurately and definitely to individual cases. For the present it is well if, with such abstruse or rather indefinite material, we can glimpse the statistical regularity of the entire group of phenomena, trace here and there the possible or probable application of general principles, and refuse to allow our opinions to be disarranged by rather startling individual cases. The explanation of these, however interesting they may be to ourselves or entertaining to others, is not the test of our knowledge of the subject.

I pick up a stone, and with a peculiar turn of the hand throw it from me; probably no student of mechanics can exactly calculate the course of that projectile,--nor is it worth while. What he can do is to show what laws are obeyed by ideal projectiles, ideally thrown under ideal conditions, and how far the more important practical cases tend to agree with or diverge from these conditions. It is unfair to test his science by its minute applicability to our special experiences.

When the problems involved in mental telegraphy come to be generally viewed under the guidance of a sound logic, the outlook will be hopeful that the whole domain will gradually acquire definite order; and that its devotees, after appreciating the statistical regularity of the phenomena, will come to the conclusion that much of the energy and ability now expended in a search for the explanation of complex and necessarily indefinite individual cases, is on the whole unprofitable. With an infinite time and an infinite capacity it might be profitable to study all things; but, at present, sanity consists in the maintenance of a proper perspective of the relative importance of the affairs of the intellectual and the practical life. It may be that the man who puzzles day and night over some trivial mystery expends as much brain energy as a great intellectual benefactor of mankind; but the world does not equally cherish the two.

It becomes important in the further consideration of coincidences to emphasize the great opportunity presented in their description for error, for defective observation, for neglect of details, for exaggeration of the degree of correspondence; and equally demonstrable is the slight amount of such error or mal-observation that is all-sufficient to convert a plain fact into a mystery. Consider the disfigurement that a simple tale undergoes as it passes from mouth to mouth; the forgetfulness of important details and the introduction of imaginary ones, exhibited upon the witness stand; the almost universal tendency to substitute inferences from sensations and observations for the actual occurrences; and add to these the striking results of experimental inquiry in this direction--for example, the divergences between the accounts of sleight-of-hand performances or spiritualistic s?ances and what really occurred--and it becomes less difficult to understand why we so often fail to apply general principles to individual cases. The cases cannot be explained as they are recorded, because as recorded they do not furnish the essential points upon which the explanation hinges. The narrator may be confident that the points of the story are correctly observed, that all the details are given; and yet this feeling of confidence is by no means to be trusted. It is quite possible that the points that would shed most light on the problem are too trivial to attract attention; a slightly imperfect connection as effectively breaks the circuit and cuts off the possibility of illumination as a more serious disturbance. After the explanation is given or the gap supplied or the break discovered, we often wonder how we could have failed to detect the source of the mystery; but before we know what to observe and what to record and what to be on our guard against, the possibility of error is extremely great, far greater than most of us would be willing to make allowance for; and the strict demonstration as also the refutation of a proposed explanation becomes correspondingly difficult.

I turn to another point, in some respects the most important of all; I refer to the readiness with which we interpret as the remarkable frequency of coincidences what is due to a strong interest in a given direction. Inasmuch as we observe what interests us, a recently acquired interest will lead to new observations--that is, new to us, however familiar they may be to others. Take up the study of almost any topic that appeals to human curiosity, and it takes no prophet to predict that within a short time some portion of your reading or your conversation, or some accidental information, will unexpectedly reveal a bearing on the precise subject of your study, often supplying a gap which it would have been most difficult otherwise to fill; but surely this does not mean that all the world has become telepathically aware of your needs and proceeded to attend to them. Some years ago I became interested in cases of extreme longevity, particularly of centenarianism, and for some months every conversation seemed to lead to this topic, and every magazine and newspaper offered some new item about old people. Nowadays my interest is transferred to other themes; but the paragrapher continues quite creditably to meet my present wants, and the centenarians have vanished. When I am writing about coincidences, I become keen to observe them; such for example as this: I was reading for the second time an article on "Mental Telegraphy" ; I was occupied with what is there described as a most wonderful coincidence, the nearly simultaneous origination by the author and by Mr. William H. Wright of a similar literary venture,--when I happened to take my eyes from the page and saw on my desk a visiting-card bearing the name, "W. H. Wright." It was not the same W. H. Wright, but a gentleman whom I had met for the first time a few hours before, and have not seen since. Had I not been especially interested in this article and its subject, the identity of the names would certainly have escaped my attention, and there would have been no coincidence to record. Quite apropos both of coincidences and of their dependence upon personal interest, I find recorded in a current magazine the experience of one who became enthusiastically interested in thoroughbred cats: "Strangely enough--for it is a thing which is recurrently strange--I, who had rarely seen any printed matter relating to cats, now found the word in every newspaper. Adopting a new interest is like starting a snowball; as long as it moves, it gathers other particles to itself."

It is only necessary to become deeply interested in coincidences, to look about with eyes open and eager to detect them, in order to discover them on all sides; resolve to record all that come to hand, and they seem to multiply until you can regard yourself and your friends as providentially favored in this direction. If your calling develops a taste for matters of this kind,--for example, if you are a writer, with a keen sense for the literary possibilities and dramatic effects of such coincidences, or if you are of an imaginative turn of mind with a pronounced or a vague yearning for the interesting or the unusual; if you have a more generous or more persistent endowment of the day-dreaming, fantastic, self-dramatization of adolescence, that is half unreal and yet half externalized in the vividness of youthful fancy,--is it strange that you should meet with more of these "psychic experiences" than your prosaic neighbor whose thoughts and aspirations are turned to quite other channels, and to whom an account of your experiences might even prove tiresome? If you cultivate the habit of having presentiments, and of regarding them as significant, is it strange that they should become more and more frequent, and that among the many, some should be vaguely suggestive, or even directly corroborative of actual occurrences?

The frequent coincidences, which form so influential a factor in disseminating an inclination towards such an hypothesis as telepathy, are doubtless largely the result of an interest in these experiences. This interest is very natural and proper, and when estimated at its true value is certainly harmless; it may indeed contribute material worthy of record for the student of mental phenomena,--or it may give spice to the matter-of-fact incidents of a workaday existence. To many minds, however, the temptation to magnify this interest into a significant portion of one's mental life, to invest it with a serious power to shape belief and to guide conduct, is unusually strong, in some cases almost irresistible. It is this tendency that is essentially antagonistic to a logical view and therefore to a scientific study of these irregular mental incidents; it is this tendency that is responsible for much of the spurious and the unwholesome interest in the problems of mental telegraphy.

It would naturally be expected that the nature and subject-matter of the more frequent types of coincidences and presentiments would throw some light upon their origin, and would in some measure reinforce the general position above taken. We should expect that such coincidences would relate to persons and affairs that are frequently in our thoughts, and that similarities of thought and presentiments based upon them should occur among persons intimately acquainted with one another's thought-habits, at least in regard to that line of thought to which the coincidence relates; these expectations are fairly well borne out by the facts. It is a commonplace observation that presentiments and unusual psychic experiences most frequently relate to those who are dear to us, or in whom we have a momentarily strong interest; that they deal with events which we have anxiously dreaded or desired, or with matters over which we have puzzled or worried; and again, that they occur under conditions of emotional strain, excitement, or anxiety. In brief, they deal with what is frequently in our minds or what more or less unconsciously furnishes the general emotional and intellectual background which gives character to our mood and to our associations of ideas. I need hardly add that it is the more successful and striking coincidences that we remember and record, and the others that are quickly forgotten. Moreover, so large a share of mental operations of the type in question takes place in the region of the subconscious, that our recollection of what has occupied our thoughts is by no means a final authority. Occasionally we detect these subconscious similarities of mental operations, when after a silence the same question or thought shapes itself on the lips of two speakers at the same time; and here again, are not many of those who give utterance to the same thoughts, or finish one another's sentences, intimate companions in the walks of life? Is it strange that in the daily intercourse with a congenial spirit, they should have absorbed enough of one another's mental processes to anticipate, now and then, a step in their association of ideas?

Still another factor that figures somewhat in coincidences relates to events which are sooner or later very likely or quite certain to occur, and in which the coincidence is confined to the close simultaneity of the action on the part of two or more persons concerned. The crossing of letters is easily the best illustration of this type of occurrence which has the semblance of thought-communication. It is so easy to fall into the habit of delaying all delayable matters as long as possible that it must frequently happen that your own sense of duty is aroused and your correspondent's patience is exhausted at nearly the same time. If A is to hear from B, or B from A, within a period not very definite but still reasonably limited, every day's delay makes it more and more probable that their letters will cross. The same consideration applies to other affairs of daily life; we delay a matter of business and are just about to attend to it when the other party concerned comes to us, or we delay offering some social attention until just as we are about to do so it is asked of us; and so on. In brief, we find not only in sickness and death, in family ties and friendships, in travel and adventure, but also in the special and in the complicated interests of our civilized life an abundant opportunity for coincidences; and we find that their frequency is clearly related to the commonness of the event, and to its familiarity and closeness of relation to our habits of thought.

Reviewing the arguments which have been presented, we find a tendency to underestimate the possibilities of expression and communication through the normal channels of the senses and the subtle inferences based upon them, and also an insufficient appreciation of the unrecognized but by no means supernormal capabilities, which special and unusual susceptibility or training of these same powers of interpretation and thought-revelation may bring about; we find, further, a prevalent underestimation of the generic and at times the specific similarity of the products of our several diverse and yet homogeneous mental equipments, and with it a lack of consideration of the greatly increased facilities for such mental community afforded by modern conditions of rapid transit and rapid sharing of the common benefits of civilization. We find a misconception of the nature of the application of the doctrine of chances to mental coincidences, which brings about an apparent recognition but an intrinsic belittling of the r?le which chance really plays in the evidence advanced for telepathy; we find that this error is probably due to an unfortunate, intensely individual view of the problem, which insists upon an explanation of personal experiences, and disregards the essentially impersonal and statistical nature of the inquiry. This unfair attitude renders difficult, if not impossible, a just appreciation of the theoretical aspect of the problem and of the application of theory to practice. We find, furthermore, that the recorded data are likely to involve an unusual degree of unreliability owing to such natural psychological tendencies as defective observation, exaggeration, preconception, and the ordinary limitations and failings of humanity; nor is any serious amount of such neglect needed to bridge the gap between intelligible fact and unintelligible mystery. Finally, it is not sufficiently borne in mind that the data are in large part created by the subjective attitude of expectation and interest in such experiences, and that the nature of the more frequent coincidences furnishes satisfactory evidence of their natural relations to dominant interests and occupations. The concordant suggestion from these various considerations is that a very large part of the experiences offered in evidence of mental telegraphy, finds a much more natural and more consistent explanation when viewed as the complex and irregular results of types of mental processes included within the legitimate and recognized domain of psychology. There is no desire to overlook the loose and distant connection that often pertains between the general considerations and the particular phenomena here relevant; on the contrary, this lack of explicit and intimate connection is a logical characteristic of the relation of theory to practice in dealing with such complex and irregular material, and is likely for a long time to remain so. A more properly cultivated logical sense will bring about a more satisfactory appreciation of and a greater intellectual content with this aspect of the problem; it will be recognized that it is wiser to make the best of actual though admittedly unsatisfactory conditions than to fly to evils that we know not of.

I therefore regard the inclination towards a telepathic hypothesis as the result of a defective logical attitude, which in turn may be regarded as the outcome of a natural but unfortunate psychological tendency. In considering the question, "What is the proper inference to be drawn from the accumulated data apparently suggestive of 'communication between mind and mind otherwise than through the known channels of the senses'?" we are considering a logical problem--a problem of considerable difficulty, not one to be entered upon without deliberation and preparation. In considering the question, "How is it that such evidence is readily accepted as proof of telepathy? How is it that this hypothesis is favored above others intrinsically no less improbable?" we are likewise entering upon a complex problem, but one that is psychological in scope and nature. It is to a more fundamental consideration of these questions that we now turn.

I have based my discussion of mental telegraphy almost wholly upon the occurrence of coincidences , for the reason that coincidences--both those of a commonplace character and those that seem to possess a striking personal significance--have prepared the popular mind for the acceptance of the telepathic hypothesis, and still constitute the most formidable array of evidence presented for that hypothesis. The other class of evidence to be considered is the experimental, which may be said to include as its most distinctive type the results of tests in which intentional attempts at mental telegraphy were made under definite conditions and usually with specially selected subjects; and as another type, the precise verification and registration of presentiments and peculiar and startling "psychic experiences" with reference to their coincidence with death, accidents, and other serious events in life. It may be admitted that the experimental data are equally worthy with the others of a logical analysis, and indeed that they present in some respects different and more favorable conditions for the application of such an analysis. In general, however , the considerations that determine the logical value, or the lack of it, of the one type of evidence are applicable without undue modification to the other. Nor do I consider that the experimental data have seriously modified the logical status of the problem as a whole; nor that they have, except in relatively few cases, been of themselves sufficient to make converts to a belief in telepathy. They have undoubtedly very much strengthened and disseminated that belief; but this implies that a favorable disposition to the belief was already present. It is because it seems to me that the presence of this favorable disposition, albeit in suppressed or half-acknowledged form, is in most cases due to some phase of the argument from coincidences, that I have made it central in my discussion. I must not fail to point out, however, that experiments in thought-transference have one important, and that a logical, advantage over observations of coincidences; this is the possibility which they present of quite accurately allowing for the effect of chance. In coincidences the estimate of chance as the source of the conjunction of events is frequently, if not always, a matter of complex judgment over which serious differences of opinion will occur. Some of the published quantitative estimates made by serious and able students of such problems, of the probabilities that certain coincidences have been due to chance have been pronounced altogether wide of the mark and even absurd by others. In experiments arranged with due precautions there can be no uncertainty on this point; the proportion of successes, that is, of striking coincidences, may be calculated. If the actual number of chance coincidences appreciably exceeds the calculated proportion, and if the theory on which the calculation was based corresponds to the actual conditions, then the results were not due to chance alone. But whether they were due to fraud, or to some unconscious transference of indications, or to telepathy, or to spirit influence, or to interference of the devil, or to the fact that the participants in the experiment were born when the stars and planets presented certain conjunctions, or to the existence of a totally unrecognized form of mental vibrations,--all these are mere hypotheses which may be strong or weak or absurd, according to their power to really account for the results, to their concordance with the sum total of scientific knowledge in this field and with the logical principles guiding the formation of scientific hypotheses. To jump from the conclusion that the results are not due to chance to the conclusion that they are due to telepathy, is no whit more absurd than the position of the astrologer, or the spiritualistic explanation of conjuring tricks. That there is something in these results to be explained is admitted; whether the results have been obtained and recorded in such a way as to contain the clue to their explanation cannot be affirmed; whether our present state of knowledge enables us to explain them may be argued pro and con; whether they are worth serious attention is also a debatable question; but none of these conditions warrants a resort to the telepathic hypothesis. That hypothesis as all others must be weighed in the logical balance without prepossession, and with full realization of the possibility, that "general appearances suspicious," or "not proven," or a complete suspension of judgment, may be among the present verdicts.

So far as the strength and weakness of the arguments for mental telegraphy depend upon the perspective of value attached to the various data and to the conditions under which these have been gathered, I have presented my estimate and indicated the burden of my conclusions. But I am aware that I may have laid myself open to the charge--which will be brought not by the advocates of telepathy, but by its most emphatic opponents--of a neglect of consideration of the general logical status of telepathy as a germane and legitimate hypothesis. That the hypothesis of telepathy when carefully interpreted is capable, if not of explaining the data, at least of being fitted without undue straining to a large portion of the data, may be claimed with some plausibility; that I regard the hypothesis as unwarranted and unnecessary has been made sufficiently clear. But what if the hypothesis is not a legitimate one, not one which the methods and spirit of science can properly or profitably consider? If this be the case, it would seem superfluous to consider whether the hypothesis is warranted by the data or capable of explaining them. That it is the policy of science to allow the utmost latitude of opinion and theory and to interpret the possible in an unprejudiced and liberal spirit will readily be conceded. That it is equally the policy of science to demand of all claimants for recognition authentic credentials framed in accordance with the laws of logic and the principles of evidence and probability, is sometimes overlooked. Science cannot possibly consider all hypotheses, but only legitimate ones. To explain coincidences and the success of experiments in thought-transference by assuming that there is a demon, whose special business it is to make people have uncanny feelings when their relatives in distant places are dying or in danger, and to suggest to the guesser what is in the mind of the party of the second part in the experiment, is certainly not an hypothesis worthy of consideration by science; and incidentally be it noted that this hypothesis may be successfully shaped to fit the facts, and cannot be definitely disproved. Some absurd hypotheses may be readily disproved and others not; but are scientists really called upon to disprove them? There recently fell under my observation a claim for the theory that when persons felt an unaccountable aversion for one another, either at once or after a time of friendship, it was due to their opposite horoscopic natures, and it would be found that their birthdays were not far from six months apart, that is, nearly as far apart as they possibly could be. Divorces, breaches of promise, family feuds, and antipathies at first sight could thus be accounted for. Now, it would involve no very burdensome undertaking to disprove this theory; but I should not expect a cordial approval of my efforts on the part of my colleagues if I carried through the investigation. The hypothesis is unscientific, or even anti-scientific, and its examination unnecessary and unprofitable. Yet it is not always possible to render so decisive a verdict; and in the present case, while I incline to the belief that the hypothesis of telepathy is, as usually advanced and in essence, an illegitimate one, I still regard it as possible that in the future some modification of this hypothesis may be framed, which will bring it within the scope of a liberal conception of the scientific. It is important to make this attitude perfectly clear: if telepathy means the hypothesis of a new force, that is, the assumption of an as yet uncomprehended mode of the output of energy, subject rigorously to the physical bonds of material causation which make possible a rational conception of psycho-physiological processes; and if, further, some one will put forth a rational conception of how this assumed action can take place apart from the exercise of the senses, I am prepared to admit that this hypothesis is one which it is legitimate, though perhaps not profitable, to consider. If, however, telepathy is put forward as a totally new and peculiar kind of action, which is quite unrelated to the ordinary forces with which our senses and scientific observation acquaint us, and which is not subject to the limitations of the material world of causation; if telepathy is supposed to reveal to us a world beyond or behind or mysteriously intertwined with the phenomena of this world,--a world in which events happen not in accordance with the established physical laws, but for their personal significance even in defiance of those laws,--then it becomes impossible for the scientist to consider this hypothesis without abandoning his fundamental conceptions of law and science.

My defense, therefore, for not beginning and possibly confining this discussion to the question of the scientific legitimacy of the telepathic hypothesis is that, in the present status of opinion, it does not seem to me hopeful to influence belief by such a presentation. It seems to me a far more practical step to present the unwarranted character of the hypothesis and its logical insufficiencies as a means of influencing those who had been, or were likely to be, impressed by coincidences and death-warning experiences and guessing experiments. And, moreover, it is necessary, so long as such experiences have a strong hold on the popular imagination and shape the popular conceptions of the nature both of mental processes and of the field of psychology, to portray as well as may be the natural explanation and significance of the phenomena, and to indicate the general trend of the conceptions under which they may be profitably viewed; and this, even though it be but measurably possible to apply general principles to special cases. This step is an essential part of the logical task here attempted. Under other circumstances it would have been advisable, as it always would be proper, to determine the legitimacy of an hypothesis before considering it as worthy of detailed examination on other counts. But here, as is frequently the case, it is a condition and not one of our own choosing that confronts us.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECEPTION

The saying that appearances are deceptive is an inheritance from ancient times; to Oriental and to Greek philosophers the illusory nature of the knowledge furnished by the senses was a frequent and a fertile theme of contemplation and discussion. The same problem stands open to the psychologist of to-day; but, profiting by the specialization of learning and the advance of technical science, he can give it a more comprehensive as well as a more practical answer. The physiological activities underlying sense-perception are now fairly well understood; the experimental method has extended its domain over the field of mental phenomena; and in many ways have we become more expert in addressing our queries to the sphinx, Nature, so as to force a reply. To outline the position of modern psychology with reference to this interesting problem of deception is the object of the present essay.

In a sense-impression we recognize a primitive element in the acquisition of knowledge. The deprivation of a sense even under most favorable circumstances leaves some traces of an incomplete mental development. This is due, not to the mere sense-impressions that the organ furnishes, but to the perception and co?rdination of these by inferential processes of a more complex nature. It is not the eye of the eagle, but the brain directing the human eye, that leads to intellectual supremacy. Physiology recognizes this distinction as one between lower and higher brain-centres. A man may have his retina or his optic nerve injured, and so be blind in the ordinary sense of the word. He is prevented from acquiring further knowledge by this avenue; but, unless he become blind in early childhood, he will retain a memory for visual images, will be able more or less clearly to imagine pictorially the appearances of objects from verbal descriptions, and in the free roamings of his dream fancy will live in a world in which blindness is unknown. On the other hand, there is a condition resulting from the disintegration of certain portions of the finely organized cortex of the brain, in which the patient may retain full sight and understanding, but be unable to derive any meaning from what he sees. The same cluster of sensations that enables us to recognize a book, a picture, a face, and to arouse all the numerous associations attaching to these, is as unmeaning to him as the symbols of a cipher alphabet. This condition is termed "psychic blindness;" and what is there lost is not the power of vision, but of interpreting, of assimilating, of reading the meaning of visual sense-impressions. It is this interpreting and assimilating process that is largely concerned in the formation of illusions.

In the experiences of daily life we have to do not with simple sensations, but with more or less complex inferences from them; and it is just because these inferences go on so constantly and so unconsciously that they are continually and persistently overlooked. It is an occasional experience in raising a water-pitcher to have the vessel fly up in the hand in a very startling manner,--the reason for this being that the pitcher, which one is accustomed to find well filled, happens to be empty. This experience shows that we unconsciously estimate the force necessary to raise the vessel, but only become conscious of this train of inference when it happens to lead to conclusions contradictory of the fact. The perception of distance, once thought to be as primitive a factor in cognition as the impression of a color, is likewise the result of complex though unrealized inferences; and the phenomena of the stereoscope, by imitating the conditions of the perception of solidity and thus making us see as solid the flat representations of a pair of diagrams or photographs, furnish a brilliant illustration of the variety and complexity of such unconscious reasonings. As for essential purposes normal persons have a common anatomy, a common physiology, and a common psychology, it results that we draw these unconscious inferences after the same pattern; and so completely are they the outcome of the normal reactions to our common environment, that we need not be, and as a rule are not, aware of their existence until--and probably with some little effort--our attention is directed to them. Unconsciously and spontaneously we learn to see,--that is, to extract meaning out of the sense-impressions that fall upon the retina.

As our present purpose is to investigate the nature of real deception, of the formation of false beliefs which may in turn lead to unwise action, it will be well to note that even such elementary forms of sense-deceptions as those just noted may fall under this head. No one allowed the use of his eyes will ever believe that the pea held between the crossed fingers is really double, but children often think that a spoon half immersed in water is really bent. Primitive peoples believe that the moon really grows smaller as it rises above the horizon; and the ancients could count sufficiently upon the ignorance of the people, to make use of mirrors and other stage devices for revealing the power of the gods. The ability to correct such errors depends solely upon the possession of certain knowledge or of a confidence in its existence.

Deception becomes real according to the skill with which the conditions of reality are imitated. The dexterity and training of the professional conjurer are measured by the fidelity with which he mimics the movements which are supposed to be done. The life-likeness of the movement with which the late Hermann could take up an imaginary orange with both hands from a table , and carry it over to another table where it mysteriously disappeared or passed through a hat, was quite irresistible. Equally so was his palming, or his production of objects from his person, or out of the air, or in out-of-the-way places. The mimetic movements accompanying these actions were so vividly realistic, the misdirection of the attention was so perfect, as to produce a complete hallucination of the appearance of objects from places from which they never emerged. When this was preceded by an actual sleight-of-hand movement, a true hallucination resulted; for example, in the trick of the flying cards which were skilfully thrown to all parts of the auditorium, a card was occasionally thrown which seemed to disappear mysteriously in mid-air; but in reality no card had been thrown but only the movements of throwing it imitated. A rabbit was tossed up in the air two or three times, and then disappeared at the report of a pistol; in reality the rabbit was not tossed at all on the last apparent throw, but was slipped into the hollow of the table.

In every perception two factors contribute to the result. The one is the nature of the object perceived, the other that of the percipient. The effect of the first factor is obvious and well recognized; the importance of the second factor is more apt to be overlooked. The sunset is a different experience to the artist from what it is to the farmer; a piece of rocky scenery is viewed with quite a different interest by the artist and the geologist. The things that were attractive in childhood have lost their charm; and what was then, if noticed at all, considered stupid, has become a cherished hobby. Even from day to day, our interests change with our moods, and our views of things brighten with the weather or the good behavior of our digestive organs. Not only will the nature of the impression change with the interests of the observer, but even more, whether or not an object will be perceived at all, will depend upon the same cause. The naturalist sees what the stroller entirely overlooks; the sailor detects a ship in the distant horizon where the landsman sees nothing; and this is not because the naturalist and the sailor have keener vision, but because they know what to look for. Whenever an impression is vague, or an observation made under poor conditions, this subjective element comes to the front. Darkness, fear, any strong emotion, any difficulty in perception reveal the same influence. "La nuit tous les chats sont gris." Expectation, or expectant attention, is doubtless the most influential of all such factors. When awaiting a friend, any indistinct noise is readily converted into the rumbling of carriage-wheels; the mother hears in every sound the cry of her sick child. After viewing an object through a magnifying-glass, we detect details with the naked eye which escaped our vision before. In spite of the fact that the answer in the book happens to be wrong, a considerable proportion of the class succeeds in reaching it. Everywhere we are apt to perceive what we expect to perceive, in the perception of which we have an interest. The process that we term "sensation," the gathering of evidence by the senses, is dual in character, and depends upon the eyes that see as well as upon the things that are present to be seen.

The trick, above cited, of supporting a child in mid-air, was performed by Houdin at the time when the inhalations of ether for purposes of insensibility were first introduced. This idea was in the minds of the audience, and magical effects were readily attributed to etherization. Accordingly the trick was announced as "suspension in equilibrium by atmospheric air through the action of concentrated ether," and so successfully was this aspect of the trick accepted that protests were sent in against "the unnatural father who sacrificed the health of his poor child to the pleasures of the public." In the same way, Kellar introduces a "thought-reading" performance, by going through the movements of hypnotizing the lady who assists in the trick; this enables him to present the phenomenon in a mysterious light, and incidentally his manipulations furnish the opportunity to connect the end of a speaking-tube concealed in the lady's hair with another portion attached to the chair. In brief, the effect of a trick depends more upon the receptive attitude of the spectators than upon what is really done. "Conjuring," Mr. Triplett observes, "is thus seen to be a kind of game of preperception wherein the performer so plays upon the psychical processes of his audience that the issues are as he desires."

There is, too, a class of tricks which illustrate a process, the reverse of this; and which depend for their ?clat upon making the issues coincide with the apparently freely expressed choice of the spectator, while really the performer as rigidly determines the result as in all other cases. One of the best of these proceeds by collecting some eight or nine questions prepared by as many persons in the audience, then placing them in a hat, drawing out one at random, and finding the answer to the question thus selected written on the inside surfaces of a pair of slates. The deception begins in the substitution for the collected slips of paper, of the same number of slips all containing the same carefully prepared question; the production of the writing on the blank slate is a chemical technicality. It is a similar result that is obtained in forcing a card; or when the conjurer asks the audience to select one of a group of similar objects, and then himself decides whether the selected object shall be used for the trick or discarded; likewise, when a magic bottle is presented from which any desired variety of liquor may be produced, it is easy to suggest the choice according to the available possibilities. There is thus an imitation of the psychological factors as well as of the objective factors of real experience; and both are utilized in the deceptions of the professional conjurer.

It is necessary, however, not only to provide an opportunity for non-attention or misdirected attention, but to be able to take advantage of it when the proper moment arrives. Here enters the dexterity alike of pickpocket and of conjurer. The training in quickness and accuracy of motion, in delicacy of touch, in the simultaneous perception of a wide range of sense-impressions, are among the psychological requisites of a successful conjurer. He must dissociate the natural factors of his habits, actually doing one thing while seemingly attending to another; at the same time his eyes and his gestures and his "patter" misdirect the attention to what is apparently the essential field of operation, but really only a blind to distract attention away from the true scene of action. The conjurer directs your attention to what he does not do; he does not do what he pretends to do; and to what he actually does he is careful neither to appear to direct his own attention nor to arouse yours.

With these all-powerful magicians--an expected result and the willingness to credit a marvel--clearly in mind, let us proceed from those instances in which they have least effect up to the point where they form the chief factor. First come a host of conjuring tricks performed on the stage in slightly modified forms, but which are presented as "spiritualistic." So simple a trick as scratching a name on one's hand with a clean pen dipped in water, then writing the name on a slip of paper, burning the slip and rubbing the part with the ashes, thus causing the ashes to cling to the letters formed on the hand and reveal the name, has been offered as a proof of spirit agency. Whenever an article disappears or rapidly changes its place, the spiritualist is apt to see the workings of hidden spirits; and over and over again have the performances of professional conjurers been declared to be spiritual in origin in spite of all protest from the conjurers themselves. Here everything depends upon the possession of certain technical knowledge; judging without such knowledge is apt to be mere prejudice. Another very large class of phenomena consists of those in which the performer is placed in a position apparently inconsistent with his taking any active part in their production; rope-tying tests, cabinet s?ances, the appearance of a "spirit-hand" from behind a screen, locking the performer in a cage, sewing him in a bag, and so on. The psychologist has very little interest in these; their solution depends upon the skill with which knots may be picked, locks unfastened, and the other devices by which security may be simulated. The chief interest in such performances is the historical one, for these have done perhaps more than anything else to convince believers of the truth of Spiritualism. Here, where everything depends upon the security of the fastenings , upon the particular moment when the examination was permitted or the light turned down, upon the success with which an appearance of security and intactness of seals and knots may be simulated, it might be supposed that all possible precautions had been taken to control and eliminate these possibilities; while, as a matter of fact, the laxity of most investigators in this regard is well known. These performances deceive because people overlook the technical acquisitions needed to pronounce upon the possibility or impossibility of a fastening having been tampered with and apparently restored without detection. If manufacturers of safes were equally credulous, and gave equally little time to the study of the security of locks, "safe" would be an ironical expression indeed.

If, however, the spectator is once convinced that he has evidence of the supernatural, he soon sees it in every accident and incident of the performance. Not only that he overlooks natural physical explanations, but he is led to create marvels by the very ardor of his sincerity. At a materializing s?ance the believer recognizes a dear friend in a carelessly arranged drapery seen in a dim light. Conclusive evidence of the subjective character of such perceptions is furnished by the fact that the same appearance is frequently recognized by different sitters as the spiritual counterpart of entirely different and totally dissimilar persons. A "spirit-photograph" is declared to be the precise image of entirely unlike individuals. In the "Revelations of a Spirit Medium," we read that a wire gauze mask placed in front of a handkerchief, made luminous by phosphorus, and projected through the opening of the cabinet, was "recognized by dozens of persons as fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, sweethearts, wives, husbands, and various other relatives and friends." Each one sees what he expects to see, what appeals to his interests the most intensely. What the unprejudiced observer recognizes as the flimsily disguised form of the medium, the believer transforms into the object of his thoughts and longings. Only let the form be vague enough, the light dim enough, the emotions upon a sufficient strain, and that part of perception in which the external image is deficient will be readily supplied by the subjective tendencies of each individual. In the presence of such a mental attitude the possibilities of deception are endless; the performer grows bolder as his victim passes from a watchful, critical attitude to one of easy conviction, and we get scientific proofs of the fourth dimension of space, of the possibility of matter passing through matter, of the levitation or elongation of the medium's body, of the transcendence of the laws of gravity. And the same performance that convinced Professor Zoellner of the reality of the fourth dimension of space would prove to the spiritualist the intercourse with deceased friends, would convince the theosophist of the flight of the performer's astral body; and, it may not be irrelevant to add, it was the same type of performance that served and yet serves to terrify the minds of uncultivated and superstitious savages. All depends not upon what is done, but upon the mental disposition of the spectator. Little by little, through neglect, through mal-observation and lapses of memory, through an unwillingness to mistrust the reports of an excited consciousness, caution is abandoned and credulity enters. Mediums are actually seen flying out of one window and in through another. The wildest and most far-fetched fantastic explanation is preferred above a simple one; the bounds of the normal are passed; real hallucinations set in; conduct becomes irrational, and a state hardly distinguishable from insanity ensues. If this seems improbable, turn to the records of witchcraft persecutions and read upon what trifling and wholly imaginary evidence thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed; and this not by ignorant, bloodthirsty men, but by earnest, eminent, and religious leaders. A child is taken sick, is remembered to have been fondled by an old woman; therefore the woman has put the child under a spell and must be burned. A man sees an old woman in the woods, and, on turning about, the old woman is gone and a hare flies across his track; he concludes that she turned herself into a hare, and the witch test is applied. When the personal devil was believed in, he was seen daily clothed in the garments that imagination had given him, and engaged in mischief and villainy of all kinds. When witchery was the dominant superstition, all things gave evidence of that. So long as Spiritualism forms a prominent cult with a real hold upon the beliefs of its adherents, the number of mediums and manifestations will be correspondingly abundant. Create a belief in the theory, and the facts will create themselves.

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