< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of a distinguished physician: The head of a family having been struck down by serious illness, this physician was called in to consult with the ordinary medical attendant; and, after examining the patient and conferring with his colleague, he went into the sitting-room where the family were waiting in anxious expectation for his judgment on the case. This he delivered in the cautious form which wise experience dictated: "The patient's condition is very critical, but I see no reason why he should not recover." One of the daughters screamed, "Dr. —— says papa will die!" another cried out, in a jubilant tone, "Dr. —— says papa will get well." If no explanation had been given, the two ladies would have reported the physician's verdict in precisely opposite terms, one being under the influence of fear, the other of hope.

I shall now give a few illustrative examples, from recent experiences, of the contrast between the two views taken of the same phenomena (1) by such as are led by their "prepossessions" at once to attribute to "occult" influences what they cannot otherwise explain, and (2) by those who, under the guidance of trained and organized common-sense, apply themselves, in the first instance, to determine whether there be any thing in these phenomena which "natural" agencies are not competent to account for:

1. When, in 1853, the "table-turning" epidemic had taken so strong a hold of the public mind that Prof. Faraday found himself called upon to explain its supposed mystery, he devised a very simple piece of apparatus for testing the fundamental question, whether there is any evidence that the movements of the table are due to any thing else than the muscular action of the performers who place their hands upon it. And having demonstrated by its means (1) that the table never went round unless the "indicator" showed that lateral pressure had been exerted in the direction of the movement, while (2) it always did go round when the "indicator" showed that such lateral pressure was adequately exerted, he at once saw that the phenomenon was only another manifestation of the involuntary "ideo-motor" action which had been previously formulated, on other grounds, as a definite physiological principle; and that there was, therefore, not the least evidence of any other agency. Yet it is still asserted that the validity of Faraday's test is completely disproved by the conviction of the performers that they do not exert any such agency; all that this proves being that they are not conscious of such exertion—which, to the physiologist, affords no proof whatever that they are not making it.
2. So, again. Profs. Chevreul and Biot, masters of experimental science worthy to be placed in the same rank with Faraday, had been previously applying the same principles and methods to the systematic investigation of the phenomena of the divining-rod and the oscillations of suspended buttons; the former of which were supposed to depend upon some "occult" power on the part of the performer, while the latter were attributed to an hypothetical "odylic" force. And they conclusively proved that in both cases the results are brought about (as in table-turning) by the involuntary action of mental expectancy on the muscles of the performer; the phenomena either not occurring at all, or having no constancy whatever, when he neither knows nor guesses what to expect.—The following
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