EPIDEMIC DELUSIONS. 29 



I can only assure you for myself that, having, as I have said, de- 

 voted considerable attention to this subject, I have come to the conclu- 

 sion most decidedly with, I believe I may say, as little prepossession 

 as most persons, and with every disposition to seek for truth simply 

 to allow for our knowledge, or I would rather say for our ignorance, a 

 very large margin of many things that are beyond our philosophy 

 with every disposition to accept facts when I could once clearly satisfy 

 myself that they were facts I have had to come to the conclusion that 

 whenever I have been permitted to employ such tests as I should em- 

 ploy in any scientific investigation, there was either intentional decep- 

 tion on the part of interested persons, or else self-deception on the part 

 of persons who were very sober-minded and rational upon all ordinary 

 affairs of life. Of that self-deception I could give you many very curi- 

 ous illustrations, but the limits of our time will prevent my giving you 

 more than one or two. On one occasion I was assured that, on the 

 evening before, a long dining-table had risen up and stood a foot high in 

 the air, in the house in which I was, and to which I was then admitted 

 for the purpose of seeing some of these manifestations by persons about 

 whose good faith there could be no doubt whatever. I was assured by 

 them " It was a great pity you were not here last night, for, unfor- 

 tunately, our principal medium is so exhausted by the efforts she put 

 forth last night that she cannot repeat it." But I was assured, upon 

 the word of three or four who were present, that this table had stood 

 a foot high in the air, and remained suspended for some time, without 

 any hands being near it, or at any rate with nothing supporting it ; 

 the hands might be over it. But I came to find, from experiments per- 

 formed in my presence, that they considered it evidence of the table 

 rising into the air, that it pressed upward against their hands ; that 

 they did not rest upon their sense of sight ; for I was looking in this 

 instance at the feet of the table, and I saw that the table upon which 

 the hands of the performers were placed, and which was rocking about 

 upon its spreading feet, really never rose into the air at all. It would 

 tilt to one side or to the other side, but one foot was always resting on 

 the ground. And when they declared to me that this table had risen 

 in the air, I said, " I am very sorry to have to contradict you, but I 

 was looking at the feet of the table all the time, and you were not ; 

 and I can assert most positively that one of the feet never left the 

 ground. Will you allow me to ask what is your evidence that the 

 table rose into the air ? " " Because we felt it pressing upward against 

 our hands." I assure you that was the answer I received ; their con- 

 clusion that the table rose in the air being grounded on this, that their 

 hands being placed upon the table, they felt, or they believed, that 

 the table was pressing upward against their hands, though I saw all 

 the time that one foot of the table had never left the ground. Now, 

 that is what we call a " subjective sensation ; " one of those sensations 

 which arise in our own minds under the influence of an idea. Take, 



