EPIDEMIC DELUSIONS. 



3 



over the other, and confined by elastic hands, but the upper board 

 rolling readily upon a couple of pencils or small rollers ; and resting 

 on the lower board was an index, so arranged that a very small mo- 

 tion of this upper board would manifest itself in the movement of the 

 index through a large arc. He went about this investigation in a 

 thoroughly scientific spirit. He first tied together the boards so that 

 they could not move one upon the other, the object being to test 

 whether the mere interposition of the instrument would prevent the 

 action. He had three or four of these indicators prepared, and he put 

 them down on the table so fixed that they would not move. He then 

 put the hands of the table-turners on these ; and it was found, as he 

 fully expected, that the interposition of this indicator under their hands 

 did not at all prevent the movement of the table. The hands were 

 resting on the indicator ; and when their involuntary pressure was ex- 

 erted, the friction of the hands upon the indicators, and of the indica- 

 tors upon the table, carried round the table just as it had done before. 

 Now, if there had been any thing in the construction of the instrument 

 to prevent it, that would not have happened. Then he loosened the 

 upper hoard and put the index on, so that the smallest motion of the 

 hands upon the board would manifest itself, before it would act on the 

 table, in the movement of the index ; and it was found that when the 

 parties looked at the index, and watched its indications, they were 

 pulled up as it were, at the very first involuntary action of their hands, 

 by the knowledge that they were exerting this power, and the table 

 then never went round. One of the strangest parts of this popular 

 delusion was, that even after this complete exposure of it by Faraday, 

 there were a great many persons, including many who were eminently 

 sensible and rational in all the ordinary affairs of life, who said : " Oh, 

 but this has nothing at all to do with it. It is all very well for Prof. 

 Faraday to talk in this manner, but it has nothing at all to do with it. 

 We know that we are not exerting any pressure. His explanation 

 does not at all apply to our case." But then Prof. Faraday's table- 

 turners were equally satisfied that they did not move the table, until 

 the infallible index proved that they did. And if any one of these 

 persons, who know that they did not move the table, were to sit down 

 in the same manner with those indicators, it would have been at once 

 shown that they did move the table. Nothing was more curious than 

 the possession of the minds of sensible men and women by this idea 

 that the tables went round by an action quite independent of their own 

 hands ; and not only that, but that really, like the people in the dan- 

 cing mania, they must follow the table. I have seen sober and sensi- 

 ble people running round with a table, and with their hands placed on 

 it, and asserting that they could not help themselves that they were 

 obliged to go with the table. Now, this is just simply the same kind 

 of possession by a dominant idea, that possessed the dancing maniacs 

 of the middle ages. 



