PHYSIOLOGY OF MIND-READING. 469 



In all these experiments it should be observed there is no one 

 muscle, there is no single group of muscles, through which this tension 

 and relaxation are developed ; it is the finger, the hand, the arm, or 

 the whole body, according to the method employed. Among the 

 various methods of making connection between the subject and 

 operator are the following: 



1. The back of the subject's hand is held firmly against the fore- 

 head of the operator, who, with his other hand, lightly touches the 

 fingers of the subject's hand. (Brown.) 



This is, undoubtedly, the most artistic of all known methods. 



2. The hand of the operator loosely grasps the wrist of the subject. 

 This is a very inartistic method, and yet great success is oftentimes 



attained by it. 



3. One finger of the operator is applied to one finger of the 

 subject, papilla? touching papilla?. 



This is a modification of the first method ; by it exceedingly small 

 objects or localities are found. 



4. The operator is connected in the usual way with a third party 

 who does not know the locality thought of by the subject, but is 

 connected with the subject by the wrist ("double test"). 



In this experiment, which astounded even the best observers, the 

 unconscious muscular motion was communicated from the subject to 

 the arm of the third party, and through the arm of the third party to 

 the operator. 



5. Two, three, or more subjects, who agree on the locality to be 

 thought of, apply their hands to the body of the operator in front 

 and behind. 



This method is excellent for beginners, and the direction is easily 

 found by it ; but it is obviously not adapted for the speedy finding of 

 small objects; it is frequently used by ladies. 



6. The hand of the subject lightly rests on the shoulder of the 

 operator. 



and kindred disorders ; namely, that the thought, the conscious mental conception, of an 

 act, differs from the voluntary impulse necessary to the performance of that act only in 

 that it corresponds to a fainter excitation of nervous centres in the cortex cerebri, which 

 in both cases are anatomically identical. 



" Thus, in certain forms of aphasia the power to think in words is lost at the same time 

 with the power of speech. Some persons tbink definitely only when they think aloud, 

 and it would readily be believed in the case of children and uneducated persons that the 

 ability to read would often be seriously interfered with if they were not permitted to read 

 aloud. Similarly, a half-premeditated act of any kind slips often into performance before 

 its author is aware of the fact. Further, there is reason to think, from the experiments 

 of Hitzig, that these same centres may be excited by the stimulus of electricity so as to 

 call out some of the simpler coordinated movements of the muscles on the opposite side 

 of the body. 



"Applying, now, this principle to the case in hand, it will be evident that for the per- 

 son experimented with to avoid giving 'muscular hints,' of either a positive or a negative 

 kind, would be nearly impossible." 



