78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



explanation here is the simple one of mere coincidence. Whether this 

 explanation is available or not would depend entirely on the question 

 whether thepreacher's memory was ordinarily trustworthy or not, whether 

 in fact he would remember the arrangements, prayers, sermon, etc., he 

 had given on any occasion. These matters becoming, after long habit, 

 almost automatic, it might very well happen that the person going through 

 such duties would remember them no longer and no better than one 

 who had been present when they were performed, and who had not paid 

 special attention to them. That if he had thus unconsciously carried 

 out his duties on one Sunday he should (being to this degree forget- 

 ful) conduct them in precisely the same way on the next Sunday, would 

 rather tend to show that his mental faculties were in excellent working 

 order than the reverse. Wendell Holmes tells a story which effectively 

 illustrates our meaning ; and he tells it so pleasantby (as usual) that we 

 shall quote it unaltered : " Sometimes, but rarely," he says, "one may 

 be caught making the same speech twice over, and yet be held blame- 

 less. Thus a certain lecturer " (Holmes himself, doubtless), " after per- 

 forming in an inland city, where dwells a litteratrice of note, was in- 

 vited to meet her and others over the social teacup. She pleasantly 

 referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. 'Yes,' he re- 

 plied, ' I am like the huma, the bird that never lights, being always in 

 the cars as he is always on the wing.' Years elapsed. The lecturer 

 visited the same place once more for the same purpose. Another social 

 cup after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. 

 ' You are constantly going from place to place,' she said. ' Yes,' be 

 answered, 'I am like the huma,' and finished the sentence as before. 

 What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine 

 speech, word for word, twice over ! Yet it was not true, as the lady 

 might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished his conver- 

 sation with the huma daily during that whole interval of years. On the 

 contrary, he had never once thought of the odious fowl until the recur- 

 rence of precisely the same circumstances brought up precisely the same 

 idea." He was not in the slightest degree afraid of brain-disease. On 

 the contrary, he considered the circumstance indicative of good order in 

 the mental mechanism. " He ought to have been proud," says Holmes, 

 speaking for him, and meaning no doubt that he was proud, "of the 

 accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and a 

 sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the cer- 

 tainty of J3ahbage > s calculating machine.'''' 



Somewhat akin to the unconscious recurrence of mental processes 

 after considerable intervals of time is the tendency to imitate the ac- 

 tions of others as though sharing in their thoughts, and according to 

 many because mind acts upon mind. This tendency, though not always 

 associated with disease, is usually a sign of bodily illness. Dr. Carpen- 

 ter mentions the following singular case, but rather as illustrating gen- 

 erally the influence of suggestions derived from external sources in 



