6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



my attention several years ago, when I was engaged in the study of the 

 physiology of mind-reading, and making experiments in mental thera- 

 peutics ; and in essays published on those topics I briefly noted these 

 errors, which I was obliged to study out, and without any theoretical 

 guide or precedent. I found that the whole matter — the importance 

 and interest of which were of the very highest, practically as well as 

 scientifically — was as unexplored as central Africa, and that it was 

 necessary to hew one's way clear of infinite obstructions at every 

 step. 



From the elevation of this subject to a positive science these two 

 practical benefits must flow : 



1. The world will be spared the reports of such experiments as those 

 of the physician who examined into the condition of the hysterical girls 

 that were the cause of the Salem witchcraft epidemic, and of the com- 

 mittees of the French Academy, of Gregory and of Elliotson and others, 

 with clairvoyance and mesmeric trance ; of Crookes with Home, of 

 Wallace and Zollner with Slade, and, latest of all, of Parkhurst and 

 others with Mollie Fancher; of Charcot, Westphal, and their coadju- 

 tors with metalloscopy and metal-therapeutics ; and will at the same 

 time be able to reach the solid truth that lies behind all such accredited 

 phenomena. These experiments and these reports are often made by 

 strong and earnest men ; indeed, the abler the experimenter in the 

 present state of the subject, the worse his experiments and his reports 

 of these experiments : instead of arriving at the truth of many ques- 

 tions of physiology, we get farther and farther from it the more we 

 study them. 



2. There will be more precision to all our investigations in regard 

 to the action of remedies, and especially of new remedies. At the 

 present time vp-e know not whether to believe or reject any report of 

 the virtues of any new medicine or mode of treatment, however high 

 the authority for the reports, for we feel instinctively the elements of 

 error which those who introduce new remedies and modes of treatment 

 ought to know, and in time will know and rationally provide for. 



3. Men of narrow or but limited ability will be able to attain accu- 

 rate results in experimenting with living human beings where now 

 the strongest scientific geniuses of the world are every day failing 

 abjectly and humiliatingly. Sir William Hamilton, in his work on 

 " Logic," remarks most truly that the proud boast of Bacon that, by 

 the system of inductive philosophy, it would be possible for ordinary 

 men to make discoveries in science, has been strictly fulfilled : every 

 day under the light of the inductive method very commonplace minds 

 are finding new and important facts that go to swell the current of sci- 

 ence. Genius of the first order is rare, and in every field of knowledge 

 the details of cultivation must be worked out by the average man ; the 

 bulk of the work is done, always has been done, and probably always 

 will be donCj by talent rather than by genius. 



