431 



is to be rather deprecated than otherwise. A friend once said 

 to me — "As a man, I believe in divinins; ; as a scientist, 

 I can't." 



Time will not permit me to enter upon a discussion of the 

 many theories which have been set up to account for the 

 phenomenon we have been considering by those who have a 

 belief in it. Some attribute it to electricity, others to magnetism, 

 •whilst some cherish the idea that it is an altogether new force 

 which, if its origin and conditions could be traced out, would 

 prove of vast utility and importance to mankind. The faculty 

 possessed by some animals of scenting water a considerable dis- 

 tance off may be worth remembering when we begin to theorise. 



Premising, of course, that no claim to supernatural power is, 

 or can be, set up by those who possess the divining gift, to what 

 preliminary conclusions does the evidence we have been con- 

 sidering seem to point : — 



1.— That some persons are distinctly influenced by the presence 

 of water or metal. 



2. — That this is due to no law universally applicable to all 

 persons alike, but to one whose operation is dependent upon 

 certain exceptional conditions in the individual. 



3. — That it is the physical rather than the mental organization 

 that is affected. 



Investigation, methodically pursued, may in time bring us 

 nearer to a solution of the questions :— How is that influence 

 generated 1 and, What are the exceptional conditions in the in- 

 dividual affected by it? And possibly the germ of a great 

 principle may be found in the answers. This course seems, at 

 any rate, preferable to that of regarding any phenomenon as 

 outside the pale of scientific enquiry if it does not fit in with a 

 preconceived plan of accounting for it. " There are more things 

 in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your 

 philosophy" is as perfect a crystallization of the truth now as 

 •when it was first uttered nearly three centuries ago, and it will 



