60 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



with salt. But, to my surprise and horror, they did 

 not stop ! They gaily swam forward, shaking their 

 feathers and uttering derisive "quacks." I was pro- 

 foundly troubled and distressed. I had clearly proved 

 one thing, namely, that my nursemaid, uncle, and 

 several other trusted friends but not, I am still glad 

 to remember, my father were either deliberate de- 

 ceivers or themselves the victims of illusion. I was 

 confirmed in my youthful wish to try whether things 

 are as people say they are or not. Somewhat early 

 perhaps, I adopted the motto of the Royal Society, 

 u Nullius in verba." And a very good motto it is, too, 

 in spite of the worthy Todhunter and other toiling 

 pedagogues, who have declared that it is outrageous to 

 encourage a youth to seek demonstration rather than 

 accept the statement of his teacher, especially if the 

 latter be a clergyman. My experiment was on closely 

 similar lines to that made by the Royal Society on 

 July 24, 1660 in regard to the alleged property of 

 powdered rhinoceros horn which was reputed to 

 paralyse poisonous creatures such as snakes, scorpions, 

 and spiders. We read in the journal-book, still pre- 

 served by the society, under this date : " A circle was 

 made with powder of unicorne's horn, and a spider set 

 in the middle of it, but it immediately ran out severall 

 times repeated. The spider once made some stay upon 

 the powder." 



26. Hypnotism and an Experiment on the Influence oj 

 the Magnet 



A more interesting result followed from an experi- 

 ment made in the same spirit twenty-five years later. 

 I was in Paris, and went with a medical friend to visit 

 the celebrated physician Charcot, to whom at that time 

 I was a stranger, at the Salpetriere Hospital. He and 



