TABLE-TIPPERS. 125 



case within the region of experience, is the method 

 of science and common sense, whereas Mr. Crookes's 

 method, of deserting the region of experience in 

 quest of some " psychic force," is the method which 

 characterises alike the barbaric myth-maker and the 

 ill-trained thinker in a civilised community. So long 

 as scientific men are capable of doing such un- 

 scientific things, it is not to be wondered at that 

 primitive superstitions still survive. ^ 



Some of Mr. Home's other tricks are suggestive 

 in another way. The feat of making a small table 

 so heavy that the credulous bystander cannot stir 

 it from the floor shows what curious results may 

 be obtained from highly impressionable people by 

 riveting their attention. Dr. Hammond has himself 

 performed this trick with entire success. Taking a 

 small Japanese table, weighing less than two pounds, 

 he informed a young man that he was going to make 

 it too heavy to be raised from the floor. For a 

 quarter of an hour he held the tips of his fingers 

 on it, until the young man's attention became 

 riveted, when he removed his hands and challenged 

 the young man to lift the table. It proved im- 

 movable, and " I saw," says our author, " that so far 

 from endeavouring to lift it, as he supposed he was 

 doing, he was in reality pressing it with all his 



