CLASSIFICATION 59 



The woman recovered. Nine years afterward a boy was 

 brought into his ward shot in the chest by a bullet from a 

 revolver which some one was examining in a pawn-shop. 

 The boy died, and an inquest was held. Some days after 

 the inquest the chief of police entered Dr. Chiene's con- 

 sulting room, and, producing a revolver, said, "I have some- 

 thing here that will interest you. You said at the inquest 

 that it was a very remarkable coincidence that you should 

 twice have had in your ward a person shot in such an un- 

 likely way. I have looked up the old case, and I find that 

 this pistol which killed the boy is the same one which shot 

 the woman." Anyone with a touch of superstition would 

 be likely to remark that, until that pistol has been dropped 

 into the deepest hole in the Pacific Ocean, it is not safe to 

 enter a pawnshop ! 



From the infinite sum of our fancies and illusions par- 

 ticular instances are picked out upon which are based mar- 

 vellous tales of telepathic communication and premonition 

 in dreams. If they were not marvellous they would not be 

 remembered, and if their marvellousness hardly merits the 

 telling, a tendency is innate in most narrators to bring it up 

 to the effective standard. Such stories as have been pub- 

 lished are conspicuously wanting in the only kind of sup- 

 port which would give them value as evidence documen. 

 tary corroboration. Does any residium which cannot be 

 explained without the inference of the existence of 

 "psychic force" remain over after coincidence and un- 

 conscious and conscious lying have been allowed for ? We 

 think not. 



Has science a method proper to itself? Induction and 

 deduction are terms which sound antithetical. They have 

 been the watchwords of opposing forces in many a battle. 

 For more than a century thinking Europe was divided into 

 Baconians and Cartesians. Francis Bacon laid down the 

 laws of scientific evidence in his novum organum with 

 much the same pedantry as he would have displayed in 



