EXPECTANT ATTENTION MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS. 921 



924. But it is with the involuntary movements produced by the same agency 

 in the muscles ordinarily accounted voluntary, that we are at present especially 

 concerned. This is a very curious subject of inquiry, and one to which ade- 

 quate attention has scarcely yet been given ; the phenomena which are referable 

 to the principle of action just enunciated, having been very commonly explained 

 by the agency of some other force. .Thus, if a button or ring be suspended 

 from the end of the finger or thumb, in such a position that, when slightly 

 oscillating, it shall strike against a glass tumbler, it has been affirmed by many 

 who have made the experiment, that the button continues to swing with great 

 regularity, striking the glass at tolerably regular intervals, until it has sounded 

 the hour of the day, after which it ceases for a time to swing far enough to 

 make another stroke. This certainly does come to pass, in many instances, 

 without any intention on the part of the performer; who may, in fact, be doing 

 all in his power to keep his hand perfectly stationary. Now it is impossible, 

 by any voluntary effort, to keep the hand absolutely still, for any length of 

 time, in the position required; an involuntary tremulousness is always observ- 

 able in the suspended body; and if the attention be fixed upon the part, with 

 the expectation that the vibrations will take a determinate direction, they are 

 very likely to do so. 1 Their persistence in this direction, however, only takes 

 place so long as they are guided by the visual sensations ; a fact which at once 

 indicates the real spring of their performance. When the performer is im- 

 pressed with the conviction that the hour will be thus indicated, the result is 

 very likely to happen ; and when it has once occurred, his confidence is suffi- 

 ciently established to make its recurrence a matter of tolerable certainty. On 

 the other hand, the experiment seldom succeeds with sceptical subjects; the 

 expectant idea not having in them the requisite potency. That it is through 

 the mind that these movements are regulated, however involuntarily, appears 

 evident from these two considerations : first, that if the performer be entirely 

 ignorant of the hour, the strokes on the glass do not indicate its number, except 

 by a casual coincidence; and second, that the division of the entire period of 

 the earth's rotation into twenty-four hours, and the very nomenclature of these 

 hours, being entirely arbitrary and conventional, cannot be imagined to ope- 

 rate in any other mode. 2 These phenomena, in which no hypothetical "odylic" 

 or other concealed agency can be reasonably supposed to operate, are here 

 alluded to only for the sake of illustrating those next to be described, which 

 have been imagined to prove the existence of a new force in Nature. If "a 

 fragment of anything, of any shape/' be suspended from the end of the fore- 

 finger or thumb, and the attention be intently fixed upon it, regular oscillations 

 will be frequently seen to take place in it; and if changes of various kinds be 

 made in the conditions of the experiment, by placing bodies of different sorts 

 beneath the pendulum, or by the contact of different persons or things with the 

 person of the suspender, corresponding changes in the direction of the move- 

 ments will very commonly take place. 3 Now this will occur, notwithstanding 

 the strong desire of the experimenter to maintain a complete immobility in the 

 suspending finger; but it is very easily proved that the movements are guided 



1 This was long since pointed out by M. Chevreuil, who investigated the subject in a 

 truly philosophic spirit. See his letter to M. Ampere, in the " Dublin Journal of Medical 

 and Chemical Science," vol. iv. 



2 For instance, the button which strikes eleven at night in London, should strike twenty- 

 three in Rome, where the cycle of hours is continued through the whole twenty-four hours ; 

 and if an Act of Parliament were to introduce the Italian horary arrangement into this 

 country, all the swinging buttons in her Majesty's dominions would have to add twelve to 

 their number of post-meridian strokes ; all which would doubtless come to pass, if the 

 experimenters' faith in the result were sufficiently strong. 



9 See Dr. H. Mayo on " The Truths contained in Popular Superstitions," 3d edition, 

 Letter xii. 



