SUMMARY OF SCIENTISTS' THEORIES 



of accounting for a diviner's success, and the 

 following is a summary of them. They contend : 



1. That he makes a guess at the position of 

 what he has to discover, and the fact that he is 

 usually right is a mere coincidence. The adoption 

 of this theory would lead to the conclusion that 

 luck favoured the diviners to a much greater 

 extent than the rest of mankind, and stood by 

 them even when they were blindfolded, which 

 latter has been one of the applied tests. 



2. That a knowledge, on the part of the 

 diviners, of the locality, and of its geology suffi- 

 ciently accounts for their discoveries. Western 

 diviners, however, are frequently sent for, on 

 very short notice, to distant parts of the kingdom 

 where they have never been before, and with 

 successful results. But, even admitting their 

 possession of a knowledge of locality and geology 

 combined, this would not help them much when 

 they were pasing over artificial water courses 

 and drains. 



3. That the so-called power is merely due to 

 an involuntary muscular action resulting from 

 a fixedness of idea. But there must be some- 

 thing behind the idea which determines its adop- 

 tion, and the correctness of the results indicates 

 the working of a guiding principle. 



Lastly, there is the irrefutable sledge-hammer 

 argument that there can be no such power as 

 is claimed, because there is no accounting for it 

 within the lines which science, as represented by 

 man (an essential point), has laid down. This 

 is almost equivalent to saying that man has 

 adopted certain principles to which Nature is 



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