THEORY OF KISSING. 299 



rays half to three quarters of an inch long, shining fitfully 

 or shooting white with a play of colours. 



6 (b) Mademoiselle Maix, in the normal state, saw a white 

 flame a handbreadth in height. 



' (c) Mademoiselle Sturmann, a flame as high as the 

 length of a smah 1 hand, with play of colours. 



6 (d) The lad, a flame a hand high. 



6 (e) Mademoiselle Maix, while in a spasmodic condition, 

 saw a general luminous appearance over the whole magnet, 

 dazzling her eyes ; largest and brightest at the poles. 



' (/) Mademoiselle Reichel saw a flame, with play of 

 colours, shooting out rays as large as the magnet that is, 

 about ten inches high ; also side flames, as from each plate 

 of the magnet, and a general weaker light over the whole 

 surface at the junctions of the plates. 



' (g) Lastly, Mademoiselle Atzmannsdorfer saw the same 

 phenomena still more distinctly, and with such brilliancy as 

 to painfully affect the eyes.' 



Here, then, in the results of these experiments, do we 

 find the beginning of a series of very curious investigations, 

 conducted with all the seeming fairness that characterises 

 the investigations of men of experimental science. Every 

 now and then the baron, in the course of the thesis in which 

 the results of his observations stand recorded, felt himself 

 constrained, by the necessity of claiming his readers' acquies- 

 cence, to admit the postulate that, in matters of experiment, 

 the result is all in all the antecedent probability or impro- 

 bability nothing. However well timed such an announce- 

 ment may be in the interests of general readers, special 

 readers philosophers will not need it. The result, how- 

 ever, is just what philosophers, who demur to the accuracy of 

 the records communicated by Baron Reichenbach, have doubt 

 about. 



The baron's testimony needs confirmation, to say the 

 least. Never in the experience of any philosopher who has 



