310 BARON EEICHENBACH'S THEORY OF KISSING. 



The assumption would be incorrect. There is no matter of 

 fact in this abstract placed in a more ridiculous light than 

 that in which Baron Reichenbach has left it. What, then, 

 are we to make of all this ? What conclusion are we to arrive 

 at in regard to the baron 1 This is a matter in which I come 

 under 110 obligation to express all that I believe, or even any 

 part of it. Some sort of opinion for myself I have formed ; 

 and some sort of opinion every reader for himself will form. 

 Sufficient to the end is every one's own private notions as to 

 this matter. Regarding the testimony as a scientific mono- 

 graph, to be investigated as other scientific monographs are, 

 by the evidence of its own showing, the point which most 

 strikes the scientific mind is the inconclusiveness of it, the 

 non-necessity of the deduction arrived at by the baron from 

 the premises he started with, and the experiments on which, 

 he relies. Granting all the phenomena that he describes; 

 granting the flickering lights, the attraction of hands with- 

 out reciprocity; granting all his explanation of kissing, of 

 the non-existence of churchyard ghosts, still it does not 

 follow that he has revealed any new force ; it may be only 

 some function of a force already known. Lastly, it seems the 

 greatest wonder of all, how mystical people could ever have 

 attached themselves so pertinaciously to the idea of Reichen- 

 bach's odic force, in explanation of their own assumed phe- 

 nomena. 



