580 The Outline of Science 



got under, and that it had been extinguished before it had reached 

 his own home, though it had been dangerously near it. All which, 

 in a day or two, was verified. 



As for the apparent reading of distant books, an appropriate 

 Biblical text is sometimes given by chapter and verse; but that 

 may be thought due to memory. It is difficult to attribute to 

 the memory of a youth killed in the war the precise statement 

 that a comforting message to his mother will be found near the 

 bottom of page 77 of the third book on the shelf where his school 

 books are kept, in a house the medium has never been in. And 

 yet things akin to this are contained among the so-called "book- 

 tests" which of late have been received and published. 1 



The actuality of real clairvoyance, as distinct from any kind 

 of telepathy, is not an easy thing to test; for if the knowledge 

 has existed in any mind whatever, telepathy or mind-reading may 

 be the simplest or at least a possible hypothesis; and, further- 

 more, if a thing is in no mind at all, and never has been, it does 

 really seem as if it were difficult or perhaps impossible for any 

 medium to get hold of it. On the other hand, if a packet is really 

 known to a deceased person, the information can sometimes be 

 obtained. As an illustration of the kind of thing expected from 

 a sealed packet the fictional instance told by Mr. E. F. Benson 

 in his novel Up and Down may be cited, for it is evidently modi- 

 fied from some real experience and represents in a more or less 

 guarded and imaginative manner something of the kind that 

 occasionally happens. 



In the reading of sealed packets and the like, there are often 

 failures. But failures like negative results generally prove 

 hardly anything; moreover, they may be due to natural lapse of 

 memory. The theme of a posthumous message or written sen- 

 tence may be remembered, but it may be impossible to recall at 

 will the exact words in which it was expressed. This happened 

 in a famous instance, when the late F. W. H. Myers failed to 



'As, for instance, in Lady Glenconner's Earthen Vessel. 



