3 22 NATURE STUDIES. 



from the very beginning to the very end of the 

 experiment." 1 



Other evidence of this sort will be considered 

 further on. At this stage it may be well to note the 

 objection raised by Professor Donkin. " The matter 

 in question/' he says, "has obtained a somewhat 

 undue prominence of late ; but if it is as simple and 

 intelligible as it appears to be to most who have 

 investigated it with care, and with minds free from 

 mystical bias, any aid towards the extinction of what 

 must then be regarded as an .ignis fatuus of pseudo 

 science carries with it its own justification." Passing 

 over cases in which there was actual contact between 

 the persons guiding and guided, Professor Donkin 

 remarks that in cases where there was no actual con- 

 tact, " common sense demands that every known 

 mode of explanation of facts should be exhausted 

 before the possibility of an unknown mode is con- 

 sidered." ( ' It is equally obvious that in all scientific 

 inquiries the good faith of individuals concerned 



1 " Among the friends above referred to as having taken part in 

 these inquiries are Professor Balfour Stewart and Professor A. 

 Hopkinson, of Owen's College. A communication lately received 

 by us from them, embodying the results of their visits, and written 

 without any knowledge of the contents of this paper, states facts 

 and instances criticisms as to the possible (or impossible) relation 

 to those facts of coincidence, collusion) sight, and hearing, precisely 

 similar to those we have given. Their experience was that ' in 

 about half the cases the first guess was right, and in most cases of 

 mistake there was some marked point of similarity between the 

 object proposed and the thing guessed. ' " 



