THOUGHT-READING. 325 



have led me to suspect that the power of intuitively 

 perceiving what is passing in the mind of another, 

 which has been designated as ( thought-reading/ may, 

 like certain forms of sense-perception, be extra- 

 ordinarily exalted by that entire concentration of the 

 attention which is characteristic of the states we have 

 been considering. There can be no question that this 

 divining power is naturally possessed in a very re- 

 markable degree by certain individuals, and that it 

 may be greatly improved by cultivation. So far, 

 however, as we are acquainted with the conditions 

 of its exercise, it seems to depend upon the un- 

 conscious interpretations of indications (many of 

 them indefinable) furnished by the expressions of the 

 countenance, by style of conversation, and by various 

 involuntary movements ; that interpretation, how- 

 ever, going, in many instances, far beyond what can 

 have been learned by experience as to the meaning of 

 such indications." 1 "Looking at nerve force as a 

 special form of physical energy, it may be deemed not 

 altogether incredible that it should exert itself from 

 a distance, so as to bring the brain of one person into 

 direct dynamical communication with that of another, 

 without the intermediation, either of verbal language, 



1 Dr. Carpenter then mentions some very curious examples 

 related in the autobiography of Henrich Zschokke, who (according 

 to his own statement) possessed this power in a very remarkable 

 degree, frequently being able to describe, not only the general 

 course, but even many particulars, of the past life of a person 

 whom he saw for the first time, and of whose history he knew 

 nothing whatever. 



