THOUGHT-BEADING. 329 



in the aspect or demeanour of visitors which inspires 

 distaste or alarm. The importance of a ' childly way 

 with children/ and the slightness of the differences of 

 manner which will either paralyse them into stupidity 

 or evoke unexpected intelligence arid power, are 

 commonplaces to any one whose duties have lain 

 among them; and attention to such points may be 

 .as prime a factor of success in these delicate experi- 

 ments as any other. The delicacy of the conditions 

 was illustrated in our own inquiry partly by the inex- 

 plicable fluctuations of success and failure affecting the 

 whole household, partly by the wide difference observed 

 in the capacities of particular members of it from 

 day to day. The common notion that simplicity, and 

 even comparative blank ness of mind, are important 

 conditions, seems somewhat doubtfully borne out by 

 our experience ; but of the favourable effect of free- 

 dom from constraint, and of a spice of pleasurable 

 excitement, we can speak with entire assurance. The 

 particular ill-success of a sitting which we held one 

 close afternoon was attributed by the children them- 

 selves and it seemed to us correctly to inertness 

 after their early dinner. We could find no resemblances 

 between these phenomena and those known as 

 mesmeric ; inasmuch as a perfectly normal state on 

 the part of the subject seemed our first prerequisite. 

 Nor did we find any evidence that ' strength of will * 

 has any particular effect, except so far as both subjects 

 and circle may exercise it in patient attention. On 

 one or two occasions it seemed of advantage to obtain 



