THO UGHT-EEADING. 



331 



some degree of danger that questions of interest may 

 unwisely be put on one side as not worth inquiring 

 into, because they do not at first seem explicable by 

 known physical laws. The two dangers are, however, 

 closely related together. It is noteworthy that the 

 mind which most recklessly rejects evidence which 

 seems new or strange, is the readiest eventually to 

 accept the most wildly impossible theories. It appears 

 to mo that Professor Barrett and his colleagues very 

 fairly present the a priori difficulties in this case. 

 Apart from the legitimate grounds of suspicion, open 

 as they say to all who have chanced to encounter 

 the alleged phenomena in their vulgar est or most 

 dubious aspects, " it is inevitable that, as the area of 

 the known increases by perpetual additions to its 

 recognised departments, and by perpetual multiplica- 

 tion of their connexions, a disinclination should arise 

 to break loose from association, and to admit a quite 

 new department on its own independent evidence. 

 And it cannot be denied that the department of 

 research towards which the foregoing experiments 

 form a slight contribution, presents as little apparent 

 connexion with, any ascertained facts of mental and 

 of material science. Psychological treatises may be 

 searched in vain for any amount of transmission of 

 mental images otherwise than by purely sensory 

 channels. 1 " 



Yet the only explanation science can seek is a 

 physical one. It is open, Professor Barrett considers, 

 to surmise that there is some sort of analogy to the 



