May 5, 1899. ] 



SCIENCE. 



655 



Titchener and myself apropos of his article in 

 Science for December 23d (Vol. VIII. , p. 

 897). 



Messrs. Lehmann and Hansen had sought to 

 show experimentally that the results of certain 

 experiments by Professor H. Sidgwick, which 

 the latter had ascribed to ' thought-transfer- 

 ence,' were really due to involuntary whis- 

 pering by the agent, overheard hyperfesthet- 

 ically by the subjects. Professor Titchener closed 

 his article by saying: "The brilliant work 

 of Messrs. L. and H. has probably done more 

 for scientific psychology than could have been 

 accomplished by any aloofness, however au- 

 thoritative. ' ' 



To these words I, in your next number, took 

 exception, saying that if Professor Titchener 

 would read Sidgwick's and my criticisms of the 

 work of the Danish investigators, he would 

 probably agree ' that, owing to the fewness of 

 the data which they had collected, they entirely 

 failed to prove their point.' I, consequently, 

 called their essay ' an exploded document ' ; 

 to which my ' scientifically-minded ' confrere 

 rejoined (in Science for January 6th) that he had 

 carefully read the criticisms, and had thus seen 

 us ' handling the fuse,' but that he had ' not yet 

 heard the detonation.' 



As the explosion was so audible to me, the 

 disproof being quasi-mathematical, I was as- 

 tounded at this hardness of hearing in my 

 colleague ; and, to make sure that I was not a 

 victim of auditory hallucination, I wrote to 

 Professor Lehmann to know what he himself 

 thought of his conclusions, in the light of the 

 criticisms in question. His answer, somewhat 

 belated, just arrives. 



He says : ' 'Your own as well as Professor Sidg- 

 wick's experiments and computations prove, 

 beyond a doubt, that the play of chance had 

 thrown into my hands a result distinctly too 

 favorable to my theory, and that the said theory 

 is consequently not yet established (bewiesen)." 



This is identically Professor Sidgwick's and 

 my contention ; and for his candor, as well as 

 for his willingness to take pains to experiment 

 in this region. Professor Lehmann deserves to 

 stand high as a ' psychical researcher.' 



Professor Titchener, meanwhile, still hugging 

 the exploded document, wanders upon what he 

 ( • 



calls ' the straight scientific path,' having it ap- 

 parently all to himself. May the consciousness 

 of his fidelity to correct scientist principles con- 

 sole him in some degree both for his deafness 

 and for his isolation. 



William James. 

 Cambridge, April 20, 1899. 



TWO corrections. 



My attention has just been called to this para- 

 graph in Science, June 3, 1898, p. 784, foot of 

 column two : 



"Erratum: Iq the review of Wilder's System of 

 Nomenclature, p. 716, col. I, line 5, for ' chippocamp ' 

 read ' hippocamp.' " 



This prompt public correction renders need- 

 less and unjust the commentary upon the sub- 

 ject in my address last December before the 

 Association of American Anatomists {Proceed- 

 ings, p. 33, and Science, April 21, 1899, p. 

 577), and I deplore my non- acquaintance with 

 it up to the present time. Since none of those 

 who heard my address reminded me of the 

 'Erratum,' it seems to have been overlooked 

 by them also. 



In this connection may properly be corrected 

 a typographical error in the address itself 

 (Proceedings, p. 16, and Science, April 21, 

 1899, p. 566, note, title 6); the date of publica- 

 tion of the ' Review ' in Science should be 

 May 20th, not 28th. 



These corrections will be incorporated in the 

 Proceedings and sent to those who receive copies 

 of Science from me. 



B. G. Wilder. 



Ithaca, N. Y., April 26, 1899. 



[It may be explained the typographical error 

 referred to above was not due to any oversight 

 on the part of the writer of the review. An 

 inverted comma ( ' ) was inserted in the proof 

 before hippocamp, which was mistaken by the 

 printer and the proof reader for a c. — Ed. 

 Science.] 



NOTES ON PHYSICS. 



A NEW THEORY OF THE ZEEMAN EFFECT. 



During the last eight or ten years Gold- 

 hammer has published at intervals in Wiede- 

 mann's Annalen a series of papers dealing with 

 the electro-magnetic theory of light, and espe- 



