SCIENCE.-SUPPLEMENT. 



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1887. 



SOME MISCALLED CASES OF THOUOHT- 

 TBANSFERRENCE. 



Such is the title of an article in fhe national 

 review (January, 1887), by Ada Heather-Bigg and 

 Marian L. Hatchard. This article deserves to be 

 read by every one interested in the subject, and 

 especially by the members of the English society 

 for psychic research. This society takes the posi- 

 tion, that, having ruled out fraud and collusion, 

 and still finding a larger ratio of successes than 

 chance would allow, the only thing left is telep- 

 athy ; and this is forthwith raised to the dignity 

 of a new and omnipotent power explaining all the 

 mysterious occurrences in hypnotism, in ' phan- 

 tasms of the living,' in deathbed and other pre- 

 sentiments, and the like. The true logical conclu- 

 sion is, that, such a thing as telepathy being so 

 utterly opposed to the accumulated scientific 

 knowledge of centuries, the probability of finding 

 other sufficient modes of explaining the phenom- 

 ena in question is extremely great : in other words, 

 the inference is, not that telepathy is a fact, but 

 that the modes of explanation thus far considered 

 do not form a set of exhaustive alternatives. 



This is the rational position taken by the writers 

 of this article ; and one might say of this, as they do 

 of a similar point, that "it is a striking proof of 

 the blinding effect of preconceived opinion on 

 even careful investigators, that such cautious and 

 candid inquirers as Messrs. Barrett, Gurney, and 

 Myers should have failed to perceive this." 



The notion of thought-transferrence was doubt- 

 less suggested by the commonplace and yet very 

 impressive incident of two persons simultaneously 

 expressing the same thought.^ But knowing, as 

 we do, how closely alike are our modern educa- 

 tion and interests, the wonder is, rather, that these 

 coincidences are not more frequent and startling. 

 This process is termed ' similar brain-functioning ' 

 in the above article ; and the reason why its im- 

 portance is apt to be overlooked is because "so 

 much of our mental activity goes on sub-con- 

 sciously. Thus the resembling results are forced 

 upon our notice, while the resembling processes 

 get overlooked." 



1 Children are very much impressed by such coincidences, 

 and the writer remembers distinctly how in such cases the 

 two children concerned would observe the strictest sUence, 

 and, locking their little fingers together, would make a wish 

 which was believed sure to come true. 



G. H. Lewes tells a story in point. "Walking in 

 the country with a friend, he heard the sound of 

 horses' hoofs behind them, and, when the riders 

 passed by, at once remarked that he was con- 

 vinced that the riders were two women and a 

 man, which they really were. His companion de- 

 clared he had formed the same conjecture (evi- 

 dently thought-transferrence, says the Psychic 

 research society). Mr. Lewes puzzled over the 

 matter, but could not think of a characteristic 

 distinguishing the sound of a horsewoman from 

 that of a horseman. As, however, it is a fact that 

 men trot and women canter, the two different 

 sounds had unconsciously registered themselves 

 in the brains of himself and his friend. 



This shows that (as must occur daily) "two 

 persons may tend to function similarly in response 

 to certain stimuli, yet neither of them be aware 

 of the tendency ; " and it is just such phenomena 

 that get utilized by the telepathists. 



Guessing a number is a very popular mode of 

 studying thought-transferrence ; and, when the 

 correct guesses are more frequent than the action 

 of chance would predict, the hypothesis of telep- 

 athy is thought to be favored. " From this con- 

 clusion we emphatically dissent, on the ground 

 that an appreciable percentage of the successes 

 must be put down to the credit of similar but in- 

 dependent brain-functioning. For it is a fact, ad- 

 mitting of easy verification, that the ordinary 

 human mind (provided, always, that it be sub- 

 jected to no other Massing influence beyond that 

 involved in the verbal framing of the necessary 

 questions) tends to select particular numbers in 

 preference to others : " in other words, these 

 writers have independently discovered the ' num- 

 ber-habit ' which Dr. C. S. Mnot has so ably dis- 

 cussed in the Proceedings '<f':Jhe American society 

 for psychic research. This discovery was brought 

 about by noticing that quite constantly an undue 

 number of successes occurred at the beginning of 

 many sets of number-guessings. The explanation 

 is, that at first the sceptic regards the whole pro- 

 cess as nonsensical, thinks of the first number 

 that pops into his head, that is, he follows his 

 number-habit ; but later, wondering at the suc- 

 cesses, he suspects something, and adopts a more 

 arbitrary mode of selection ; whereupon the suc- 

 cesses are less frequent. 



They verified this supposition by simple experi- 

 ments ; and, to avoid the telepathist's objection 

 that perhaps the tendency to choose particular 



