234 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 214 



corded. Our only other published instance of trials 

 where double numbers were chosen, is that described 

 in 'Phantasms of the living,' vol. i. p. 3i; and here, 

 as soon as we heard of certain remarkable results 

 which were being obtained by two of our friends, we 

 took the precaiition (which ' J. J.' regards as beyond 

 the capacity of such as us, though likely to occur to 

 ' psychologists and writers on probabilities ') of in- 

 sisting that the numbers shoxild be drawn, and not 

 chosen, by the agent. This precaution has, of course, 

 been invariable in our principal class of experiments, 

 where the objects to be guessed have been playing- 

 cards. Of two long series recorded in ' Phantasms ' 

 (vol. i. p. 34, and vol. ii. jd. 654), where double num- 

 bers were similarly drawn, one gave as the total of com- 

 pletely correct guesses a result against the accidental 

 occurrence of which the odds were over two millions 

 to 1 ; the other, where account was taken of cases 

 where the two right digits were guessed in reverse 

 order, and of cases where one onlj^ of the digits was 

 guessed rightly and in the right place, gives a total 

 result against the accidental occurrence of which the 

 odds were nearly two hundred thousand million 

 trillion trillions to 1. 



I have perhaps said enough to indicate the extent 

 of ' J. J.'s ' misrepresentation ; but I may further 

 briefly point out how defective his reasoning would 

 be, even supposing that experiments of the sort at- 

 tacked had really occupied the place in our evidence 

 which he supjDOses. 1. His own remark, that the 

 discovery of ' number-habit ' was ' ' brought abotit by 

 noticing that quite constantly an undue number of 

 successes occurred at the beginning of manj' sets of 

 number-giiessings," might have suggested to him how 

 slightly it was likely to affect long series, where all 

 the numbers appear again and again. To make oiit 

 his case, he must get a few uninitiated persons each 

 to write down a series of, say, fifty digits, and must 

 ascertain by comparing the first, the second, the 

 third items, and so on, of each pair of lists, whether 

 the number of corresijondences in each pair far 

 exceeds the ten (one-tenth of the total), which 

 is the theoretic most probable number, and, 

 if so, how far such excess is connected with the 

 predominance of one or two particular digits. How 

 the correspondences could be produced by a ' vary- 

 ing predilection for different numbers,' I must leave 

 it to him, or the writers whom he quotes, to exjjlain. 

 2. The cases he adduces where ' persons were asked 

 to choose a number, no limits being set,'' and then, as 

 a rule, chose numbers under 20 or under 10, are 

 quite irrelevant. We never, on any occasion, gave 

 this unlimited choice, which wotild have precluded 

 the knowledge of exactly what it Avas most essential 

 to know, — the degree of probability that chance 

 would produce the results obtained. 3. The fact 

 that many iDeojile, when asked to choose a number 

 with three figures, choose a number containing the 

 digit 3, is quite irrelevant : for, in the first place, we 

 have never experimented with numbers of three 

 digits ; and, in the second jDlace, the fact that 3 

 sensibly predominates in a number of first choices 

 does not even tend to suggest that it would sensibly 

 predominate in a series of choices. 4. To experi- 

 ments with double numbers (when chosen and not 

 drawn), 'J. J.' objects that people are apt to choose 

 multiples of ten with disproportionate frequency, 

 and that they tend to choose numbers near the 

 higher limit. A glance at the double-number results 

 recorded in ' Phantasms of the living ' (vol. i. p. 34) 



will show the futility of making a serious objection 

 to them out of the slight preference ' for multiples 

 of ten ; for the number of successes (obtained be- 

 fore the plan of drawing from a bowl was introduced) 

 exceeded what chance was likely to give, even sup- 

 posing that the agent's choices and the percipient's 

 guesses had throughout been restricted to multiples 

 of ten — restricted, that is, to nine out of the ninety 

 numbers over which they freely ranged. As regards 

 the alleged predilection for later numbers, I need 

 only remark that in a series of any length it ceases 

 to be apparent ;'- while, even if it continued, the later 

 numbers in a set of ninety are sufficiently numerous 

 to insure, at each trial, large odds against accidental 

 success. 



In conclusion, I cordially agree with ' J. J.' in 

 recommending (as my colleagues and I have recom- 

 mended publicly and privately times without num- 

 ber) such forms of experiment as leave the issue be- 

 tween chance and thought-transferrence perfectly 

 clear. I am also glad to find him, and the writers 

 whom he quotes, so completely sound on another 

 point which I have specially urged, — the fallacy of 

 extracting evidence for thought-transferrence from 

 the frequent simultaneous utterances of thought and 

 feeling by relatives and intimate associates. Such 

 fallacies cannot be too often exposed ; for telepathy 

 suffers far more from friends who accept and pro- 

 claim it on insufficient grounds than from its most 

 strenuous critics and opponents. Whether ' J. J.' 

 would continue to hold our grounds insufficient, if 

 he took the trouble to learn what they are, I cannot 

 tell ; meanwhile he must pardon my feeling a certain 

 sense of alliance with one who so clearly perceives 

 that the novel doctrine, though evidence may prove, 

 it, could never be proved by casual experiments or 

 by loose, popular arguments. How soon the proof 

 will be generally recognized as complete, depends on 

 something which we, unfortunately, can neither fore- 

 see nor control, — the degree in which sym^Dathy 

 with our objects and methods takes the form of 

 help. 



By chance, I have only just seen Science for Jan. 

 21, in which I read that Dr. Minot has lately intro- 

 duced some trick-experiments with cards as similar 

 to some of our thought-transferrence trials. In Dr. 

 Minot's cases the card was forced on the drawer by a 

 confederate of the professing ' percipient.' In all 

 our card-experiments the card was drawn at random 

 from the pack by one of our own investigating 

 groiip. For these cases to resemble Dr. Minot's, it 

 would be necessary that the percipient, or some one 

 connected with the percipient, should have held the 

 pack while the card was drawn. To permit such a 

 procedure would have implied a degree of incompe- 

 tence on our part which it did not occur to us ex- 

 plicitly to disclaim. However, I take this oppor- 

 timity of disclaiming it, by stating that the pack was 

 invariably held by one of ourselves ; almost always, 

 in fact, by the person who made the draw. 



Dr. Minot is further reported to have objected that 

 ' ' in many of the English experiments there existed 



1 I have just examined the details of 1,191 of these trials, 

 which I have under my hand, and find that the cases where 

 multiples of ten were chosen form rather m.ore than an 

 eighth, instead of a ninth, of the whole . 



2 I have examined three hundreds, taken at random, of 

 the series just mentioned. In the first hundred, 53 of the 

 numbers chosen were nearer the higher limit than the 

 lower ; in the second and the third hundred, 55 were nearer 

 the lower limit. 



