February 13, 1885. J 



SCIENCE. 



133 



tal suggestion is Richet's contribution towards the 

 task of naming the new phenomenon which is just 

 now struggling for recognition, and which has been 

 hitherto variously designated as ' thought-transfer- 

 ence,' 'mind-reading,' and 'telepathy.' 'Thought- 

 transference,' it strikes us, is the worst of these 

 names, and ' telepathy ' the best ; but, as it is desir- 

 able that a phenomenon should not be too rigidly 

 named before it is known what the phenomenon is, 

 we shall make trial for the present of the new term, 

 ' mental suggestion.' 



Richet says very happily that the courage of the 

 scientific man consists not only in making experi- 

 ments dangerous to life upon cholera, rabies, and the 

 liquefaction of gases, but also in exposing his repu- 

 tation to blemish by advocating a theory which is 

 generally discredited. Richet has taken his courage 

 in his hand, and has published an article. in which 

 he claims to have established a strong probability in 

 favor of mental suggestion. We venture to believe 

 that the careful reader will come to the conclusion 

 that to offer such unsatisfactory experiments, so in- 

 adequately treated, was a greater strain upon his 

 courage than the novelty of what he attempts to 

 prove. The Society for psychical research has al- 

 ready established a strong presumption in favor of 

 mental action at a distance. Richet's experiments 

 are not to be compared with those of the society, 

 either in the care with which they were performed 

 or the accuracy with which they are described; and 

 his unfamiliarity with the theory of probabilities 

 renders his numerical deductions, except the most 

 obvious ones, misleading and useless. 



The experiments are mainly of four kinds, — guess- 

 ing the suit of a card drawn at hazard from a full 

 pack, guessing a photograph drawn at hazard from a 

 set of six, finding a watch hidden under one of several 

 orange-trees by means of the vibrations of a stick, 

 and spelling out names by means of table-rappings. 

 There is a great deal that is interesting and sugges- 

 tive in these experiments, and it is a pity that they 

 are not more convincing. It will hardly be believed 

 that in guessing cards the author does not state 

 whether the two persons engaged in the experiment 

 are in contact or not. Such remarkable things are 

 done nowadays in any parlor by muscle-reading, 

 that no experiment in which there is contact is of the 

 slightest weight in establishing mental suggestion. 

 Certain precautions, the author says, are indispen- 

 sable, — the cards should be a full pack ; the one drawn 

 should be returned after each trial ; the person who 

 looks at the card should abstain from every word, 

 from every indication, however imperceptible it may 

 be, — but he omits to say whether he is hand in hand 

 with the person who guesses or not. Doubtless he is 

 not; but an experiment in which so essential a cir- 

 cumstance as this is left to be inferred by the reader 

 is not the kind of experiment that carries conviction 

 with it. The conditions under which the photo- 

 graphs were guessed remain equally undescribed ; but 

 the remark, "It is necessary to eliminate every sign, 

 whether in the direction of the eyes or in the ex- 

 pression, by which an indication can be given," 



makes it plain that the simple precaution of putting 

 the performers in such a position that it should be 

 impossible to give any indication by the expression 

 or the direction of the eyes, was not attended to. We 

 pass over the experiments in finding a watch hidden 

 under orange-trees, for the reason, that, in order to 

 attribute any weight to them, it would be necessary 

 to know, among other things, where the person 

 stands who has hidden the watch, and whether the 

 one who finds it is blindfolded or not. That the 

 experiments were performed in a garden in the en- 

 virons of Paris, that the orange-trees were cultivated 

 in boxes, and that they stood in two rows, are the 

 only details that are given. 



The last series of experiments was made by Richet 

 and five of his friends, — friends from infancy, intel- 

 ligent men, well-instructed, and not at all mystical, — 

 two of whom are mediums. Three of these men sit 

 at one table, — the rapping-table, — and two, A and B, 

 at another. Some one thinks of a name. Amoves a 

 pencil along an alphabet which is on the table in 

 front of him; when he reaches a certain letter, the 

 other table, by rapping, rings a bell, and B writes 

 down the letter indicated. In this way something 

 like the name thought of is written down, — Jeanr 

 for Jfard, Foqdem for Esther, Dierooreg for Cheuv- 

 reux, and, the only very good one, Cheval for Che- 

 valon. The person who has the name in his mind 

 rCest ni a la table ni a V alphabet; but, to such a 

 degree does Mr. Richet's talent for incomplete de- 

 scription pursue him, it is not said that he is stand- 

 ing where he cannot see the alphabet. If that is the 

 case, the experiment is a very extraordinary one, 

 totally different from simply divining what another 

 person has in his mind. The medium, who sits 

 laughing, talking, and singing with his friends, is re- 

 quired to give his table a vigorous shaking at the 

 instant that two persons near him, who are think- 

 ing of the letters of the alphabet, happen to think of 

 the same letter. Such magic as this throws even the 

 ghosts of the English society into the shade; and the 

 observer will need to pile Pelion upon Ossa by way 

 of proof, before he can hope to gain credence for it. 



Admitting that Richet's experiments were per- 

 formed with a rigor with which they are not de- 

 scribed, his estimation of the improbability of their 

 results arising by chance falls far short of the truth. 

 He says, after combining the results of all his ex- 

 periments, — those made with mediums, with 'sensi- 

 tives,' and with the non-hypnotizable, — that the 

 probability in favor of mental suggestion may be 

 represented by f. This number is the ratio of 

 the difference between the actual number and the 

 probable number of successes to the whole number 

 of trials. But a comparison of this sort affords no 

 measure of the improbability of the observed facts 

 being the result of chance. It is not the deviation 

 from an average, but the probability that a given 

 deviation should arise, that gives the value of the 

 evidence in favor of the operation of a cause. Richet 

 does not seem to know that there is a mathematical 

 formula by which this probability is determined. 

 For instance: in three series of experiments in guess- 



