236 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



situated at that part — as combativeness, acquisitiveness, fear, 

 veneration, wonder, tune, and many others ; and that it was 

 in no way caused by the will or suggestion of the operator. 



As soon as I found that these experiments were success- 

 ful I informed Mr. Hill, who made no objection to my con- 

 tinuing them, and several times came to see them. He was 

 so much interested that one evening he invited two or three 

 friends who were interested in the subject, and with my best 

 patient I showed most of the phenomena. At the suggestion 

 of one of the visitors I told the boy he was a jockey, and was 

 to get on his horse and be sure to win the race. Without 

 another word from me he went through the motions of get- 

 ting on horseback, of riding at a gallop, and after a minute or 

 two he got excited, spoke to his horse, appeared to use his 

 spurs, shake the reins, then suddenly remain quiet, as if he 

 had passed the winning-post ; and the gentleman who had 

 suggested the experiment declared that his whole motions, 

 expressions, and attitudes were those of a jockey riding a 

 race. At that time I myself had never seen a race. The 

 importance of these experiments to me was that they con- 

 vinced me, once for all, that the antecedently incredible may 

 nevertheless be true ; and, further, that the accusations of 

 imposture by scientific men should have no weight whatever 

 against the detailed observations and statements of other 

 men, presumably as sane and sensible as their opponents, 

 who had witnessed and tested the phenomena, as I had done 

 myself in the case of some of them. At that time lectures 

 on this subject were frequent, and during the holidays, which 

 I generally spent in London with my brother, we took every 

 opportunity of attending these lectures and witnessing as 

 many experiments as possible. Knowing by my own ex- 

 perience that it is quite unnecessary to resort to trickery to 

 produce the phenomena, I was relieved from that haunting 

 idea of imposture which possesses most people who first see 

 them, and which seems to blind most medical and scientific 

 men to such an extent as to render them unable to investigate 

 the subject fairly, or to arrive at any trustworthy conclusions 

 in regard to it. 



