398 
Thought Reading . 
[July, 
First, then, as to the currents. There is no need to 
invoke the aid of any special psychic or odic force. We 
know that between the brain and every part of the body a 
most intimate connection is kept up by means of the 
nerves, along which, as along telegraph wires, currents 
continually pass and repass. The word current is mis- 
leading. We must not suppose that matter of any kind is 
transmitted ; neither is nerve current exactly a wave 
motion, but it is rather a succession of impulses. Professor 
Clifford compared nerve current with the motion in a row 
of card houses, when the end house is shoved against the 
next. The fall of the whole series is very satisfactory to 
see, the only drawback being that all the cards must be put 
up again before the experiment can be repeated. 
It seemed to me essential that you should form a clear 
conception of motion along a line without transmission of 
anything. I therefore reconstructed from memory a toy 
which was a great favourite with me about sixty years ago, 
and which may be qualified for introduction to a scientific 
meeting by being named a “ statoract.” 
It is plain, then, that very active motion may be set up 
along a line without a particle of matter being transmitted. 
If you will be so kind as to imagine the plaques of wood to 
be magnified molecules, you will the better appreciate Prof. 
Clifford’s remark on nerve currents. He says that if we 
could magnify the molecules 50,000,000 diameters, we might 
see them falling one against another ; but he warns us that 
we should not, even in that case, be any nearer seeing 
thought or consciousness. 
Nerve current is very similar to that of electricity, but the 
two are not known to be correlated or convertible, though 
nerve current is said to be always associated with electric 
current. 
In Dr. Rosenthal’s account of M. E. du Bois Reymond’s 
experiment, in which the index of an electrometer is made 
to move by an effort of the will, it seems probable that elec- 
tricity, thus associated, is the agent. 
I have not space to dwell upon the points of resemblance 
between nerve current and electricity (see “ Muscles and 
Nerves,” Dr. Rosenthal, International Series; Kegan Paul). 
But the fact must not be passed by that there is a special 
physical condition of the brain corresponding with every 
thought of which we are conscious. During every sustained 
thought nerve current is acting in a peculiar way in the 
brain, and probably affecting nerve current in the hand and 
over the whole body. I see a man standing on the 
