1883.] Thought Reading . 399 
weathercock of a tall spire, and my knees knock together. 
This affedtion of the nerves, controlling the muscles of the 
knee, is not dependent on volition ; therefore it may be re- 
garded as a constant faCt that a brain condition affeCts, with 
greater or less intensity, the nerves over the whole of the 
body. Here arises what is perhaps the critical question of 
the whole enquiry. 
B is conscious of a thought : simultaneously he has in 
his brain the physical counterpart of his thought. Is it 
possible for that physical counterpart to be communicated 
to another individual, independently of impressions made 
through the senses ? We have now advanced a stage. We 
have left the metaphysical region* of thought, and have 
turned our attention to its physical counterpart in the 
brain. 
When I say the counterpart of a thought I mean a cor- 
responding physical molecular condition in the brain. If 
B see a peacock, the image of the bird gets no further than 
the retina of his eye. Anything less like a peacock than its 
molecular counterpart in his brain can hardly be conceived. 
If, in the absence of the bird, B voluntarily think of a pea- 
cock, the respective physical counterparts, of the sight 
impression and of the voluntary thought, will be identical, 
or sufficiently alike to be identified. If, now, the counter- 
part in the brain of B can be reproduced in the brain of A, 
A will think of a peacock, and so solve the problem of 
thought reading. I will now quote some words of Dr. Car- 
penter (“ Mental Physiology,” 6th edition, p. 633) : — 
“ Looking at nerve force as a special form of physical 
energy, it may be deemed not altogether incredible that it 
should exert itself from a distance so as to bring the brain 
into direct dynamical communication with that of another, 
without the intermediation either of verbal language or of 
movements of expression.” 
Omitting much I would like to add here, I would say 
that, to use Dr. Carpenter’s term, the dynamics of B’s brain, 
when he is charged to concentrate his whole mind and keep 
it fixed on a single thought, must, I should suppose, be in a 
condition very favourable to observation. This kind of con- 
centration is hard work, and, if prolonged, may be felt to 
the tips of the fingers. 
Reverting to the remarkable resemblance between nerve 
current and electricity, it seems highly probable that nerve 
current can adt at a distance. The phenomena of induction 
in electricity are too well known to require more than an 
allusion. Action at a distance may perhaps be said to be 
