39S Notices of Books . [July, 
tive testimony is altogether ignored, while the negative results of 
another person are set forth as conclusive. Next we have the 
evidence for the divining-rod similarly treated. Dr. Mayo is 
quoted as supporting the view that the rod moved in accordance 
with the “ expectations ” of the operator, but on the preceding 
page of Dr. Mayo’s work, other cases are given in which there 
was no expectation ; and the fact that Dr. Mayo was well aware 
of this source of error, and was a physiologist and physician of 
high rank, entitles his opinion as to the reality of the action in 
other cases to great weight. Again, we have the testimony of 
Dr. Hutton, who saw the Hon. Lady Milbanke use the divining- 
rod on Woolwich Common, and who declares that it turned 
where he knew there was water, and that in other places where 
he believed there was none it did not turn : that the lady’s hands 
were closely watched, and that no motion of the fingers or hands 
could be detected, yet the rod turned so strongly and persistently 
that it became broken. No other person present could volun- 
tarily or involuntarily cause the rod to turn in a similar way 
(Hutton’s “ Mathematical Recreations,” Ed. 1840, p. 711). The 
evidence on this subject is most voluminous, but we have ad- 
duced sufficient to show that Dr. Carpenter’s supposed demon- 
stration does not account for all the fadts. 
We now come to the very interesting and important subject of 
clairvoyance, which Dr. Carpenter introduces with a great deal 
of irrelevant matter calculated to prejudge the question. Thus, 
he tells his readers that “there are at the present time numbers 
of educated men and women who have so completely surren- 
dered their ‘ common sense ’ to a dominant prepossession as to 
maintain that any such monstrous fidtion (as of a person being 
carried through the air in an hour from Edinburgh to London) 
ouught to be believed, even upon the evidence of a single 
witness, if that witness be one upon whose testimony we should 
rely in the ordinary affairs of life ! ” He offers no proof of this 
statement, and we venture to say he can offer none, and it is 
only another example of that complete misrepresentation of the 
opinions of his opponents with which this book abounds. At 
page 71, however, we enter upon the subjedf itself, and at once 
encounter one of those curious examples of ignorance (or 
suppression of evidence) for which Dr. Carpenter is so re- 
markable in his treatment of this subjedt. We have been 
already told (p. 11) of the French Scientific Commission which 
about a hundred years ago investigated the pretensions of 
Mesmer, and decided, as might have been anticipated, against 
him. Now, we have the statement that “ it was by the French 
Academy of Medicine, in which the mesmeric state had been 
previously discussed with reference to the performance of surgical 
operations, that this new and more extraordinary claim ( clairvoy- 
ance ) was first carefully sifted, in consequence of the offer made in 
1837 by M. Burdin of a prize of 3000 francs to anyone who should 
