Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/181

Rh framework of a microscope or telescope, and who recognizes that the construction of the "magnetometer" is exactly such as will enable the smallest amount of imparted motion to produce the greatest sensible effect, will be prepared to expect that the oscillations of the suspended ball are as much maintained and guided by the expectancy of the operator as they are when it is hung directly from his own finger. Experiment soon proved this to be the case: for it was found that the constancy of the vibrations entirely depended upon the operator's watching their direction, either by his own eyes or by those of some one else; and, further, that when such a change was made without his knowledge in the conditions of the experiment, as ought, theoretically, to alter the direction of the oscillations, no such alteration took place.

A very amusing exposé, of the mystery of the "magnetometer" resulted from its application by Dr. Madden, an homœopathic physician at Brighton, to test the virtues of his "globules," as to which he had, of course, some preformed conclusions of his own. The results of his first experiments entirely corresponded with his ideas of what they ought to be; for when a globule of one medicine was taken into his disengaged hand, the suspended ball oscillated longitudinally; and when this globule was changed for another of opposite virtues, the direction of the oscillations became transverse. Another homœopathic physician, however, was going through a similar course of experiments; and his results, while conformable to his own notions of the virtues of the globules, were by no means accordant with those of Dr. Madden. The latter was thus led to reinvestigate the matter with a precaution he had omitted in the first instance; namely, that the globules should be placed in his hand by another person, without any hint being given him of their nature. From the moment he began to work upon this plan, the whole aspect of the subject was changed; globules that produced longitudinal oscillations at one time gave transverse at another, while globules of the most opposite remedial virtues gave no sign of difference. And thus he was soon led to the conviction, which he avowed with a candor very creditable to him, that the system he had built up had no better foundation than his own anticipation of what the results of each experiment should be; that anticipation expressing itself unconsciously in involuntary and imperceptible movements of his finger, which communicated a rhythmical vibration to the framework when the oscillations of the ball suspended from it were watched.

Thus, by the investigations of scientific experts who were alive to the sources of fallacy which the introduction of the human element always brings into play, the hypothesis of odylic force was proved to be completely baseless; the phenomena which were supposed to indicate its existence being traceable to the physiological conditions of the human organisms through whose instrumentality they were