Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/88

78 explanation here is the simple one of mere coincidence. Whether this explanation is available or not would depend entirely on the question whether the preacher's memory was ordinarily trustworthy or not, whether in fact he would remember the arrangements, prayers, sermon, etc., he had given on any occasion. These matters becoming, after long habit, almost automatic, it might very well happen that the person going through such duties would remember them no longer and no better than one who had been present when they were performed, and who had not paid special attention to them. That if he had thus unconsciously carried out his duties on one Sunday he should (being to this degree forgetful) conduct them in precisely the same way on the next Sunday, would rather tend to show that his mental faculties were in excellent working order than the reverse. Wendell Holmes tells a story which effectively illustrates our meaning; and he tells it so pleasantly (as usual) that we shall quote it unaltered: "Sometimes, but rarely," he says, "one may be caught making the same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus a certain lecturer" (Holmes himself, doubtless), "after performing in an inland city, where dwells a littératrice of note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup. She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new occupation. 'Yes,' he replied, 'I am like the huma, the bird that never lights, being always in the cars as he is always on the wing.' Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. 'You are constantly going from place to place,' she said. 'Yes,' be answered, 'I am like the huma,' and finished the sentence as before. What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished his conversation with the huma daily during that whole interval of years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances brought up precisely the same idea." He was not in the slightest degree afraid of brain-disease. On the contrary, he considered the circumstance indicative of good order in the mental mechanism. "He ought to have been proud," says Holmes, speaking for him, and meaning no doubt that he was proud, "of the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage's calculating machine."

Somewhat akin to the unconscious recurrence of mental processes after considerable intervals of time is the tendency to imitate the actions of others as though sharing in their thoughts, and according to many because mind acts upon mind. This tendency, though not always associated with disease, is usually a sign of bodily illness. Dr. Carpenter mentions the following singular case, but rather as illustrating generally the influence of suggestions derived from external sources in