Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/184

172 bad as this other, but still presented all these phenomena: he jumped when he heard any sound from behind that was sharp and unexpected, and struck and threw when ordered to do so. The crowd around the hotel, partly for my benefit, kept him constantly teased and annoyed, so that when he approached he had a stealthy, suspicious, and timid look in his eye, as though he expected each moment to be jumped.

6. This man, while playing with one of his mates, had thrown him to the ground; some one approached near and commanded "Strike him," and he struck him very hard and explosively, with both hands at a time.

7. When standing by a window, he was suddenly commanded to "jump" by a person on the other side of the window. He jumped straight up, half a foot off the floor, with a loud cry, repeating the order which had been given to him,

8. When the two Jumpers were close together, they were commanded to "strike": each struck the other simultaneously—not mild or polite, but severe and painful blows. I took one of these men to my room and quietly conversed with him, and made the same experiments with him as with the other case. I found him much less irritable than the other, and he needed usually stronger excitation to produce the phenomena.

I experimented with him in the phenomenon of repeating language that was addressed to him. When the command was uttered in a quick, loud voice, he repeated the order as he heard it, at the same time that he executed it. When told to strike, he said "Strike" at the same time that he struck; when told to throw it, he said "Throw it" at the same time that he threw whatever was in his hand. It made no difference what language was used. I tried him with the first part of the first line of Homer's "Iliad," and with the first part of Virgil's "Æneid," languages, of course, of which he knew nothing, and he repeated quickly, almost violently, the sound as it was uttered—"Menin Aida," the first part of the first line of the "Iliad," and "Arma-vi," the first part of the first line of Virgil. In order to have it repeated, it was necessary that the command should be very short, as well as quickly and strongly uttered. He would not repeat a whole line, or even half a line, but simply a word or two. In these, as in the mind-reading experiments, I was able to establish my conclusions by exclusion—that is, by proving that only the involuntary action of mind on body could produce the phenomena.

These experiments were repeated again and again, under various conditions at different times, in such a way as to satisfy myself, absolutely, that the six elements of error that apply to all experiments with living human beings were all eliminated, and that the facts obtained were the solid residuum of an exact scientific investigation.