Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/596

578 of a distinguished physician: The head of a family having been struck down by serious illness, this physician was called in to consult with the ordinary medical attendant; and, after examining the patient and conferring with his colleague, he went into the sitting-room where the family were waiting in anxious expectation for his judgment on the case. This he delivered in the cautious form which wise experience dictated: "The patient's condition is very critical, but I see no reason why he should not recover." One of the daughters screamed, "Dr. says papa will die!" another cried out, in a jubilant tone, "Dr. says papa will get well." If no explanation had been given, the two ladies would have reported the physician's verdict in precisely opposite terms, one being under the influence of fear, the other of hope.

I shall now give a few illustrative examples, from recent experiences, of the contrast between the two views taken of the same phenomena (1) by such as are led by their "prepossessions" at once to attribute to "occult" influences what they cannot otherwise explain, and (2) by those who, under the guidance of trained and organized common-sense, apply themselves, in the first instance, to determine whether there be any thing in these phenomena which "natural" agencies are not competent to account for:

2. So, again. Profs. Chevreul and Biot, masters of experimental science worthy to be placed in the same rank with Faraday, had been previously applying the same principles and methods to the systematic investigation of the phenomena of the divining-rod and the oscillations of suspended buttons; the former of which were supposed to depend upon some "occult" power on the part of the performer, while the latter were attributed to an hypothetical "odylic" force. And they conclusively proved that in both cases the results are brought about (as in table-turning) by the involuntary action of mental expectancy on the muscles of the performer; the phenomena either not occurring at all, or having no constancy whatever, when he neither knows nor guesses what to expect.—The following