Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/201

Rh But Mr. Templeton's version of the same incident, if briefer, is more to the point.

From 14th June, 1885

Next the final and most crucial test was proposed by Mr. Eglinton. It had been suggested to his own mind by a former test of my own, in which I had wished to preclude all possibility of any explanation such as thought transference. We arranged that Mr. Smith should turn to the bookshelves behind him, choose a book at random, in which we could fix upon a certain word in a certain line of a given page—which word was to be written for us. On taking a book Mr. Smith asked Mr. Eglinton if he knew what it was. Mr. Eglinton answered "Yes," and that as it was a rather trashy novel it might be better to choose another. Mr. Smith then took a small red-covered book from the opposite shelf, and this Mr. Eglinton said he did not recognise. As the theory of the medium's mesmeric influence over the sitters had been more than once put before me as a not impossible explanation I suggested we should fix the line by the number of crayons in a box before us, which gave us the 18th line; and in a similar way, from a separate heap of slate pencils, we obtained the number 9 for page. The last word in the line was chosen.

Now from this later version we learn (1) that the test was proposed by Eglinton himself; (2) that the book was not chosen entirely "at haphazard"; it was a second choice, and—a significant point—it had a conspicuous cover; (3) that the line and page were determined, not by taking a handful of pencils and crayons from larger heaps, as might have been inferred from Mr. Smith's account, but by taking the actual number of those articles present on the table. From the first account it might be inferred that Eglinton's only chance of meeting the