able to proceed 180 miles on her course, but next night had to stop from the same cause. The third night there was no such phenomenon." *

The Rev. Dr. STERN read a paper on "Flavius Josephus." +

An EXTRAORDINARY MEETING was held the same evening, the PRESIDENT in the Chair.

The Meeting was held to consider the following revisions in the Laws, as recommended by the Council previous to the issue of a new edition.

Law 9.-Concluding paragraph: "But Members elected after the first meeting in February shall only be required to pay half the Annual Subscription for the current year."

To Read: "shall be required to pay only half the Annual Subscription for the current Session, in addition to the Entrance fee."

Law 54.—“ A Member may lay before the Society, with the sanction of the Council, an unpublished Paper or Essay by any person not a Member of the Society." To Read: "Any person not a Member of the Society may, with the sanction of the Council, read or communicate an unpublished Paper or Essay to the Society." These were now read and passed for the first time.

SEVENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 22nd January, 1883.

EDWARD DAVIES, F.C.S., F.I.C., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Mr. Jas. Dowling was duly elected an Ordinary Member.

• See further under 14th Meeting, page lxxi. † See page 67.

Mr. COWELL exhibited some of the drawings of Old Liverpool from the collection in the Free Library, sod a copy of Buck's Panorama of London, published early in the last century.

Mr. H. LONGUET HIGGINS read a paper on “The Science of Esthetics."*

An EXTRAORDINARY MEETING was held the same evening, the PRESIDENT in the Chair, when the charges in the Laws, as passed at the previous meeting, were read for the second time and confirmed.

EIGHTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 5th February, 1883.

EDWARD DAVIES, F.C.S., F.L.C., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Mr. R. C. JOHNSON, F.R.A.S., read a short paper on "The Application of Photography to Stellar Cartography." The following short paper was read on

THOUGHT READING.

BY REV. HENRY H. HIGGINS, M.A.

THE limited time at my disposal this evening induces me at once to state my belief that the process commonly known as "thought reading" is characterised by genuine phenomena which are in perfect accordance with the natural laws recognised in the science of Mental Physiology.

We, in this society, have, I may presume, a mere secondary interest in the multitude of complicated, adventitious circumstances usually attending a popular exhibition

* See page 161.

of thought reading. Such circumstances form the staple of the observations and remarks ordinarily made on the subject. The very simplest case is best suited for our purpose; and one true example is as good as a thousand.

I will endeavour to define what I understand by thought reading; and then to show that its exercise is compatible with scientific principles. The individual who undertakes to read the thoughts of another is called the operator: he whose thought is read is called the subject. I will call the operator A, and the subject B.

If A know the thought of B by an impression, ever so subtle, received through any of the senses, such as touch, sight, or hearing, then A's knowledge is not gained by thought reading; though B may be perfectly unconscious of having afforded an intimation of his thought to A, in any way whatever.

Probably such accessories to apparent success are used by certain public operators so as in a wonderfully keen and sagacious manner to avoid failures. I have no doubt that there are others who are altogether above such trickery. Of course there is a rapport of some kind; or the thing would be a miracle. If it be always a sense impression, thought reading must, I think, be classed with table-turning. But if A, guided by no sensuous impression, can, through quasi electric relation with B, proceed to say or do something having an unmistakable affinity with a thought entertained by B, but otherwise unknown to A-that is thought reading, of which I shall attempt to show the reasonableness.

All of us remember table-turning. Many men of science said, "the whole thing is an imposture, not to be explained, but scouted." If it had been left to these, I think, mistaken men, table-turning might be in vogue now. For in spite of the thing being scouted, the tables did turn, no one knew how. For table-turners were not all impostors, but were

themselves deceived. Faraday gave a scientific explanation of the fact, and table-turning died a natural death through atrophy.

I am far from anticipating such an end for thought reading, which may possibly prove to be of some remedial value in certain forms of insanity.

There are, I conceive, called into exercise in every instance of thought reading, two distinct constituents-first the ordinary nerve currents; and secondly an abnormal exaltation of the sensitiveness of some portion of the cerebral system, or sensorium, of A.

First, then, as to the currents.

There is no need to

We

invoke the aid of any special psychic or odyllic force. know that between the brain and every part of the body a most intimate connection is kept up by means of the nerves, along which, as along telegraph wires, currents continually pass and repass. The word current is misleading. We must not suppose that matter of any kind is transmitted; neither is nerve current exactly a wave motion; but it is rather a succession of impulses. Professor Clifford compared nerve current with the motion in a row of card houses, when the end house is shoved against the next. The fall of the whole series is very satisfactory to see; the only drawback being that all the cards must be put up again before the experiment can be repeated.

It seems to me essential that you should form a clear conception of motion along a line without transmission of anything. I therefore reconstructed from memory a toy which was a great favourite with me about sixty years ago, and which will now be exhibited. It may be qualified for introduction to a scientific meeting by being named a "statoract."

It is plain, then, that very active motion may be set up along a line without a particle of matter being transmitted.

e

If you will be so kind as to imagine the plaques of wood to be magnified molecules, you will the better appreciate Professor Clifford's remark on nerve currents. He says that if we could magnify the molecules 50,000,000 diameters, we might see them falling one against another; but he warns us that we should not, even in that case, be any nearer seeing thought or consciousness.

Nerve current is very similar to that of electricity, but the two are not known to be correlated or convertible; though nerve current is said to be always associated with electric current. Pardon tautology. It is the bane of lucidity in many scientific books that the author, aiming at elegance in style, uses two or more different terms to So the reader is set wondering express the same thing. whether the author means the same thing by his various expressions, or wishes to denote shades of difference.

In Dr. Rosenthal's account of M. E. du Bois Reymond's experiment, in which the index of an electrometer is made to move by an effort of the will, it seems probable that electricity, thus associated, is the agent.

I have not space to dwell upon the points of resemblance between nerve current and electricity (see Muscles and Nerves, Dr. Rosenthal, International Series, Kegan Paul). But the fact must not be passed by that there is a special physical condition of the brain corresponding with every thought of which we are conscious. During every sustained thought, nerve current is acting in a peculiar way in the brain, and probably affecting nerve current in the hand, and over the whole body. I.see a man standing on the weatherThis cock of a tall spire, and my knees knock together. affection of the nerves, controlling the muscles of the knee, is not dependent on volition; therefore it may be regarded as a constant fact, that a brain condition affects, with greater or less intensity, the nerves over the whole of the body.