Here arises what is, perhaps, the critical question of the whole inquiry. B is conscious of a thought: simultaneously he has in his brain the physical counterpart of his thought. Is it possible for that physical counterpart to be communicated to another individual, independently of impressions made through the senses? We have now advanced a stage. We have left the metaphysical region of thought, and have turned our attention to its physical counterpart in the brain. One word before proceeding. When I say the counterpart of a thought, I mean a corresponding physical molecular condition in the brain. If B see a peacock, the image of the bird gets no further than the retina of his eye. Anything less like a peacock than its molecular counterpart in his brain can hardly be conceived. If, in the absence of the bird, B voluntarily think of a peacock, the respective physical counterparts, of the sight impression, and of the voluntary thought, will be identical, or sufficiently alike to be identified. If, now, the counterpart of the brain of B can be reproduced in the brain of A, A will think of a peacock, and so solve the problem of thought reading. I will now quote some brief but very memorable words of Dr. Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 6th edition, p. 633: 'Looking at nerve force as a special form of physical energy, it may be deemed not altogether incredible that it should exert itself from a distance so as to bring the brain into direct dynamical communication with that of another, without the intermediation either of verbal language or of movements of expression." Omitting much I would like to add here, I would say that, to use Dr. Carpenter's term, the dynamics of B's brain, when he is charged to concentrate his whole mind and keep it fixed on a single thought, must, I should suppose, be in a condition very favourable to observation. This kind of concentration is hard work, and, if prolonged, may be felt to the tips of the fingers. Reverting to the remarkable resemblance between nerve current and electricity, it seems highly probable that nerve current can act at a distance. The phenomena of induction in electricity are too well known to require more than an allusion. Action at a distance may perhaps be said to be the grand distinctive feature of electricity, dividing it from heat and light, which act not, except through their proper media. Nerve current being a force bearing a wonderful resemblance to electricity will there be no analogous phenomena of action at a distance in nerve current ? What is the nature of nerve current? We know not; neither, according to Professor Tait, do we know the nature of electricity. A wishes to know the thought of B; how does he place his own nerve current in relation with that of B? The respective sensoria of A and B are not brought into juxtaposition, because externally the skull is not sensitive. Operators and subjects have sometimes been charged with laying their heads together: in such cases thought reading is of course metaphorical. nerve There are reasons why the hand should be used as the instrument for receiving the influence of the nerve current. It is extremely sensitive; but, above all, the brain is well accustomed to acts of discrimination founded on current coming from the hand. A, we may suppose, is blindfolded. Touch any other part of his body with a hazel-nut— he is doubtful: let it be brought into contact with his hand -he is sure. This is a sense of impression. True, but the brain is accustomed to judge what a thing is that sends up a message from the hand. The nerve current from the hand goes straight to the thalamus. No light is thrown upon the matter there. So the thalamus sends off the current, like a brush, to the grey cortex of the brain, where the current Let us now dispense altogether with the presence of the tangible object, and suppose that instead of being excited by the touch of a hazel-nut, the nerves in the hand of A are excited by the nerve current in the hand of B whilst he is thinking of a hazel-nut: A's hand will send a nerve message to his brain. Of what kind? Of what kind? Of no kind in particular? Quite incredible. What should particularise it? Its efficient cause, namely, B's nerve current, generated by a brain, the physical condition of which corresponds with the thought of a hazel-nut. It seems to me highly probable that A would become more or less vividly conscious of an action in his brain, which he would be able to interpret as having its source in the thought of a hazel-nut. The consideration of the second constituent in thought reading the abnormal exaltation of sensitiveness in the operator, A, must not detain us beyond the time required for a brief allusion to the several stages leading by a perfectly natural gradation to the most highly exalted condition of receptivity. All our examples will be found to illustrate the amazingly extended principle of COMPENSATION in Nature. Take the case of a man born blind or deaf. The absence of a sense damages the integrity of his intellectual power: in spite of which the blind man often has his power of hearing wonderfully acute; and the deaf man often has unusually clear vision. Let us pass on to the ordinary condition of sleep. In sleep, sense impressions are all suspended; reason, judgment, and even volition are in abeyance: yet in sleep we become conscious of that delicate process, which is ever going on, day and night, and which, when we are awake, is unconscious cerebration, or the phosphorescent action of the brain. It is unperceived during the day whilst the senses are active, being overpowered by their stronger impressions; just as the light of the stars is unseen in the clear daylight. The action of unconscious cerebration may sometimes be detected if we are suddenly aroused just at the first commencement of a doze. It is very delicious, and its interruption is exceedingly irritating. In sleep it passes into dreaming, which may or may not be agreeable. In the state of reverie, the train of thought is more coherent, the senses are not wholly paralysed; we see figures in the fire, and the likeness of a whale in the cloud, or something else; but volition is wanting. In somnambulism volition is active, the senses also are in a normal condition; but reason and judgment are suspended, and the sleep-walker crosses a chasm by a narrow plank, heedless of the consequences of a fall; or works a sum in arithmetic, vainly attempted during the distractions of waking hours. All these states are perfectly natural: we attribute them to no mysterious agency; and though the parcelling out of the reason, the will, the imagination, the judgment; now one, and now another of these being suspended, is very surprising, yet not more so than the phenomena in insanity. Yet sleep, reverie, somnambulism, and catalepsy lead up so closely to the electro-biologised, hypnotised, and mesmerised conditions that why the one class of affections should be less a subject for scientific investigation than the other does not appear. The subjection of the will to the influence of a ruling thought is the great feature in all these abnormal conditions; it is often attended by extreme sensitiveness towards every thing in connection with the ruling thought. The will is suspended in the subject, and the operator vehemently impresses a ruling thought on his helpless victim. All of us have seen the result a hundred times: I never can see it without a shudder. Permit me now, in conclusion, to apply these considerations to the phenomena of thought reading recently exhibited in Liverpool, speaking of the operator, Mr. Irving Bishop, as A and his subject as B. A wishes to show that he can read the thought of B. As far as possible A changes place with B. A becomes the subject and will have B for his operator. A first secures that B shall have, for the occasion, a ruling thought, e.g., the spot where he has hid the pin. B is to concentrate and maintain his thought on this one thing. As soon as A has made this provision, A throws off his own will by hypnotising himself. A becomes the helpless subject, and B, with his ruling thought, the strong operator. A knows that B has a ruling thought, but A has yet to find out what it is. A therefore puts himself in quasi electric communication with B, by means of the hand or the wire; but not with B's ruling thought, which is totally out of A's reach, but with its physical counterpart in B's brain. The two brains become like two electric clock dials. Considering the nerve energy due to a ruling thought in B, and the utter inability to resist, in a hypnotised subject, such as A has become, it might be expected that A would not only act in accordance with B's thought, but that, so soon as he knew it, A would be in very great hurry to do so; would be very much exhausted after it; and would probably, on returning to himself, be quite forgetful of it. Before bringing my remarks to a close, I may refer to the thousands of experiments in thought reading, or rather, brain reading, which are now from time to time occurring in private drawing-rooms throughout the country. Most of |