caressant sa Chimère." Clelia, could the sculptor have caught her, might have been his fittest model; what else could he have found at once so intimate and so fugitive, discerned so elusively without us, and yet with such a root within?

*

I might mention many other strange varieties of graphic automatism; as reversed script, so written as to be read in a mirror ; alternating styles of handwriting, symbolic arabesque, and the like. But I must hasten on to the object towards which I am mainly tending, which is to show, not so much the influence exercised by a man's own mind on itself as the influence exercised by one man's mind on another's. We have been watching, so to say, the psychic wave as it washed up deep-sea products on the open shore. But the interest will be keener still if we find that wave washing up the products of some far-off clime; if we discover that there has been a profound current with no surface trace—a current propagated by an unimagined impulse, and obeying laws as yet unknown.

The psychical phenomenon here alluded to is that for which I have suggested the name Telepathy; the transference of ideas or sensations from one conscious or unconscious mind to another, without the agency of any of the recognized organs of sense.

Our first task in the investigation of this influence has naturally been to assure ourselves of the transmission of thought between two persons, both of them in normal condition; the agent, conscious of the thought which he wishes to transmit, the percipient, conscious of the thought as he receives it.

The 66 Proceedings" of the Society for Psychical Research must for a long time be largely occupied with experiments of this definite kind. But, of course, if such an influence truly exists, its manifestations are not likely to be confined to the transference of a name or a cypher, a card or a diagram, from one man's field of mental vision to another's, by deliberate effort and as a preconcerted experiment. If Telepathy be anything at all, it involves one of the profoundest laws of mind, and, like other important laws, may be expected to operate in many unlooked-for ways, and to be at the root of many scattered phenomena, inexplicable before. Especially must we watch for traces of it wherever unconscious mental action is concerned. For the telepathic impact, we may fairly conjecture, may often be a stimulus so gentle as to need some concentration or exaltation in the percipient's mind, or at least some inhibition of competing stimuli, in order to enable him to realize it in consciousness at all. And in fact (as we have shown or are prepared to

"Mirror-writing" is not very rare with left-handed children and imbeciles, and has been observed, in association with aphasia, as a result of hemiplegia of the right side. If (as Dr. Ireland supposes, "Brain," vol. iv. p. 367) this "Spiegel-schrift" is the expression of an inverse verbal image formed in the right hemisphere, we shall have another indication that the right hemisphere is concerned in some forms of automatic writing also.

show), almost every abnormal mental condition (consistent with sanity) as yet investigated yields some indication of telepathic action. Telepathy, I venture to maintain, is an occasional phenomenon in somnambulism and in the hypnotic state; it is one of the obscure causes which generate hallucinations; it enters into dream and into delirium; and it often rises to its maximum of vividness in the swoon that ends in death.

In accordance with analogy, therefore, we may expect to find that automatic writing-this new glimpse into our deep-sea world—will afford us some fresh proof of currents which set obscurely towards us from the depths of minds other than our own. And we find, I believe, that this is so. Had space permitted it, I should have liked to detail some transitional cases, to have shown by what gradual steps we discover that it is not always one man's intelligence alone which is concerned in the message given, that an infusion of facts known to some spectator only may mingle in the general tenor which the writer's mind supplies. Especially I should have wished to describe some attempts at this kind of thought-transference attended with only slight or partial success. For the mind justly besitates to give credence to a palmary group of experiments unless it has been prepared for them by following some series of gradual suggestions and approximative endeavour.

an even

But the case which I am about to relate, although a culminant, is not an isolated one in the life-history of the persons concerned. The Rev. P. H. Newnham, Rector of Maker, Devonport, experienced even more striking instance of thought-transference with Mrs. Newnham, some forty years ago, before their marriage; and during subsequent years there has been frequent and unmistakable transmission of thought from husband to wife of an involuntary kind, although it was only in the year 1871 that they succeeded in getting the ideas transferred by intentional effort.

Mr. Newnham's communication consists of a copy of entries in a note-book made during eight months in 1871, at the actual moments of experiment. Mrs. Newnham independently corroborates the account. The entries had previously been shown to a few personal friends, but had never been used, and were not meant to be used, for any literary purpose. Mr. Newnham has kindly placed them at my disposal, from a belief that they may serve to elucidate important truth.

"Being desirous," says the first entry in Mr. Newnham's note-book, "of investigating accurately the phenomena of planchette,' myself and my wife have agreed to carry out a series of systematic experiments, in order to ascertain the conditions under which the instrument is able to work. To this end the following rules are strictly observed:

"1. The question to be asked is written down before the planchette is set in motion. This question, as a rule, is not known to the operator. [The

few cases where the question was known to Mrs. Newnham are specially marked in the note-book, and are none of them cited here.]

"2. Whenever an evasive, or other, answer is returned, necessitating one or more new questions to be put before a clear answer can be obtained, the operator is not to be made aware of any of these questions, or even of the general subject to which they allude, until the final answer has been obtained.

66

My wife," adds Mr. Newnham, "always sat at a small low table, in a low chair, leaning backwards. I sat about eight feet distant, at a rather high table, and with my back towards her while writing down the questions. It was absolutely impossible that any gesture or play of feature on my part could have been visible or intelligible to her. As a rule she kept her eyes shut; but never became in the slightest degree hypnotic, or even naturally drowsy.

"Under these conditions we carried on experiments for about eight months, and I have 309 questions and answers recorded in my note-book, spread over this time. But the experiments were found very exhaustive of nerve power, and as my wife's health was delicate, and the fact of thoughttransmission had been abundantly proved, we thought it best to abandon the pursuit.

"The planchette began to move instantly with my wife. The answer was often half written before I had completed the question.

"On finding that it would write easily, I asked three simple questions, which were known to the operator, then three others unknown to her, relating to my own private concerns. All six having been instantly answered in a manner to show complete intelligence, I proceeded to ask:

Answer: 8.

"(7) Write down the lowest temperature here this week. Now, this reply at once arrested my interest. The actual lowest temperature had been 7.6°, so that 8 was the nearest whole degree; but my wife said at once that, if she had been asked the question, she would have written 7, and not 8; as she had forgotten the decimal, but remembered my having said that the temperature had been down to 7 something.

"I simply quote this as a good instance, at the very outset, of perfect transmission of thought, coupled with a perfectly independent reply; the answer being correct in itself, but different from the impression on the conscious intelligence of both parties.

"Naturally, our first desire was to see if we could obtain any information concerning the nature of the intelligence which was operating through the planchette, and of the method by which it produced the written results. We repeated questions on this subject again and again, and I will copy down the principal questions and answers in this connection.

(13) Is it the operator's brain or some external force that moves the planchette? Answer brain' or 'force.' Will.

"(14) Is it the will of a living person, or of an immaterial spirit distinct from that person? Answer 'person' or 'spirit.' Wife. "(15) Give first the wife's Christian name;

her. (This was accurately done.)

"(27) What is your own name? Only you.

then my

favourite name for

"(28) We are not quite sure of the meaning of the answer. Explain. Wife.

"The subject was resumed on a later day.

"(118) But does no one tell wife what to write? if so, who? Spirit. "(119) Whose spirit? Wife's brain.

"(120) But how does wife's brain know masonic secrets? Wife's spirit unconsciously guides.

"(190) Why are you not always influenced by what I think? Wife knows

sometimes what you think. (191) How does wife know it?

When her brain is excited, and has not been much tried before. (192) But by what means are my thoughts conveyed to her brain? Electrobiology. (193) What is electrobiology? No one knows. (194) But do not you know? No, wife does not know.

"My object," says Mr. Newnham, "in quoting this large number of questions and replies [many of them omitted here] has been not merely to show the instantaneous and unfailing transmission of thought from questioner to operator, but more especially to call attention to a remarkable character of the answers given. These answers, consistent and invariable in their tenor from first to last, did not correspond with the opinion or expectation of either myself or my wife. Something which takes the appearance of a source of intelligence distinct from the conscious intelligence of either of us was clearly perceptible from the very first. Assuming, at the outset, that if her source of percipience could grasp my question, it would be equally willing to reply in accordance with my request, in questions (13) (14) I suggested the form of answer; but of this not the slightest notice was taken. Neither myself nor my wife had ever taken part in any form of (socalled) 'spiritual' manifestations before this time; nor had we any decided opinion as to the agency by which phenomena of this kind were brought about. But for such answers as those numbered (14), (27), (144), (192), (194), we were both of us totally unprepared; and I may add that, so far as we were prepossessed by any opinion whatever, these replies were distinctly opposed to such opinions. In a word, it is simply impossible that these replies should have been either suggested, or composed, by the conscious intelligence of either of us."

Mr. Newnham obtained some curious results by questioning "planchette" on Masonic archæology-a subject which he had long studied, but of which Mrs. Newnham knew nothing. It is to be observed, moreover, that throughout the experiments Mrs. Newnham was quite unable to follow the motions of the planchette. Often she only touched it with a single finger; but even with all her fingers resting on the board she never had the slightest idea of what words were being traced out." In this case, therefore, we have Mrs. Newnham ignorant at once of all three points :-of what was the question asked; of what the true answer would have been; and of what answer was actually being written. Under these circumstances the answer showed a mixture—

(1) Of true Masonic facts, as known to Mr. Newnham;

(2) Of Masonic theories, known to him, but held by him to be

erroneous;

(3) Of ignorance, sometimes avowed, sometimes endeavouring to conceal itself by subterfuge.

I give an example :

"(166) Of what language is the first syllable of the Great Triple R.A. word? Don't know. (167) Yes, you do. What are the three languages of which the word is composed? Greek, Egypt, Syriac. First syllable (correctly given), rest unknown. (168) Write the syllable which is Syriac. (First syllable correctly written.) (174) Write down the word itself. (First three and last two letters were written correctly, but four incorrect letters, partly borrowed from another word of the same degree, came in the middle.) (176)

Why do you write a word of which I know nothing? Wife tried hard to catch the word, but could not quite catch it."

So far the answers, though imperfect, honestly admit their imperfection. There is nothing which a second self of Mrs. Newnham's, with a certain amount of access to Mr. Newnham's mind, might not furnish. But I must give one instance of another class of replies-replies which seem to wish to conceal ignorance and to elude exact inquiry.

"(182) Write out the prayer used at the advancement of a Mark Master Mason. Almighty Ruler of the Universe and Architect of all worlds, we beseech Thee to accept this our brother whom we have this day received into the most honourable company of Mark Master Masons. Grant him to be a worthy member of our brotherhood; and may he be in his own person a perfect mirror of all Masonic virtues. Grant that all our doings may be to Thy honour and glory, and to the welfare of all mankind.

"This prayer was written off instantaneously and very rapidly. For the benefit of those who are not members of the craft, I may say that no prayer in the slightest degree resembling it is made use of in the Ritual of any Masonic degree; and yet it contains more than one strictly accurate technicality connected with the degree of Mark Mason. My wife has never seen any Masonic prayers, whether in Carlile' or any other real or spurious

Ritual of the Masonic Order."

There was so much of this kind of untruthful evasion, and it was so unlike anything in Mrs. Newnham's character, that observers less sober-minded would assuredly have fancied that some Puck or sprite was intervening with a "third intelligence" compounded of aimless cunning and childish jest. But Mr. Newnham inclines to a view fully in accordance with that which this paper has throughout suggested.

"Is this third intelligence," he says, "analogous to the dual state,' the existence of which, in a few extreme and most interesting cases, is now well established? Is there a latent potentiality of a dual state' existing in every brain and are the few very striking phenomena which have as yet been noticed and published only the exceptional developments of a state which is inherent in most or in all brains?"

And alluding to a theory, which has at different times been much discussed, of the more or less independent action of the two cerebral hemispheres, he asks:

May not the untrained half of the organ of mind, even in the most pure and truthful characters, be capable of manifesting tendencies like the hysterical girl's, and of producing at all events the appearance of moral deficiencies which are totally foreign to the well-trained and disciplined portion of the brain which is ordinarily made use of?"

In this place, however, it will be enough to say that the real cause for surprise would have been if our secondary self had not exhibited a character in some way different from that which we recognize as our own. Whatever other factors may enter into a man's character, two of the most important are undoubtedly his store