agreed that Mr. P.'s number should represent a page, and Mr. M.'s number a line, of some book to be chosen mentally by one of the party, the medium promising to endeavour to reproduce on the slate the line so determined. In the present case it was of course the eighth line of the 12th page.
The sitting, it will be remembered, took place in Davey’s own house. He had no doubt left exactly 20 pieces of crayon in the box, and by the method adopted of dividing the third lot of crayons there was little difficulty in arriving at the numbers already selected ——8 and 12.
Dr. Hodgson’s careful analysis of the accounts of Eglinton’s miracles, and the skilful counterfeits—more skilful frequently than their originals—presented by Mr. Davey, must convince the dispassionate enquirer of the radical untrustworthiness alike of the senses and of the memory in matters of this kind. And this may almost be called a new discovery. The biologist, the astronomer, the physicist have, of course, learnt, each in his own department, the limitations of the senses, their narrow range, their fallibility, their habitual inaccuracy. But these defects are fairly constant, and when once ascertained can be guarded against or supplemented by the use of appropriate instruments and by allowance for the personal equation of the observer. But no training in the laboratory will do much to make a man a better observer at a Spiritualist séance. What is required in such circumstances is a power of observation which is able to resist the artifices employed to distract it, and which, if not
