Lodge himself, however, has no recollection of having heard of these incidents, and regards this explanation as extremely improbable. And it is clear that each fresh case to which this hypothesis has to be applied increases the difficulty of the explanation. Sir O. Lodge enumerates in the English observations of 1888–9 no less than forty-one instances in which details were reproduced by Phinuit which were "unknown to, or forgotten by, or unknowable to, persons present."[1] Some of these incidents, no doubt, such as the episode of the red-stamped cheques in Mr. Clarke's case, readily suggest the telepathic transference of ideas latent in the sitter's mind. But in a few instances it is not merely improbable that the facts mentioned by Phinuit should at any time have been within the knowledge of any persons present at the sitting, but, as in the account just quoted, the mode of presentation of the facts and the attendant circumstances certainly lend some additional weight to an alternative hypothesis, that of spirit communication. No doubt in view of Phinuit's past history it is right that the evidence derived from dramatic personation should be subject to a considerable discount. And, indeed, partly on this account, and partly because the cases published up to the end of 1892 which seemed to call for some other explanation than telepathy were few in number, the problem did not for a considerable time present itself in an urgent form. Of late years, however, a consider-
- ↑ Procedings, S. P.R., vol. vi., pp. 649–50.
