FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   >>  
than the rest, and who tell you, "I only believe in the eloquence of figures." Such people do not realise that battalions of figures are like battalions of men, not always so strong as is supposed. However, Professor Hyslop took all the "incidents" or statements made by the communicators and classed them according to the amount of truth or error they contained. He then divided the incidents into factors. I will give an example which will help me to define later on what Professor Hyslop means by _incident_ and _factor_[82]: "My Aunt Susan visited my brother." This is an incident, or statement of a complete fact. This incident is composed of four factors which are not necessarily connected with one another. The first is _my aunt_, the second the name _Susan_, the third the _visit_, the fourth _my brother_. Therefore an incident may be defined as a name, a conception or a combination of conceptions forming an independent fact; it may be again a combination of possibly independent facts forming a single whole in the mind of the communicator. The factors would be the facts, names, actions, or events which do not necessarily suggest each other, or which are not necessarily suggested by a given name or fact. Naturally, in tables constructed on these lines, the facts cannot be classified according to their importance as _proofs_; they can only be reckoned as true or false. Thus incidents which have only a restricted value as proofs are on a level with others which are in themselves very valuable as proofs. This is really the weak point of these statistics. The proofs need to be examined one by one, and not as a whole. However, the tables have one advantage; the greatest sceptic, after a glance at them, can no longer invoke chance, the great _Deus ex machina_ of the ignorant and indolent. Professor Hyslop has constructed a table for each sitting, and a table of the sittings as a whole. I cannot reproduce these tables for the readers, who would require the notes of the sittings to understand them. I shall only give the definite results. Thus, out of 205 incidents, 152 are classed as true, 37 as indeterminate, and only 16 as false. Out of the 927 factors composing these incidents, 717 are classed as true, 167 as indeterminate, and 43 as false.[83] It should be said that Professor Hyslop has perhaps overestimated the number of false and unverifiable incidents. Many incidents or factors classed as false or unverifiable h
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   >>  



Top keywords:
incidents
 

factors

 

incident

 
classed
 
proofs
 
Professor
 

Hyslop

 

necessarily

 

tables

 

brother


sittings
 
constructed
 

combination

 

forming

 

independent

 

figures

 

battalions

 

indeterminate

 

However

 

unverifiable


valuable
 

composing

 

statistics

 
overestimated
 

reckoned

 
number
 
importance
 

restricted

 

ignorant

 

indolent


definite

 

machina

 
results
 
understand
 

require

 
readers
 

reproduce

 

sitting

 

glance

 

sceptic


advantage

 

greatest

 
chance
 

longer

 
invoke
 
examined
 

defined

 

contained

 
communicators
 

amount