nly _unconscious_.

I have tested this in two ways--first by trying the minimum of _conscious_
muscular action that would stir a table at which I was alone, and by
comparing the absolute unconsciousness of muscular action when the table
began to move in response to no _voluntary_ push. Again, I tried with a
friend, who said, 'You are pushing,' when I gently removed my hands
altogether, though they seemed to rest on the table, which still revolved.
My friend was himself unconsciously pushing. It is undeniable that, to
a solitary experimenter, the table _seems_ to make little darts of its own
will in a curious way. Thus, the unconsciousness of muscular action on the
part of savages engaged in the experiment with sticks would lead them to
believe that spirits were animating the wood. The same fallacy beset the
table-turners of 1855-65, and was, to some extent, exposed by Faraday.
Of course, savages would be even more convinced by the dancing spoon of
Mr. Darwin's tale, by the dancing sticks of the Zulus, and the rest,
whether the phenomena were supernormal or merely worked by unseen strings.
The same remark applies to modern experimenters, when, as they declare,
various objects move untouched, without physical contact.

Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage use of inspired
sticks for directing the inquirer to a lost object or to a criminal, is
the modern employment of the divining-rod--a forked twig which, held by
the ends, revolves in the hands of the performer when he reaches the
object of his quest. He, like the savage cited, is occasionally agitated
in a convulsive manner; and cases are quoted in which the twig writhes
when held in a pair of tongs! The best-known modern treatise on the
divining-rod is that of M. Chevreul, 'La Baguette Divinatoire' (1854). We
have also 'L'Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,' by M.
Figuier (1860). In 1781 Thouvenel published his 600 experiments with
Bleton and others; and Hegel refers to Amoretti's collection of hundreds
of cases. The case of Jacques Aymard, who in the seventeenth century
discovered a murderer by the use of the rod in true savage fashion, is
well known. In modern England the rod is used in the interests of private
individuals and public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the
discovery of water.

Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 pages, in which
evidence of failures and successes is collected.[10] Professor Ba