istic
instincts, and his massive volume on 'The Power of Sound' was, when it
appeared, the most important {308} work on aesthetics in the English
language. He had also the tenderest heart and a mind of rare
metaphysical power, as his volumes of essays, 'Tertium Quid,' will
prove to any reader. Mr. Frederic Myers, already well known as one of
the most brilliant of English essayists, is the _ingenium praefervidum_
of the S. P. R. Of the value of Mr. Myers's theoretic writings I will
say a word later. Dr. Hodgson, the American secretary, is
distinguished by a balance of mind almost as rare in its way as
Sidgwick's. He is persuaded of the reality of many of the phenomena
called spiritualistic, but he also has uncommon keenness in detecting
error; and it is impossible to say in advance whether it will give him
more satisfaction to confirm or to smash a given case offered to his
examination.

It is now time to cast a brief look upon the actual contents of these
Proceedings. The first two years were largely taken up with
experiments in thought-transference. The earliest lot of these were
made with the daughters of a clergyman named Creery, and convinced
Messrs. Balfour Stewart, Barrett, Myers, and Gurney that the girls had
an inexplicable power of guessing names and objects thought of by other
persons. Two years later, Mrs. Sidgwick and Mr. Gurney, recommencing
experiments with the same girls, detected them signalling to each
other. It is true that for the most part the conditions of the earlier
series had excluded signalling, and it is also possible that the
cheating may have grafted itself on what was originally a genuine
phenomenon. Yet Gurney was wise in abandoning the entire series to the
scepticism of the reader. Many critics of the S. P. R. seem out of all
{309} its labors to have heard only of this case. But there are
experiments recorded with upwards of thirty other subjects. Three were
experimented upon at great length during the first two years: one was
Mr. G. A. Smith; the other two were young ladies in Liverpool in the
employment of Mr. Malcolm Guthrie.

It is the opinion of all who took part in these latter experiments that
sources of conscious and unconscious deception were sufficiently
excluded, and that the large percentage of correct reproductions by the
subjects of words, diagrams, and sensations occupying other persons'
consciousness were entirely inexplicable as results of chance. The
wi