ere

1. Jean Racine 1. Igard

2. Legros 2. Neghn

3. Esther 3. Foqdem

4. Henrietta 4. Higiegmsd

5. Cheuvreux 5. Dievoreq

6. Doremond 6. Epjerod

7. Chevalon 7. Cheval

8. Allouand 8. Iko

Here the non-mathematical reader will exclaim: 'Total failure,
except in case 7!' And, about that case, he will have his private
doubts. But, arguing mathematically, M. Richet proves that the
table was right, beyond the limits of mere chance, by fourteen to
two. He concludes, on the whole of his experiments, that, probably,
intellectual force in one brain may be echoed in another brain. But
MM. Binet and Fere, who report this, decide that 'the calculation of
chances is, for the most part, incapable of affording a peremptory
proof; it produces uncertainty, disquietude, and doubt'. {196} 'Yet
something is gained by substituting doubt for systematic denial.
Richet has obtained this important result, that henceforth the
possibility of mental suggestion cannot be met with contemptuous
rejection.'

Mental suggestion on this limited scale, is a phenomenon much less
startling to belief than the reality, and causal nature, of
coincidental hallucinations, of wraiths. But it is plain that, as
far as general opinion goes, the doctrine of chances, applied to
such statistics of hallucinations as have been collected, can at
most, only 'produce uncertainty, disquietude, and doubt'. Yet if
even these are produced, a step has been made beyond the blank
negation of Hibbert.

The general reader, even if credulously inclined, is more staggered
by a few examples of non-coincidental hallucinations, than confirmed
by a pile of coincidental examples. Now it seems to be a defect in
the method of the friends of wraiths, that they do not publish, with
full and impressive details, as many examples of non-coincidental as
of coincidental hallucinations. It is the _story_ that takes the
public: if we are to be fair we must give the non-coincidental
story in all its features, as is done in the matter of wraiths with
a kind of message or meaning.

Let us set a good example, by adducing wraiths which, in slang
phrase, were 'sells'. Those which we have at first hand are marked
'(A),' those at second-hand '(B)'. But the world will accept the
story of a ghost that failed on very poor evidence indeed.

1. (A) A young lady, in the dubious state between awake an