plained, as a rather simple kind of leger-de-main. But this was a
purely modern sort of trickery; the old universal class of useless
miracles, said to occur spontaneously, still presents problems of
undeniable psychological interest.

For example, if it be granted, as apparently it was by Dr.
Carpenter, that, in certain circumstances, certain persons, wide
awake, can perform, in various ways, intelligent actions, and
produce intelligent expressions automatically, without being
conscious of what they are doing, then that fact is nearly as
interesting and useful as the fact that we are descended from
protozoa. Thus Dr. Carpenter says that, in 'table-talking,' 'cases
have occasionally occurred in the experience of persons above
suspicion of intentional deception, in which the answers given by
the movements of tables were not only unknown to the questioners,
but were even contrary to their belief at the time, and yet
afterwards proved to be true. Such cases afford typical examples of
the doctrine of unconscious cerebration, for in several of them it
was capable of being distinctly shown that the answers, although
contrary to the belief of the questioners at the time, were true to
facts of which they had been formerly cognisant, but which had
vanished from their recollection; the residua of these forgotten
impressions giving rise to cerebral changes which prompted the
responses without any consciousness on the part of the agents of the
latent springs of their actions.' It is, apparently, to be
understood that, as the existence of latent unconscious knowledge
was traced in 'several' cases, therefore the explanation held good
in all cases, even where it could not be established as a fact.

Let us see how this theory works out in practice. Smith, Jones,
Brown and Robinson are sitting with their hands on a table. All, ex
hypothesi, are honourable men, 'above suspicion of intentional
deception'. They ask the table where Green is. Smith, Jones and
Robinson have no idea, Brown firmly believes that Green is in Rome.
The table begins to move, kicks and answers, by aid of an alphabet
and knocks, that Green is at Machrihanish, where, on investigation,
he is proved to be. Later, Brown is able to show (let us hope by
documentary evidence), that he _had_ heard Green was going to
Machrihanish, instead of to Rome as he had intended, but this
remarkable change of plans on Green's part had entirely faded from
Brown's memory. Now