Miller's
case, or in any other case, is a fact beyond doubt. He might argue
that all previous knowledge was based on a wrong idea and that, for
instance, other processes go on in the brain, which can be transmitted
from organism to organism like wireless telegraphic waves without the
perception of the senses. If these other processes were conceived as
the foundation of mental images, the scientific psychological scholar
of the future might possibly work out a consistent theory and all the
previously known facts might then be translated into the language of
the new science. Whether in this or a similar way we should ever come
to really satisfactory results, no one can foresee, but at least it is
certain that this would involve a complete giving up of everything
which scientists have so far held to be right. Certainly in the
history of civilization great revolutions in science have happened.
The astronomers had to begin almost anew; why cannot the psychologists
turn around and acknowledge that they have been entirely wrong so far
and that they must begin once more at the beginning and rewrite all
which they have so far taken to be truth?

Certainly the psychologists are no cowards. They would not hesitate to
declare their mental bankruptcy if the progress of truth demanded it.
But at least we must be entirely clear that this is indeed the
situation and that no step on the track of mind-reading can be taken
without giving up everything which we have so far held to be true. And
it is evident that such a radical break with the whole past of human
science can be considered only if every other effort for explanation
fails, and if it seems really impossible to understand the facts in
the light of all which science has already accomplished. If Beulah
Miller's little hands are to set the torch to the whole pile of our
knowledge, we ought first to be perfectly sure that there is really
nothing worth saving. We cannot accept the theory of the apostles of
mind-reading until we know surely that Beulah Miller can receive
communications which cannot possibly be explained with the means of
science.

Now we all know one kind of mind-reading which looks very astounding
and yet which there is no difficulty at all in explaining. It is a
favourite performance on the stage, and not seldom tried as a parlour
game. I refer to the kind of mind-reading in which one person thinks
of a hidden coin, and the other holds his wrist and is then able