to
find the secreted object. There is no mystery in such apparent
transmission of the idea, because it is the result of small
unintentional movements of the arm. The one who thinks hard of the
corner of the room in which the coin is placed cannot help giving
small impulses in that direction. He himself is not aware of these
faint movements, but the man who has a fine sense of touch becomes
conscious of these motions in the wrist which his fingers grasp, and
under the guidance of these slight movements he is led to the
particular place. Some persons express their thought of places more
easily than others and are therefore better fitted for the game, and
we find still greater differences in the sensitiveness of different
persons. Not every one can play the game as well as a trained stage
performer, who may have an extreme refinement of touch and may notice
even the least movements in the wrist which others would not feel at
all. Such an explanation is not an arbitrary theory. We can easily
show with delicate instruments in the psychological laboratory that
every one in thinking of a special direction soon begins to move his
hand toward it without knowing anything of these slight movements. The
instruments allow the reading of such impulses where the mere feeling
of the hand would hardly show any signs. A very neat form of the same
type is often seen on the stage when the performer is to read a series
of numbers in the mind of some one who thinks intensely of the
figures. Some one in the audience thinks of the number fifty-seven.
The performer asks him to think of the first figure, then he grasps
his hand and counts slowly from zero to nine. After that he asks him
to think of the second figure, and counts once more. Immediately after
he will announce rightly the two digits. Again there is no mystery in
it. He knows that the man who thinks of the figure five will make a
slight involuntary movement when the five is reached in counting, and
the same movement will occur at the seven in the second counting. If
he is very well trained, he will not need the touching of the hand;
he will perform the same experiment with figures without any actual
contact whatever. It will be sufficient to see the man who is thinking
of a figure while he himself is counting. As soon as the dangerous
digit is reached, the man will give some unintentional sign. Perhaps
his breathing will become a degree deeper, or stop for a moment, his
eyelids may m