are investigating, that gives value to the
opinion at which we arrive, and not the particular cleverness or
scepticism of the observer? The lesson we all need to learn is, that
what even the humblest of men _affirm_, from their own experience, is
always worth listening to, but what even the cleverest of men, in their
ignorance, deny, is never worth a moment's attention."[74]

As regards Professor Sidgwick, the experimental work of the Society for
Psychical Research soon convinced him that Thought-Transference, or
Telepathy, was a fact. In an address in 1889, after speaking of the
probabilities of testimony given being false, he says:--

"It is for this reason that I feel that a part of my grounds for
believing in Telepathy, depending as it does on personal knowledge,
cannot be communicated except in a weakened form to the ordinary reader
of the printed statements which represent the evidence that has
convinced me. Indeed I feel this so strongly that I have always made it
my highest ambition as a psychical researcher to produce evidence which
will drive my opponents to doubt my honesty or veracity; I think there
are a very small minority who will not doubt them, and that if I can
convince them I have done all that I can do: as regards the majority of
my own acquaintances I should claim no more than an admission that they
were considerably surprised to find me in the trick."[75]

I am not aware that Professor Sidgwick ever expressed any opinion as to
the reality of the ordinary physical spiritualistic manifestations. It
is clear that he believed a large proportion to have been fraudulently
produced. As to some psychical phenomena, his convictions were very
strong. For instance, in the final paragraph of the "Report on
Hallucinations," which occupies the whole of the tenth volume of the
_Proceedings_ of the Society, and to which he appended his name, these
two sentences occur: "Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person
a connection exists which is not due to chance alone. This we hold as a
proved fact."[76] And Professor Sidgwick speaks of this as corroborating
the conclusion already drawn by Mr. Gurney nearly ten years earlier.

Mr. Edmund Gurney's name stands next. His earthly work came to a sudden
termination in 1888. "Phantasms of the Living" is his enduring memorial.
Although two other names are associated with his on the title-page, the
greater part of the two volumes was written by him alone. For most of