in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and
to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the
Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his
designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for
the matter in hand, and many a school-boy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in
the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game
is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a
number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is
even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he
loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school.
Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere
observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For
example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his
closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies,
'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says
to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd'; he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned
thus;

'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in
the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a
simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton;
but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a
variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before.
I will therefore guess even'; he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode
of reasoning in the school-boy, whom his fellows termed 'Lucky,' what,
in its last analysis, is it?"

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect
with that of his opponent."

"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he
effected the _thorough_ identification in which his success consisted,
I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or
how stupid, or how good, or how wicked, is any one, or what are his
thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as
accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his,
and then wait to see what though