s_ verified in the case of
another person, to whom the accident happens, attended by all the
minutely detailed particulars."[31]

If this be correctly given, it is what animal magnetizers would call a
case of imperfect lucidity.

The case as to the gift of tongues is still less satisfactorily made
out. A few, Montgeron says, translate, after the ecstasy, what they have
declaimed, during its continuance, in an unknown tongue; but for this,
of course, we have their word only. The greater part know nothing of
what they have said, when the ecstasy has passed. As to these, he
admits,--

"The only proof we have that they understand the words at the time they
pronounce them is that they often express, in the most lively manner,
the various sentiments contained in their discourse, not only by their
gestures, but also by the attitudes the body assumes, and by the
expression of the countenance, on which the different sentiments are
painted, by turns, in a manner the most expressive, so that one is able,
up to a certain point, to detect the feelings by which they are moved;
and it has been easy for the attentive observer to perceive that most of
these discourses were detailed predictions as to the coming of the
Prophet Elias," etc.[32]

If it be presumptuous, considering the marvels which modern observations
disclose, to pronounce that the alleged unknown languages were unmeaning
sounds only, it is evident, at least, that the above is inconclusive as
to their true character.

Much more trustworthy appears to be the evidence touching the phenomenon
of thought-reading.

The fact that many of the convulsionists were able "to discover the
secrets of the heart" is admitted by their principal opponents. The Abbe
d'Asfeld himself adduces examples of it.[33] M. Poncet admits its
reality.[34] The provincial ecclesiastic whom I have already quoted says
that he "found examples without number of convulsionists who discovered
the secrets of the heart in the most minute detail: for example, to
disclose to a person that at such a period of his life he did such or
such a thing; to another, that he had done so and so before coming
hither," etc.[35] The author of the "Recherche de la Verite," a pamphlet
on the phenomena of the convulsions, which seems very candidly written,
acknowledges as one of these "the manifestation of the thoughts and the
discovery of secret things."[36]

Montgeron testifies to the fact, from repeated personal observ