servers like the judge and the
minister insisted that there was no trace of such prophetic gifts or
of such telepathic wonders to be found, and that everything resolves
itself simply into mere mind-reading. Some one in the neighbourhood
must have the idea in mind and must fixedly think of it. Only then
will it arise in Beulah's consciousness.

But have we really a right to speak of mind-reading itself as if it
were such a simple process, perhaps unusual, but not surprising,
something like a slightly abnormal state? If we look at it from the
standpoint of the scientist, we should say, on the contrary, that
there is a very sharp boundary line which separates mind-reading from
all the experiences which the scientific psychologist knows. The
psychologist has no difficulty in understanding mental diseases like
hysteria or abnormal states like hypnotism, or any other unusual
variation of mental life. The same principles by which he explains the
ordinary life of the mind are sufficient to give account of all the
strange and rare occurrences. But when he comes to mind-reading, an
entirely new point of view is chosen. It would mean a complete break
with everything which science has found in the mental world. The
psychologist has never discovered a mental content which was not the
effect or the after-effect of the stimulation of the senses. No man
born blind has ever by his own powers brought the colour sensations to
his mind, and no communication from without was ever traced which was
not carried over the path of the senses. The world which is in the
mind of my friend, in order to reach my mind, must stimulate his
brain, and that brain excitement must lead to the contraction of his
mouth muscles, and that must stir the air waves which reach my ear
drum, and the excitement must be carried from my ear to the brain,
where the mental ideas arise. No abnormal states like hypnotism change
in the least this procedure. But if we fancy that the mere mental idea
in one man can start the same idea in another, we lack every possible
means to connect such a wonder with anything which the scientist so
far acknowledges.

To be sure, every sincere scholar devoted to truth has to yield to the
actual facts. We cannot stubbornly say that the facts do not exist
because they do not harmonize with what is known so far. The
psychologist would not necessarily be at the end of his wit if the
developments of to-morrow proved that mind-reading in Beulah