howed me a whole teacupful of two-cent stamps for
replies which she had collected from Beulah's correspondence. But I
ask again, how long will it last? If Beulah closes her eyes and some
chance letters come to her mind, and she forms a word from them and
sends it as a reply to the anxious mother who is seeking her child,
she will soon discover that it is easy to gather money in a world
which wants to be deceived. She is followed by the most tempting
invitations to live in metropolitan houses where sensational
experiments can be performed with her. The naive mother is still
impressed when a New York woman applies the well-known tricks and
assures her that the child reminds her so much of her own little dead
niece that she ought to come to her New York house. It is a pity how
the community forces sensationalism, commercialism, and finally humbug
and fraud on a naive little country girl who ought to be left alone
with her pet lamb in her mother's kitchen. Her gift is extremely
interesting to the psychologist, and if it is not misused by those who
try to pump spiritualistic superstitions into her little mind or to
force automatic writing on her it will be harmless and no cause for
hysteric developments. But surely her art is entirely useless for any
practical purpose. She cannot know anything which others do not know
beforehand. Clairvoyant powers or prophetic gifts are not hers, and
above all her mind-reading is a natural process. The edifice of
science will not be shaken by the powers of my little Rhode Island
friend.

Yet the most important part is not the fate of the individual child,
but the behaviour of this nation-wide public which chases her into the
swamps of fraud. No one can decide and settle whether the party of
superstition forms the majority or the minority. If all the silent
voters were sincere, they probably would carry the vote for telepathy.
But in any case, such a party exists, and it does not care in the
least that scientific investigations clear up a case which threatens
to bring our world of thought into chaotic disorder. A world of mental
trickery and mystery, a world which by its very principle could never
be understood, is to them instinctively more welcome than a world of
scientific order. There cannot be a more fundamental contrast between
men who are to form a social unit than this radical difference of
attitude toward the world of experience. Compared with this deepest
split in the community, a