rally, however, they have declined to express positive
opinions as to the cause of these phenomena, while positively testifying
that they are not the result of trickery, but that they indicate the
existence of some power or energy in nature which is able to suspend or
overcome the operation of nature's ordinary forces. Only two prominent
scientists, who have made any pretence to examine these phenomena, have
declared that they are _in toto_ the result of fraud. These two are
Professor Faraday and Dr. Carpenter. But the investigations made by
these noted personages were too trivial to render their decision of any
value. Faraday briefly examined the phenomena of table-tipping, and
decided that it was due to involuntary muscular movement. Dr. Carpenter
reasserted the same, years after this explanation had been shown to be
entirely inadequate, and declared that the mental phenomena were due
only to _unconscious cerebration_, or the action of memories and ideas
long since stored in the mind, when the consciousness is otherwise
engaged and the person is unaware of the activity of his mental stores.
This theory, we may also say, is utterly inadequate to explain all the
phenomena, and only applies by a strained interpretation to the
instances which Dr. Carpenter gives in illustration.

One of the most striking of these instances we may here append. A
student relates that a professor had said to his class in mathematics,
of which this student was a member, "'A question of great difficulty has
been referred to me by a banker, a very complicated question of
accounts, which they themselves have not been able to bring to a
satisfactory issue, and they have asked my assistance. I have been
trying, and I cannot resolve it. I have covered whole sheets of paper
with calculations and have not been able to make it out. Will you try?'
He gave it as a sort of problem to his class, and said he would be
extremely obliged to any one who would bring him the solution on a
certain day. This gentleman tried it over and over again. He covered
many slates with figures, but could not succeed in resolving it. He was
a little put on his mettle, and very much desired to attain the
solution. But he went to bed on the night before the solution, if
attained, was to be given in, without having succeeded. In the morning,
when he went to his desk, he found the whole problem worked out in his
own hand. He was perfectly sure that it was his own hand. And this wa