And here a word may be in place as to the relation of the will to telepathic experiments in general. That the will of the agent or operator is usually in active play, admits, of course, of no doubt; but the nature and extent of its operation are sometimes misconceived. In ordinary thought-transference, it is probably effective only so far as it implies strong concentration of the agent's own attention on the sensation or image which he seeks to convey. As a rule he will naturally desire that the experiment should succeed; but, provided only that the necessary concentration be given, there is nothing to show, or even to suggest that, if for some special reason he desired failure, his desire would ensure that result. It is somewhat different with cases like the above, where a distinct set of visible actions - as that the performer shall walk to a particular spot or select a particular object - is the thing aimed at; in so far as there the desire is likely to be keener and more persistent. When we are picturing a series of movements to be performed by a person in our sight, we easily come to regard that person's physique under a half-illusion that we can direct it from moment to moment, as though it were our own; and we are more on edge, so to speak, than when we are merely imagining (say) a word or a number, and waiting for the "Subject" to name it, or write it down.

But even here there is little foundation for the idea that the operator's will in any way dominates the other will, or that he succeeds by superior "strength of will" in any ordinary sense. It is still primarily an image, not any form of force, that is conveyed - but an image of movement, i.e., an image whose nervous correlate in the brain is in intimate connection with motor-centres; and the muscular effect is thus evoked while the "subject" remains a sort of spectator of his own conduct. The last example of Mr. Thompson's powers goes as near as any I know to the actual production of an effect on the self-determining faculty of a person in a normal state; but even here, it will be observed, the action suggested was of a simple sort, and one which the "subject" had often voluntarily performed. And in mesmeric cases - as in the experiments on inhibition of utterance in the last chapter - where, no doubt, the self-determining faculty is often to a great extent abrogated, we must still beware of concluding that the "subject's" will is dominated and directed this way or that by a series of special jets of energy.

It is rather that his instinct of choice, his free-will as a whole, has lapsed, as one of the general features of the trance-condition.

It is worth noting, moreover, that in none of the cases quoted have the "willer" or the "willed" been further removed from one another than two neighbouring rooms. The liability to have definite acts compelled from a distance, which figures in romance and in popular imagination as the natural and terrible result of mesmeric influence, is precisely the result for which we can find least evidence.

We have, however, in our own collection, two first-hand instances where the distance between the agent and the percipient was greater, and where the action to be performed was of a rather more complicated sort. We received the following case in 1883 from the agent, Mr. S. H. B., a friend of our own. The first part of the account was copied by us from a MS. book, in which Mr. B. has recorded this and other experiments.

(7) " On Wednesday, 26th July, 1882, at 10.30 p.m., I willed very strongly that Miss V., who was living at Clarence Road, Kew, should leave any part of that house in which she might happen to be at the time, and that she should go into her bedroom, and remove a portrait from her dressing-table.

"When I next saw her she told me that at this particular time and on this day, she felt strongly impelled to go up to her room and remove something from her dressing-table, but she was not sure which article to misplace. She did so and removed an article, but not the framed portrait which I had thought of.

"Between the time of the occurrence of this fact and that of our next meeting, I received one or two letters, in which the matter is alluded to and any questions concerning it answered. S. H. B."1

Mr. B. was himself at Southall on the evening in question. He has shown the letters of which he speaks to the present writer, and has allowed him to copy extracts.

On Thursday, July 27th, without having seen or had any communication with Mr. B., Miss Verity (now residing in Castellain Road, W., who allows the publication of her name) wrote to him as follows: -

"What were you doing between ten and eleven o'clock on Wednesday evening? If you make me so restless, I shall begin to be afraid of you. I positively could not stay in the dining-room, and I believe you meant me to be upstairs, and to move something on my dressing-table. I want to see if you know what it was. At any rate, I am sure you were thinking about me".

Mr. B. then wrote and told Miss Verity that the object he had thought of was Mr. G.'s photograph. She answered: -

"I must tell you it was not G.'s photo, but something on my table which perhaps you would never think of. However, it was really wonderful how impossible I found it to think or do anything until I came upstairs, and I knew for certain that your thoughts were here; in fact, it seemed as if you were very near".

[More than a year after these letters were written, an absolutely concordant account was given viva voce to the present writer by Miss Verity, whom he believes to be a thoroughly careful and conscientious witness].

1This entry is undated; but Mr. B. assures us that it was written very soon after the event.

We have a parallel instance to this on equally trustworthy authority; but the person impressed has a dread of the subject, and will not give his testimony for publication.