PSYCHOMETRIC REFLECTIONS.
Professor J. W. Draper says:—“A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace—a trace made visible by resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be profaned, there exists the vestiges of our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. It is a crushing thought to whoever has committed secret crime, that the picture of his deed, and the very echo of his words, may be seen and heard countless years after he has gone the way of all flesh, and left a reputation for ‘respectability’ to his children.”
Detectives have received impressions from a scene of crime, a clue to the unravelment of the mystery and the detection of the criminal. Yet they could not trace the impressions to anything they saw or heard during their preliminary investigations. No detective will throw aside such impressions. Indeed, those most successful are those who, while paying attention to all outward and so-called tangible clues, do not neglect for one moment the impressions received, and the thoughts felt, when gathering information likely to lead to the detection of the law-breakers. Hugh Miller was right when he said, “I suspect that there are provinces in the mind that physicians have not entered into.”
Thoughts are things—living, real and tangible, images, visions, deep and pungent sensations—which exist after their creation distinct and apart from ourselves—“Footprints on the sands of time,” in more senses than one. We all leave our mark in a thousand subtle ways. No material microscope or telescope can detect, nevertheless our mark can be discovered by the powers of the human soul. From our cradle to the grave—does it stop there?—every thought, emotion, movement, and action have left their subtle traces, so that our whole life can be traced out by the psychometric expert. We verily give hostages to fortune all through life.