No. 5.—By MR. MALCOLM GUTHRIE.
Reference has already been made to the long series of experiments carried on during the years 1883-85 by Mr. Malcolm Guthrie of Liverpool. During a great part of the series he was assisted by Mr. James Birchall, Hon. Sec. of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society. Professor Oliver Lodge, Edmund Gurney, Professor Herdman, and others co-operated from time to time. Throughout there were two percipients only, Miss R. and Miss E. The experiments were conducted and the results recorded with great care and thoroughness; and the whole series, in its length, its variety, and its completeness, forms perhaps the most important single contribution to the records of experimental thought-transference in the normal state.[21] Summing up, in July 1885, the results attained, Mr. Guthrie writes:—
"We have now a record of 713 experiments, and I recently set myself the task of classifying them into the 4 classes of successful, partially successful, misdescriptions, and failures. I endeavoured to work it out in what I thought a reasonable way, but I experienced much difficulty in assigning to its proper column each experiment we made. This, however, is a task which each student of the subject will be able to undertake for himself according to his own judgment. I do not submit my summary as a basis for calculation of probability. A few successful experiments of a certain kind carry greater weight with them than a large number of another kind; for some experiments are practically beyond the region of guesses....
"The following is a summary of the work done, classified to the best of my judgment:—
FIRST SERIES.
| Experiments and Conditions. | Total. | Nothing perceived. | Complete. | Partial. | Misdes- criptions. |
| Visual—Letters, figures, and cards— Contact | 26 | 2 | 17 | 4 | 3 |
| Visual—Letters, figures, and cards— Non-contact | 16 | 0 | 9 | 2 | 5 |
| Visual—Objects, colours, etc.—Contact | 19 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
| Do. do. Non-contact | 38 | 4 | 28 | 6 | 0 |
| Imagined visual—Non-contact | 18 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 3 |
| Imagined numbers and names—Contact and Non-contact | 39 | 11 | 12 | 6 | 10 |
| Pains—Contact | 52 | 10 | 30 | 9 | 3 |
| Tastes and smells—Contact | 94 | 19 | 42 | 20 | 13 |
| 302 | 57 | 153 | 53 | 39 | |
| Diagrams—Contact | 37 | 7 | 18 | 6 | 6 |
| Do. Non-contact | 118 | 6 | 66 | 23 | 23 |
| 457 | 70 | 237 | 82 | 68 |
"There were also 40 diagrams for experimental evenings with strangers, in series of sixes and sevens, all misdrawn, and not fairly to be reckoned in the above.
457 experiments under proper conditions.
70 nothing perceived.
——
387
319 wholly or partially correct; 68 misdescriptions = 18 per cent."
In the second series there were 123 trials; in 15 cases no impression was received, and in 35 cases, or 32 per cent of the remainder, an incorrect description was given. In the third series, of 133 trials there were 24 in which no impression was received and 40 failures: proportion of failures = 37 per cent. Mr. Guthrie attributes this gradual decline in the proportion of successes to the difficulty experienced by both agents and percipients in maintaining the original lively interest in the proceedings.