The development which I have thus given to the few, isolated, and long-hoarded experiments of Herr Caspari, was not so simple an affair as it may seem to be. For several days I was in doubt as to the genuineness of the results, so capricious and contradictory were they. It was only when I had discovered, first, the reversing effect of touching the odometer finger with the thumb of the same hand, and, secondly, that approaching the thumb towards the odometer finger, or even allowing the other fingers of the odometer hand to close upon the ball of the thumb, has the same effect with bringing the point of the thumb into contact with the odometer finger, that I succeeded in obtaining unvarying results. The interest of these experiments is unquestionably very considerable. They open a new vein of research, and establish a new bond of connexion between physical and physiological science, which cannot fail to promote the advancement of both. They contribute a mass of objective and physical evidence to give support and substantiality to the subjective results of Von Reichenbach’s experiments. They tend to prove the existence of some universal force, such as that to which he has given theoretical form and consistence under the designation of Od. And such a universal force, what other can we deem it to be than the long-vilipended influence of Mesmer, rendered bright and transparent and palatable by passing through the filter of science?
LETTER XIII.
The Solution.—Examination of the genuineness of the phenomena—Od-motions produced by bodies in their most inert state—Analysis of the forces which originate them—Od-motions connected with electrical, magnetic, chemical, crystalline, and vital influences—Their analysis.
The present letter might be entitled “An account of some motions recently discovered, to the manifestation of which an influence proceeding from the living human body is necessary.” The contrivance by which these motions are elicited I have called an Odometer, from the conviction that the force which sets it in movement is no other than the Od-force of Von Reichenbach. For the same reason I have called the objects with which it is tested Od-subjects, and the motions themselves Od-motions.
The odometer is a pendulum, formed of a ring, or other small body attached to a thread, the other end of which is wound round a finger or the thumb. The odometer employed in the following experiments was a light gold ring, having a greater mass of metal on the unattached side, and suspended to the last joint of the right forefinger, the suspending medium being either silk, or fine cotton, or the hair of a horse. The experiments were made by myself. In order to avoid the confusion resulting from a multiplicity of details, I shall state the results obtained through testing a limited number only of Od-subjects, so selected as to represent the leading divisions of the provinces of nature, and of dynamics. With some of the principal the reader will be already acquainted through Letter XII., the contents of which will have prepared him for, and probably suggested to him, the following question, as a desirable subject of preliminary consideration.
I. Are the motions referred to worth examining at all? Are they more than the simple results of impulses conveyed to the pendulum by movements of the hand or wrist, or some general sway of the experimenter’s person, unintentionally going with the expectation or conception of this or that motion of the ring? Such a solution of the phenomena is not wanting in probability. It is metaphysically and physically certain, that when we maintain one and the same bodily posture or gesture, as in standing, sitting, or holding out the hand, whatever be the seeming continuousness and unity of the effort, the posture or gesture is really maintained only by a series of rapidly succeeding efforts. What is more likely than that, in such a continual renewing of voluntary actions, our fancy, or the sympathy between our will and our thoughts, should give a bias to the results, even when we most try to neutralize its influence? The fact which I propose first to mention is in complete agreement with this view. I can at will cause the odometer to move exactly as I please. Although I hold my hand as steadily as possible by leaning the arm against a table, and endeavour to keep my person absolutely still, yet I have only to form a vivid conception of a new path for the odometer, and a motion in the so-imagined direction is almost immediately substituted for that which was before going on. In like manner, I have only to conceive the cessation of motion, and the odometer gradually stops. I must farther admit that my first trials of the odometer were made under the full expectation that the results which ensued would follow. And I cannot say that it is impossible, that when other and new motions emerged, they were not often either realizations of a previous guess, or repetitions on the same principle of what occurred at first as an accident.
On the other hand, I am not unprepared with an array of facts which seem to me capable not only of neutralizing the force of the preceding argument, but of making it appear, most likely, that some other influence than that of the experimenter’s mind is often in operation in bringing about these results; an influence sufficiently curious, as I think, to justify me in continuing this investigation and the present letter. I beg the reader’s candid construction of the following statements.
If, when trying the odometer, I have caused it, by conceiving a different motion, to change its path and move in a wrong direction, I now endeavour to divert my mind from considering its motion at all, the odometer invariably resumes its previous right movement. It is, indeed, difficult to observe a strict mental neutrality in this instance. For the odometer moves imperfectly and uncertainly, unless I frequently look at its performance. Or, as I interpret the fact, unless I keep my attention fixed to a certain extent on what I am doing, my hand loses its steadiness, and communicates all sorts of distracting impulses to the pendulum. And the uncertainty hence arising admits, it appears to me, of being obviated by the comparison of numerous careful repetitions of the experiments.
Many of the motions which I at first thought were genuine Od-results, I afterwards found out I had been mistaken in. And the correction of these errors was mostly due to frequent and careful repetitions of the experiments, unattended by an expectation of finding the results reversed or otherwise modified, and instituted simply to secure their genuineness and certainty.