S. Weir Mitchell was one of the most prominent novelists of America at the close of the 19th century, but he was also conspicuous as a neurologist and member of many scientific societies.
The mentality of a man cannot be determined by his profession or by his prevailing occupation. Mendel, who influenced biology hardly less than did Darwin, was a monk and an abbot. Copernicus, who revolutionized solar astronomy, was canon of a cathedral, and astronomy was only his avocation.
A thing is as it acts. An automobile is a good automobile if it behaves as an automobile should. We shall see how Mr. Sinclair carried on his experiments and how he reported them. At times he pursued a defective method, but he was aware of the fact and reports it, while certain technically scientific investigators of telepathy and other matters have not seemed even to be aware of their mistakes.
[2]. From earlier correspondence and other sources, Mr. Sinclair was quite aware that the man to whom he was sending the materials is hard-boiled enough to reject them and drop the whole case or report on it adversely if the results of examination were unsatisfactory.
[3]. In some cases it might be necessary to increase rigidity of the conditions gradually, as friendly confidence and ease of the percipient became better established. It is futile to ignore the fact that nervous excitement and mental unrest are unfavorable to success.
[4]. For example, in 1906 Mr. Sinclair assisted the Government in the investigation of the Chicago stockyards.
[5]. [Historical reference deleted.]
[6]. If there are those who think there is no value in knowing something of the make-up of the chief witnesses in this case, I emphatically do not agree with them. That such knowledge is not absolutely determinative is, of course, true.
We are investigating a field of phenomena by all the methods which are practicable. The larger part of the phenomena are sporadic and spontaneous, and can hardly be expected to occur in a laboratory. There are many cases where a man has experienced but one apparition in his lifetime, and that at or close to the time when the person imaged died. Will any director of a laboratory consent to keep people under surveillance for a lifetime, to test if such an experience will take place in a laboratory, and can any persons be found who will consent so to spend a lifetime? And if under such conditions an apparition should be experienced and it should prove beyond doubt that the person imaged died at that moment, even though the apparitional experience occurred in a laboratory, in no sense would or could laboratory tests be applied to it. The authentication of the incident would be the testimonies of the scientific gentlemen present, to the effect that the story of the apparition was related to them and written down before the death of the person was known, with, perhaps, details of how the person who experienced the apparition looked and acted at the time. But the testimonies of witnesses outside of the laboratory are evidence of precisely as much weight, provided that their mentality and reputation for veracity are equal.
With favorable subjects experiments for telepathy can sometimes be and sometimes have been carried on with all the rigidity of method and the scrupulosity of a laboratory, or, if there remain doubts and objections on grounds seemingly almost of as “occult” a nature as telepathy itself, doubtless in time to come methods will be devised to meet these doubts and objections. But subjects of singularly calm and poised nature will be required. It seems to be a fact with which we have to deal, however regrettable, that with most persons who under friendly and unstrained conditions at times strongly evidence telepathic powers, suddenly to place them in a room containing strange apparatus, and before a committee of strangers, some perhaps cold and stern in appearance, others whose amiable demeanor nevertheless betrays an amused scepticism, is to make it improbable that they can exhibit telepathy at all. It will have to be recognized as a scientific datum that a state of mental tranquillity and passivity is generally requisite for such manifestations. Nor is this peculiar to psychical manifestations; the principle applies more or less to a variety of psychological manifestations and powers. Mark Twain could reel off witty utterances when he was mentally at ease, but had he been surrounded by a solemn-visaged group of psychologists with his wrists harnessed to a sphygmometer, and placed in face of an apparatus for recording graphs and a stenographer with poised pencil, it is very certain that his reactions would not have been those of brilliant and original humor. So I have seen a prominent violinist, invited to play at a reception, try to keep on amidst the waxing murmur of conversation, and finally falter and almost break down.