In the cases so far described, where success has been attained, the agent and percipient, if not actually in the same room, have been separated by a distance not exceeding at the most 25 or 30 feet. The analogy of the physical forces would, of course, have prepared us to find that the effect of telepathy diminishes in proportion to the distance through which it has to act. And in fact we have but few records of successful experiments at a distance. Yet, on the other hand, we are confronted by a large body of evidence for the spontaneous affection of one mind by another, and that at a distance frequently of hundreds of miles. It is difficult to resist the conclusion, in view of the close similarity, in many cases, of the effects produced, that the force operating in these spontaneous phenomena is identical with, or at least closely allied to, that which causes the transfer of sensations or images from agent to percipient within the compass of a London drawing-room. It is probable, indeed, that the non-experimental evidence, for reasons already alluded to, and discussed at length in the succeeding chapter, should be generously discounted. But it is not easy for an impartial inquirer to reject it altogether. Nor indeed is any such summary solution required by the results of experimental telepathy. It is true that experiments at a distance have seldom succeeded, and that we have no record of any long-continued series of such experiments at all comparable to those conducted, _e.g._, by Mr. Guthrie or Mrs. Henry Sidgwick at close quarters. But it is also probably true that such experiments have been comparatively seldom attempted. And if account be taken of the various drawbacks incident to experiments at a distance, the amount of success already achieved, though no doubt less in proportion to the number of serious and well-conceived attempts than is the case with experiments conducted under the more usual conditions, is yet far from discouraging. For trials at a distance are tedious; they consume much time, and call for long preparation and careful pre-arrangement. The difficulties of securing the necessary freedom from disturbance are probably increased when agent and percipient are separated. The interest in such experiments is difficult to maintain apart from the stimulus of a rapid succession of trials with an immediate record of the results. Lastly, such experiments would generally be undertaken only after a series of trials at close quarters; after, that is, some portion at least of the original stock of energy and enthusiasm has been exhausted. And even when such considerations have no effect upon the experimenter, it is likely, as has been already pointed out, that the novel conditions would of themselves affect unfavourably the imagination of the percipient, and thus prejudice the results. That, notwithstanding these various drawbacks, there have been several successful series of