on this point; the proportion of successes, that is, of striking coincidences, may be calculated. If the actual number of chance coincidences appreciably exceeds the calculated proportion, and if the theory on which the calculation was based corresponds to the actual conditions, then the results were not due to chance alone. But whether they were due to fraud, or to some unconscious transference of indications, or to telepathy, or to spirit influence, or to interference of the devil, or to the fact that the participants in the experiment were born when the stars and planets presented certain conjunctions, or to the existence of a totally unrecognized form of mental vibrations,--all these are mere hypotheses which may be strong or weak or absurd, according to their power to really account for the results, to their concordance with the sum total of scientific knowledge in this field and with the logical principles guiding the formation of scientific hypotheses. To jump from the conclusion that the results are not due to chance to the conclusion that they are due to telepathy, is no whit more absurd than the position of the astrologer, or the spiritualistic explanation of conjuring tricks. That there is something in these results to be explained is admitted; whether the results have been obtained and recorded in such a way as to contain the clue to their explanation cannot be affirmed; whether our present state of knowledge enables us to explain them may be argued pro and con; whether they are worth serious attention is also a debatable question; but none of these conditions warrants a resort to the telepathic hypothesis. That hypothesis as all others must be weighed in the logical balance without prepossession, and with full realization of the possibility, that "general appearances suspicious," or "not proven," or a complete suspension of judgment, may be among the present verdicts. VII