Negative Tests.--We hear much of the possibility of reading minds at a distance, or of getting definite information from sealed documents and the like, but it must not be forgotten that whenever definite conditions have been set down, so that all the actions of the supposed clairvoyant could be controlled, then telepathy has always failed to be manifested. Sir James Simpson, for instance, publicly offered to give a five-hundred-pound note, which he had placed in a safe deposit vault, to anyone who could read its number which he had carefully impressed on his own mind. Needless to say, no one got it. In the days when Bishop, the exhibiting mind reader, was creating such a furore in New York and London by supposedly reading people's minds, Labouchere, the editor of London _Truth_, offered a similar opportunity to Bishop, but advantage of it was not taken. Bishop's power was entirely due to muscle reading. People make involuntary movements of muscles that are very slight, but sufficient for a trained observer to notice, especially if his hand is on the individual experiencing the emotions, and the consequent muscle reflexes. [Footnote 19] About the middle of the last century, the French Academy made a labored investigation of telepathy and found that whatever there seemed to be in it, when control was not properly kept, it at once was demonstrated to be impossible when conditions were planned so as to prevent deception. [Footnote 19: The story of Hans, the calculating horse, shows that even animals usually thought rather dull-witted may catch muscle movements so slight as to be scarcely visible to any but one looking particularly for them.] If patients are worried over disturbing influences from others or the reading of their thoughts or telepathic suggestions, a calm review with them of the practical side of this subject, as we have come to know it in the modern time from actual investigation, will do more than anything else to relieve their apprehensions. Most of these patients are unfortunately insane, but the reasoning will help even some of these. There are some quite rational believers in such manifestations who will be greatly benefitted. CHAPTER VIII SECONDARY PERSONALITY