intently thinking of a certain figure. His mind is in a state of expectant attention. He is waiting for but one thing in the world to happen-for another to give audible expression to the name of that which he has in mind. The instant that the conditions are fulfilled, the mind of the subject is released from its state of tension, and the accompanying nervous action causes a slight muscular tremor, which is perceived by the acute senses of the muscle-reader. This explanation applies, also, to the pointing out of one pin among many, or of a letter or a figure on a chart. The conditions involved in the tracing of a figure on a blackboard or other surface are of a like order, although this is a severer test of a muscle-reader's powers. So long as the musclereader moves the crayon in the right direction, he is permitted to do so; but when he deviates from the proper course, the subject, whose hand or wrist he clasps, involuntarily indicates the fact by the usual slight muscular tremor. This, of course, is done involuntarily; but if he is fulfilling the conditions demanded of all subjects-absolute concentration of attention and absence of muscular control-he unconsciously obeys his impulse. A billiard player does the same when he follows the driven ball with his cue, as if by sheer force of will he could induce it to alter its course. The ivory is uninfluenced; the human ball obeys. This explains Mr. Cumberland's success in his experiment before the Khédive of Egypt. It will be noted that the account says that the paper was "gummed to the wall." This indicates that the writing was done in large characters, and was not of the ordinary size. Under the conditions, it is no more remarkable that Mr Cumberland should have traced the Arabic characters than that, in other instances, he should have traced letters, figures, or the outlines of beasts or birds.

Success in muscle-reading depends upon the powers of the principal and upon the susceptibility of the subject. The latter must be capable of mental concentration; he must exert no muscular self-control; he must obey his every impulse. Under these conditions the phenomena are in accordance with known laws of physiology. On the part of the principal, muscle-reading consists of an acute perception of the slight action of another's muscles. On the part of the subject, it involves a nervous impulse

accompanied by muscular action. The mind of the subject is in a state of tension, or expectancy. A sudden release from this state excites, momentarily, an increased activity in the cells of the cerebral cortex. Since the ideational centers, as is usually held, correspond to the motor centers, the nervous action causes a motor impulse to be transmitted to the muscles. Familiar examples of this are many. Any emotional disturbance of mental equilibrium has a like effect. The agitation of the impassioned orator, the wringing of the hands of the bereaved mother, the threatening gestures of the angry teamster, are instances of a like action, unrestrained.

The muscle-reader receives from his subject intelligence in regard to only two things-direction and time. In seeking a hidden object, he learns nothing of its nature, of its locality, or of whether it is one foot or one mile distant from his outstretched hand. In determining the shape of a figure or in finding a letter on a chart, he learns only the instant of time when certain conditions are fulfilled. If the conditions should not all be prearranged, the signal that he receives would be meaningless. The conditions amount to a tacit understanding between principal and subject that the one is to signal the other at the instant when he shall name or point to the letter or figure that is the object of inquiry. Involuntarily the subject carries out his agreement. The signal always means, "The expected has happened."

A statement of these facts is a sufficient answer to those who contend that, since there is nothing in a name, muscle-reading may, after all, be mind-reading. An intelligent comprehension of the subject will establish the fact that muscle-reading is just what the term implies. But mind-reading cannot be so favorably considered. It is a species of trickery in the performance of which the ordinary committee will, unwittingly, aid and abet the performer. Moreover, the mind-reader never permits himself to be subjected to test conditions, nor does every one know how to impose them. Mr. Bishop deceived the late Prof. William B. Carpenter by a simple trick with cards that a three-card-monte man would have detected in an instant. An expert should always be set to catch an expert. The average man is a poor observer. * "Nature," vol. xxiv., p. 188.

In recounting occurrences involving the unusual or the marvelous, he is especially unreliable. He fails to take note of half that he sees, and he remembers things that never occurred. The part that he does not tell contains the key to the explanation.

The mind-reader succeeds by virtue of two conditions: 1, he always has the use of vision, when vision is necessary to the accomplishment of his object, even when he is supposed to be blindfolded; 2, he always requires his committeemen to part with whatever they have in mind, either by tracing or writing it, or by communicating it to others. In the transfer, which is always made in some peculiar manner, the mind-reader manages to possess himself of it, and he is then ready to "read" it. The one thing that no mind-reader has ever done, is to read a word kept in mind by another person. If treasures are laid up upon earth, thieves may break through and steal; but no man can be robbed of his unuttered thought.

CHARLES GATCHELL.

TRADE-UNIONISM AND UTOPIA.

WHAT is generally called "the social question," and now more particularly "the labor question," is in one sense no new thing. The various inequalities of men's lots in life, with which that question concerns itself, have always provided a subject for the moralist and the speculative philosopher. From the days of Plato downward, schemes have been suggesting themselves to some minds for lessening these inequalities or doing away with them. An attempt at realizing the Platonic polity was actually contemplated; while, without making too much of what is certainly ancient history-from the days of Wat Tyler, at all events -the ideas of social reformers have at intervals resulted in movements which, in one way or another, have aimed at solving practically the social or labor question. These schemes, these ideas, these theories, as allied with attempts at practice, have been growing in frequency for more than a hundred years. An increasing number of people have, during that period, been found to quarrel with existing social conditions, and seriously to believe that some fundamental change in them is producible.

Now this belief in each case has involved two things-some conception of an improved social state to be aimed at, and some conception of the means by which it might be brought about. And these conceptions, during the past hundred years, have shared with much else this common characteristic: they have not only varied, but they have also progressed; and in form, method, and intention, whatever may be their real value, they have tended to become more and more scientific. The earlier modern Utopias were vague and sentimental; they were sketches of an ideal structure, rather than architectural drawings of one. And the means by which they were to be realized were even vaguer; there was either to be some miraculous outburst of universal love, or an outburst, equally miraculous, of universal violence.

All the devils in man were either to be cast out or else to be called out; and in some unexplained way, by their absence or by their action, the world was to be turned, after a week or two, into a perfect kingdom of Heaven. Gradually, however, the reformers changed their method. Instead of merely observing the evils of the world, describing them, and declaiming at them, they began to seek for a scientific explanation of their origin. They began, in fact, to copy the frigid political economists. Thus it has come about that a school or party, whose earlier intellectual leaders were either mad dreamers or equally mad agitators, is at last presenting itself to us, on its theoretical side, as a serious and scientific school of economic, thinkers, who, however bitterly opposed to the apologists of the existing order, are prepared to antagonize them on their own ground and to fight them with their own weapons.

When, however, we turn from the social reformers as theorists, and consider their ideas or counsels as men of action, we find that their progress has been far less rapid. In analyzing the evils they desire to remove, in proving that they are removable, and in advocating their removal, they have learned to talk and to think like other men of science; but their ideas as to how the result in question is to be accomplished have remained, till very lately, as unscientific as they ever were. Let any one compare the work of Karl Marx on "Capital" with the writings of the earlier Utopians, and he will realize how great, as an intellectual movement, has been the progress of the cause I speak of; but many, probably most, of the students of Karl Marx have had no clearer ideas than had the students of Cabet or of Rousseau, as to how the intellectual movement is to be made a practical one. They have had dreams of universal upheavals, of universal catastrophes, which somehow would do their business for them. They have thought to re-fashion society as Aaron maintained he had fashioned the idol for the Israelites. He cast gold and silver into the fire, "and there came out this calf." The reformers, till yesterday, thought they could do the same, though they had hardly decided whether the fire into which they would cast society should be that of hate or that of love. And hence the -idea of any new solution of "the social question" has been till