We have remarked that if there was involuntary whispering, it could
easily explain the percipient response “Sailboat,” and that by no
circumambulatory process but by direct reaction, since the original
drawing was a sailboat and “sailboat” would be the most natural if not
inevitable word for an agent, intent on the experiment, and anxious for
its success, to whisper involuntarily. The same may be said of the goat
(Fig. 138), the chair (Figs. 16, 16a), the fork (Figs. 1, 1a), the star
(Figs. 2, 2a)—except the extraordinary correspondence of odd shape, and
the man’s face (Fig. 20). But the star and man’s face results were
obtained when the agent was thirty feet away in another room with closed
door between, while the agent looked at it but probably did not whisper
so as not to attract his own attention but to be audible through walls
for thirty feet. The chair and the fork were reproduced when the agent
was some thirty miles away. The sailboat and goat were made in the
latter period when the percipient was left alone with the drawings, and
involuntary whispering is not a possible explanation. Part of the other
examples given are from the period when Mr. Sinclair sat in the same
room and watched the percipient’s work, and partly from the later
unguarded period.
So, in order to explain the results of the experiments as a whole they
have to be divided into three categories, and a different theory applied
to each.
I. Experiments in which the agent was near the percipient. Theory:
_Involuntary Whispering_. Insuperable difficulty in applying the theory:
_Many of the percipient drawings are shaped significantly like the
originals in whole or in parts, yet do not represent the same objects as
do the originals, or objects which whispered words relevant to the
original objects would suggest, directly or by association of ideas._
II. Experiments of the later stage when the percipient was left alone
unwatched with the original drawings in her possession. Theory:
_Conscious or unconscious inspection of the original drawings_.
Difficulty which the theory faces: _The results did not improve or
undergo alterations due to a new cause during the unguarded period_.
III. Experiments when agent and percipient were either thirty feet apart
in different rooms, with a closed door between, under which
circumstances it is incredible that involuntary whispering could have
been heard, or thirty miles apart, in which case it is unquestionably
impossible that involuntary whispering could have carried. Theory:
_Chance coincidence_. This is the only theory left for such experiments,
unless conspiracy is charged, and that at different times would have to
include not only Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, but Mr. Irwin, Mrs. Irwin, the
Sinclairs’ secretary and Professor McDougall. Refutation of the theory:
_The experiments in this class were of such number and had such success
both in number and quality as to challenge the production of any such
success by guessing though hundreds of series each of an equal number of
experiments should be gone through with_.
It is credible that the large percentage of Successes and Partial
Successes in the first 14 experiments and 24 among the latest ones
should have been obtained by one method, that (aside from these) during
the earlier months another and quite different method should have been
employed, and that (still aside from these) later a third and quite
different method should have been resorted to, and yet the whole mass of
results be homogeneous? It would certainly be expected that the
inauguration of any new method would in some way be reflected in the
nature of the results. But the lot produced with intervening distances
too great to admit of the involuntary whispering theory melts
imperceptibly into the lot produced with the agent and percipient
together so that the involuntary whispering process is conceivable, and
this in turn melts imperceptibly into the lot where all precautions are
discarded, and this again into long-distance experiments and out,
without it being possible to detect any changes in the character of the
results at the points of junction. Throughout there is homogeneity, some
successes being correct literally, some incompletely and partially, some
results only suggestive and some entire failures. Throughout we find
some corresponding in both shape and meaning, some in idea but not
shape, and some in shape only and misinterpreted by the percipient; in
fact, all the peculiarities of Mrs. Sinclair’s work are to be found in
about equal proportions in all stages. There is perceptible a gradual
though irregular tendency to decline in the ratio of success achieved,
but in such a manner that the decline cannot be chronologically
connected with any of the changes of method.
The “peeking” theory cannot be applied to the experiments of Class I.
The “involuntary whispering” theory cannot be applied to the experiments
of Class II. Neither the “peeking” nor the “involuntary whispering”
theory can be applied to experiments of Class III.
Only the theory of chance coincidence can be applied as a single
explanation of the experiments of all three classes. Let this be done
and there is simply massed a greater amount of material for the
demolition of the chance coincidence theory by anyone who will undertake
a large series of precisely parallel experiments in Guessing.
For myself, I am willing to say, perhaps for the fourth time, that I am
willing to rest the whole case on those experiments to which no one,
presumably, will have the hardihood to apply either the theory of
“involuntary whispering” or that of “peeking,” that is to say, those
experiments in which agent and percipient were either in separate rooms
or many miles apart.