Note 1 — THE SINCLAIR EXPERIMENTS FOR TELEPATHY

Oliver Wendell Holmes was a poet and novelist, but as the Encyclopedia Britannica says: “In 1843 he published his essay on the Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, which stirred up a fierce controversy and brought upon him bitter personal abuse, but he maintained his position with dignity, temper and judgment, and in time was honored as the discoverer of a beneficent truth.” It was about the same time that Semmelweiss was making similar observations, but he did not take preventive measures until 1847, and Lister came still later.

S. Weir Mitchell was one of the most prominent novelists of America at the close of the 19th century, but he was also conspicuous as a neurologist and member of many scientific societies.

The mentality of a man cannot be determined by his profession or by his prevailing occupation. Mendel, who influenced biology hardly less than did Darwin, was a monk and an abbot. Copernicus, who revolutionized solar astronomy, was canon of a cathedral, and astronomy was only his avocation.

A thing is as it acts. An automobile is a good automobile if it behaves as an automobile should. We shall see how Mr. Sinclair carried on his experiments and how he reported them. At times he pursued a defective method, but he was aware of the fact and reports it, while certain technically scientific investigators of telepathy and other matters have not seemed even to be aware of their mistakes.