OCTOBER 9, 1937

ei&tft Again, there is the objection that he

<f< has not correctly represented the chance
Pf.S^"?-- expectations. A n u m b e r of papers have a l -
ready been published in this problem.* I
i'-.-.*-^ can give here only one example of the o b -
jections raised. Contrary to much statis-
tical doctrine Professor Rhine is willing
to accept data based upon eight r u n s of
twenty-five cards, and he frequently
cites single r u n s as significant. Thus, he
says that a subject w a s immediately
affected by a distressing telephone call,
which seems to m e a n that the n e x t single
r u n gave a low score. Much of the other
^ criticism of his mathematics is beside the
point, as it usually does not pretend to
question his outstanding cases. Here again,
however, we must discount a certain p o r -
tion of his results. It is doubtful whether
he has the right to speak of a "minute
flash" of clairvoyance.
Other examples could be added of p a r -
tial hypotheses, other t h a n that of e x t r a -
" E S P " TEST CARDS AND SCORE P A D sensory perception, applicable to some e x -
periments. If Dr. Rhine had eliminated
every case within the reach of at least one
Is Sense Necessary? of them, his book would have been much
less impressive. He seems to assume that
because clairvoyance or telepathy can be
NEW FRONTIERS OF THE MIND. By do equally well when the cards are in a n - demonstrated w h e n a given hypothesis
J. B. Rhine. New York: Farrar & Rine- other building or even 250 miles away. has been ruled out, the hypothesis cannot
hart. 1937. $2.50. One out of every four or five people is be valid u n d e r other circumstances.
said to show some power of this sort, and Whether or not there is enough material
Reviewed by B. F. SKINNER there are no differences in clairvoyant and left to sustain Dr. Rhine's case, one comes
telepathic ability. away from his account with the feeling

T
HE subject that Professor Rhine There are a n u m b e r of alternatives to that, much as he believes in the necessity
has recently placed u n d e r i n v e s - be disposed of before we are forced to for rigor, he is not always willing to insist
tigation is neither new nor strange. accept a "psychic" explanation of these upon it.
The m e n and women who have testified phenomena, and here we are able to esti-
Dissatisfaction with the controls is i n -
to the existence of telepathy and clairvoy- mate Professor Rhine's success in e x p e r i -
creased by the long list of conditions with
ance must easily o u t n u m b e r the witnesses mental control. One hypothesis to be tried
which he finds it necessary to surround
of the Black Plague, even though there is that of self-deception. It would not be
his experiments. Extra-sensory perception
has remained a difference in validation difficult to give a post-hypnotic sugges-
is a "delicate and subtle capacity" s o m e -
much in favor of the plague. It is to P r o - tion u n d e r the influence of which an e x -
thing like the creation of poetry in its
fessor Rhine's credit that he has taken perimenter would see on the card any
instability. The experimenter must be
a disputed subject m a t t e r out of the realm design that might be called, and a self-
"friendly, almost fraternal" and the e x -
of casual observation and anecdote into induced trance state could produce the
periments "casual and informal." The sit-
the experimental laboratory. "Truth," he same effect. Whenever only one person
uation must appeal to the subject; he
says, "must be established . . . upon a c - checks a score, a few of these misread-
must not be reluctant or feel hurried.
tual experimentation, critically and d e - ings could yield the excess obtained above
There must be a spirit of play; a m o n e -
liberately conducted, which yields results chance. In many of Professor Rhine's e x -
that leave only one possible i n t e r p r e t a - periments this explanation is ruled out, * See. for example, a paper by C. E. Kellogg,
tion." To what extent has he been able to but it is still a valid possibility for others. of McGill University, in the October, 1937.
Scientific Monthly.
live up to this standard?
In one of the commonest experimental
procedures in the D u k e laboratories a
pack of cards, five of each of five suits, is
thoroughly shuffled, cut, and placed b e -
fore a subject face down. Without t o u c h -
ing the cards the subject calls the order
in which they are arranged. Since no
other person knows the order of the cards
w h e n called, this procedure is designed
to show clairvoyance; when, instead, the
subject calls a card thought of by another
person, the procedure is intended to show
telepathy.
Professor Rhine claims that many s u b -
jects are consistently able to call correct-
ly more t h a n the one card out of every
five demanded in the long r u n by chance.
Exceptionally high scores out of t w e n t y -
five calls, and a few perfect scores, a r e
reported. The probability that they could
be due to chance is remote. Some subjects
PROFESSOR RHINE (RIGHT) CONDUCTING AN E X P E R I M E N T

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tary r e w a r d is destructive. Strong e m o -
tions, illness, fatigue, over-intellectual
analysis, or pre-formed beliefs may inter-
fere. A n d so on.
Many of these conditions, one suspects,
must have entered first as ad hoc explan-
ations of failures. Some of t h e m remain
that. It is true that t h e phenomena may
be t h u s seriously constrained, b u t this
only adds to Dr. Rhine's b u r d e n of proof.
It is too easy to regard h i s conditions a s
a list of alibis, n o t only for himself, b u t
for t h e failure of other investigators who
attempt to confirm h i m .
Two conditions a r e especially discour-
aging in this way, even if they a r e also
genuine. One is t h e difficulty t h a t h i s
subjects experience in working before
strange, especially unsympathetic, w i t -
nesses. Professor Rhine h a s apparently
refused to demonstrate his work before
accredited scientists, insisting that they
should t r y t h e experiments themselves.
The other condition is that a subject may
utilize extra-sensory perception only
w h e n h e is trying to do so. If this is a
genuine restriction, it conflicts with most
of t h e anecdotal material.
Professor Rhine's claim of confirma-
tion in other laboratories is weak. One
research "showed something beyond
chance," another w a s "on t h e whole"
successful. The only detailed confirmation
he cites is with one subject who averaged
5.6 hits out of every twenty-five in a long
series. O n t h e other h a n d his statement
that three experiments that failed were
conducted "with t h e least regard for t h e
Duke procedure" is, if I recognize the ref-
erences, unfair.
One other m a t t e r disturbing to anyone
anxious to see this m a t t e r settled e x p e r i -
mentally is Rhine's obvious bias in favor
of what h e finds. He is torn between his
desire for rigor and his patent belief that
stories of psychic phenomena contain a
measure of truth. He is willing to let a n e c -
dotes set t h e tone of t h e book. T h r o u g h -
out t h e book his zeal is evident. "This
narrative," h e says frankly, "will carry
more conviction if it is factual a n d r e -
strained, and y e t there w e r e moments in
our researches w h e n it w a s impossible
not to b e deeply stirred b y the almost i n -
credible n a t u r e of what was happening."
The result is that Professor Rhine is a l -
ways very close to presupposing what
he undertakes to prove, and his account is
thereby seriously weakened for t h e crit-
ical reader.
When a supposed fact is so prodigiously
at odds with established knowledge as
extra-sensory perception, t h e proof r e -
quired is proportionately great. Those
who are ready to believe in these matters
will relish t h e data that Professor Rhine
offers. The skeptic will find t h a t his m i n i -
mal requirements of proof have hardly
been approached.
B. F. Skinner, of the department of
psychology, University of Minnesota, has
published a study of Gertrude Stein in
relation to automatic writinc/. See page
40 for biographical note on J. B. Rhine.
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THE THAMES EMBANKMENT
Afloat in England
THAMES PORTRAIT. By E. Arnot Ro-
bertson. New York: The Macmillan Co.
1937. $4.
Reviewed by BASIL DAVENPORT
T
HIS book is a n account of a j o u r -
ney down t h e Thames in a small
boat from t h e reaches where, b e -
cause t h e upper Thames overflows its
banks every spring, t h e country is empty
and wild, past Oxford a n d Windsor a n d
even London to t h e sea. That is the j o u r -
ney the reader makes with Miss Robert-
son, w h o will be remembered for h e r
novels "'Ordinary Families" and "Four
Frightened People" as a n original and
witty writer, and who shows these q u a l -
ities even more strongly as a travel-
ing companion than as a novelist. It is
true that she is insistent on h e r dislike
of "feudalism," no matter whether t h e
feudalism takes t h e form of ordering
travelers off some unused land, or t h e
form of Windsor and Oxford. Toward
all t h e architectural monuments of t h e
Thames Valley, indeed, h e r attitude r e -
minds one of that character in some
French book w h o announced proudly
"You will see, Rome will leave me cold."
"Just so," said his admiring wife after-
V a r d . "Rome left h i m cold." B u t a few
disagreements with one's guide enliven
the voyage, and Miss Robertson is always
wholly delicious in h e r appreciation of
the pleasantness of the people everywhere
and t h e skill of t h e Thames bargemen.
The voyage is also made in the com-
pany of Miss Robertson's husband, Mr.
Turner, w h o h a s not much to say, b u t
who is well represented by half a h u n d r e d
lovely photographs h e h a s taken. Alto-
gether t h e pleasantest of holiday trips.
Dr. Johnson said once "If I had no
duties, a n d no reference to posterity, I
should spend m y life driving rapidly in
a post-chaise with a pretty woman; b u t
she should b e a n intelligent woman, able
to contribute to t h e conversation." Drift-
ing down t h e Thames with an agreeable
woman would not be bad, either, and here
is t h e next thing to doing it.
T}ie Saturdap Review
Marriage on the Spot
THE FAITHFUL WIFE. By Sigrid Und-
set. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1937.
$2.50.
R e v i e w e d by HENRY SEIDEL CANBY
T
HE general reader a n d even t h e
particular reader of Sigrid Undset
may consider "The Faithful Wife"
a "quiet" book. A n d indeed this, in one
sense, is true. T h e novel is n o t sensa-
tional, avoids t h e crises of melodrama,
which a r e perfectly possible to its plot,
and concentrates upon a story which h a s
as m u c h to do with choice a n d taste a s
with incident.
I do not consider it a "quiet" story,
with or without t h e quotes, for it deals,
and deals most effectively, in Sigrid U n d -
set's own manner, with three or four of
the most interesting and most perplexing
problems in h u m a n relationships. T h e
story of t h e married couple involved,
which is the theme of t h e book, dips very
deeply into the following perplexities:
1. A marriage in which t h e husband,
thanks to t h e greater success in life of
his wife, develops a sense of inferiority
which kills h i s love a n d leads h i m to
seek compensation.
2. T h e situation of t h e m a n of middle
age w h o falls deeply and sincerely in
love with a woman much younger t h a n
himself and m u c h younger than his wife.
3. T h e problem for t h e wife w h o d i s -
covers that h e r husband is unfaithful to
her, understands some of t h e reasons,
and y e t emotionally a n d imaginatively
cannot accept it without warping h e r p e r -
sonality.
4. A generation reaching maturity that
has been brought u p on radical social
and sexual ideas, a n d finds that they a r e
not working.
5. T h e perplexity of a wife w h o faces
the problem of taking back a husband
after h e h a s led a life apart from h e r
and become in many ways a changed man.
I a m well aware that this list of topics
sounds like a work on marriage a n d d i -
vorce, b u t Sigrid Undset should be suffi-
ciently well known t o prevent t h e reader
of this review from running into any such
false conclusion. This is a novel w i t h a
rich Scandinavian background, human,
penetrating, and neither didactic n o r a r -
gumentative. It is a family story in which
not only a r e very interesting people made
interesting, b u t also their life, summer
and winter, country and city. Beyond and
behind the intense drama of marriage and
divorce, is this realized Scandinavian e x -
istence, which in itself, as with Undset's
historical novels, is worth t h e price of
admission. B u t the wife's emotional p r o b -
lems, which might be a n y wife's a n y -
where, keep this book from being, like
too m a n y American regional novels, a
study in description a n d behaviorism.
See vage 40 for biographical note on
Sigrid Undset.