by the scientific spirit, he was led especially to consider the question of applying positive methods to determine the value of certain current beliefs as to human relations with an unseen world. For a number of years past, he had been joined with some friends in conducting (not himself very actively) a course of private inquiry into the pretensions of so-called modern spiritualism. After many failures to reach a definite conclusion, partly, as it seemed, because a few individuals could hardly make the inquiry sufficiently continuous and comprehensive, a plan was formed in 1882 of a regular ‘Society for Psychical Research.’ This was to bring together for careful testing a large variety of human experiences, real or imagined, not taken into account by any of the accepted sciences. Among the founders of the society, Gurney was, alike by temperament and variety of training, pre-eminently fitted for the kind of inquiry projected, and he had moreover, as soon as he broke off his legal course in the middle of 1883, the leisure necessary for following it out. He became from the first the most active officer of the society, and, besides taking a general charge of its various lines of inquiry, devoted himself more particularly to two of them. The one was concerned with all cases that could be collected of alleged communication between human beings otherwise than by the normal way of the senses. The collection proved to be a task of enormous magnitude, and with it was joined a protracted course of experiment on a number of persons who appeared to show the power of receiving on trial non-sensible impressions from others. A large work in two volumes, ‘Phantasms of the Living,’ was, towards the end of 1886, the outcome of the whole research, bearing after Gurney's name on the title-page the names of Mr. F. W. H. Myers and Mr. F. Podmore, who had in different ways contributed to its production. They agreed in holding the fact of ‘telepathy’ (so it was named) to be established, but Gurney took a line of his own as to the explanation in cases where the impression received took the form of fully developed apparition. Direct ‘thought-transference’ from mind to mind once assumed, he argued with great scientific force that the varying details and circumstances of the reported cases were all sufficiently accounted for by the known laws of hallucinative imagination. In this reference he made an elaborate survey of the psychology of hallucination which has an independent value. The other special inquiry of his later years was into hypnotism, which about that time had come at last to be recognised as a matter of serious scientific import. Nothing has so far been done in England to equal, or elsewhere to surpass, his work in this field, whether in the way of carefully devised experiment (which, however, he required the help of an operator to carry out), or of acutely reasoned interpretation. He continued busy with the subject to the last, through a year or more of nervous exhaustion that went on ever increasing. On the morning of 23 June 1888 he was found dead in bed at Brighton, having taken an overdose of narcotic to procure sleep. He left one daughter. Gurney wrote largely from 1882 throughout the first five volumes of the ‘Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research,’ some of the chief papers on hypnotism and hallucinations having prior publication in ‘Mind’ (vols. ix. x. xii.); also, from 1884, in a more frequently appearing ‘Journal’ of the same society. In two volumes, published at the end of 1887, under the characteristic title of ‘Tertium Quid: Chapters on various disputed Questions,’ he brought together those of his scattered writings (previous to 1884) on philosophical or more popular topics which he wished to preserve, making considerable additions to one article on the ‘Psychology of Music.’
[The Work of Edmund Gurney in Experimental Psychology, by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, v. 359; information from relatives and friends; personal knowledge.]
GURNEY, Sir GOLDSWORTHY (1793–1875), inventor, son of John Gurney of Trevorgus, Cornwall, was born at Treator near Padstow in that county, 14 Feb. 1793. He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy, and a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro grammar school, and in 1804, while spending his holidays at Camborne, was much impressed by witnessing one of Trevithick's earliest experiments with a steam-engine on wheels. He was placed with Dr. Avery at Wadebridge as a medical pupil, and while there first met Elizabeth Symons, to whom he was married in 1814. Gurney settled down at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but occupied his leisure in building an organ and in the study of works on chemistry and mechanical science. In 1820 Gurney, with his wife and daughter, removed to London, where he made the acquaintance of Sir Anthony Carlisle, Dr. Wollaston, and others. Gurney delivered a course of lectures on the elements of chemical science at the Surrey Institution, the lectures being subsequently published (1823). Faraday, who was then assistant to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution, admitted his indebtedness to these lectures, which dealt chiefly with
