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In the experiment with the child, a slightly different procedure is necessary, for a powerful man would be able to lift the child where he would utterly fail with a person twice its weight. In the case of the child, the hold of the lifter will be much lower than in experiments with an adult, and he must lean over further for the purpose. He is, of course, kept at the proper distance from the child, even though leaning over, by the performer's hand on his shoulder. In this position his lifting effort will not be in a vertical direction as he imagines, but in the arc of a circle whose tangent will be but a few degrees from the horizontal. He is, therefore, unconsciously working at great mechanical disadvantage in endeavoring to force the child's weight nearly horizontal, and all that the performer has to do is to counteract this horizontal push, or rather the resultant of the vertical and horizontal efforts of the lifter, by the gentle pressure of the other hand which, as before described, rests between the shoulder blades of the child upon whom the lifting experiment is being tried. One need only try either of these experiments according to directions to become perfectly convinced of the adequacy of the explanations.

In the experiment where the stick is merely held by the pressure of the thumbs as it rests on the open palms, the weakness of the performer is her essential element of strength, for her arms will follow every effort made to take it from her and he cannot, for this reason, exert much force against her. If he be in earnest, however, as he usually is when facing an audience, he will exhaust himself fruitlessly in exertions in one direction with one hand while he opposes these efforts by equal exertions in the opposite direction with his other hand. In fact this last trick is exactly the converse of the two first described. In those it was shown that success depended entirely upon the earnestness with which those assisting the performer opposed her motions and that, if they became passive, her efforts would not avail. In this case the performer herself becomes passive, and the efforts of her opponent become, therefore, futile and useless.

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