Since the first publication of Cock Lane and Common-Sense in 1894,
nothing has occurred to alter greatly the author's opinions. He has
tried to make the Folklore Society see that such things as modern
reports of wraiths, ghosts, 'fire-walking,' 'corpse-lights,'
'crystal-gazing,' and so on, are within their province, and within
the province of anthropology. In this attempt he has not quite
succeeded. As he understands the situation, folklorists and
anthropologists will hear gladly about wraiths, ghosts, corpse-
candles, hauntings, crystal-gazing, and walking unharmed through
fire, as long as these things are part of vague rural tradition, or
of savage belief. But, as soon as there is first-hand evidence of
honourable men and women for the apparent existence of any of the
phenomena enumerated, then Folklore officially refuses to have
anything to do with the subject. Folklore will register and compare
vague savage or popular beliefs; but when educated living persons
vouch for phenomena which (if truly stated) account in part for the
origin of these popular or savage beliefs, then Folklore turns a
deaf ear. The logic of this attitude does not commend itself to the
author of Cock Lane and Common-Sense.
On the other side, the Society for Psychical Research, while
anxiously examining all the modern instances which Folklore rejects,
has hitherto neglected, on the whole, that evidence from history,
tradition, savage superstition, saintly legend, and so forth, which
Folklore deigns to regard with interest. The neglect is not
universal, and the historical aspect of these beliefs has been dealt
with by Mr. Gurney (on Witchcraft), by Mr. Myers (on the Classical
Oracles), and by Miss X. (on Crystal-Gazing). Still, the savage and
traditional evidence is nearly as much eschewed by psychical
research, as the living and contemporary evidence is by Folklore.
The truth is that anthropology and Folklore have a ready-made theory
as to the savage and illusory origin of all belief in the spiritual,
from ghosts to God. The reported occurrence, therefore, of
phenomena which suggest the possible existence of causes of belief
_not_ accepted by anthropology, is a distasteful thing, and is
avoided. On the other hand, psychical research averts its gaze, as
a rule, from tradition, because the testimony of tradition is not
'evidential,' not at first hand.
In Cock Lane and Common-Sense an attempt is made to reconcile these
rather hostile sisters in science. Anthropology ought to think
humani nihil a se alienum. Now the abnormal and more or less
inexplicable experiences vouched for by countless living persons of
honour and sanity, are, at all events, _human_. As they usually
coincide in character with the testimony of the lower races all over
the world; with historical evidence from the past, and with rural
Folklore now and always, it really seems hard to understand how
anthropology can turn her back on this large human province. For
example, the famous affair of the disturbances at Mr. Samuel
Wesley's parsonage at Epworth, in 1716, is reported on evidence
undeniably honest, and absolutely contemporary. Dr. Salmon, the
learned and acute Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, has twice
tried to explain the phenomena as the results of deliberate
imposture by Hetty Wesley, alone, and unaided. {0a} The present
writer examined Dr. Salmon's arguments (in the Contemporary Review,
August, 1895), and was able, he thinks, to demonstrate that scarcely
one of them was based on an accurate reading of the evidence. The
writer later came across the diary of Mr. Proctor of Wellington,
near Newcastle (about 1840), and found to his surprise that Mr.
Proctor registered on occasion, day by day, for many years,
precisely the same phenomena as those which had vexed the Wesleys.
{0b} Various contradictory and mutually exclusive theories of these
affairs have been advanced. Not one hypothesis satisfies the
friends of the others: not one bears examination. The present
writer has no theory, except the theory that these experiences (or
these modern myths, if any one pleases), are part of the province of
anthropology and Folklore.
He would add one obvious yet neglected truth. If a 'ghost-story' be
found to contain some slight discrepancy between the narratives of
two witnesses, it is at once rejected, both by science and common-
sense, as obviously and necessarily and essentially false. Yet no
story of the most normal incident in daily life, can well be told
without _some_ discrepancies in the relations of witnesses. None
the less such stories are accepted even by juries and judges. We
cannot expect human testimony suddenly to become impeccable and
infallible in all details, just because a 'ghost' is concerned. Nor
is it logical to demand here a degree of congruity in testimony,
which daily experience of human evidence proves to be impossible,
even in ordinary matters.
A collection of recent reports of 'fire-walking' by unscorched
ministrants, in the South Seas, in Sarawak, in Bulgaria, and among
the Klings, appeals to the present writer in a similar way.
Anthropology, he thinks, should compare these reports of living
witnesses, with the older reports of similar phenomena, in Virgil,
in many books of travel, in saintly legends, in trials by ordeal,
and in Iamblichus. {0c} Anthropology has treasured the accounts of
trials by the ordeal of fire, and has not neglected the tales of old
travellers, such as Pallas, and Gmelin. Why she should stand aloof
from analogous descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living
witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the
more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the
abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his
testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the
writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in
fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as
a trick it is so old, so world-wide, that we should ascertain the
modus of it. Mr. Clodd, following Sir B. W. Richardson, suggests
the use of diluted sulphuric acid, or of alum. But I am not aware
that he has tried the experiment on his own person, nor has he
produced an example in which it was successfully tried. Science
demands actual experiment.
The very same remarks apply to 'Crystal-Gazing'. Folklore welcomes
it in legend or in classical or savage divination. When it is
asserted that a percentage of living and educated and honourable
people are actually hallucinated by gazing into crystals, the
President of the Folklore Society (Mr. Clodd) has attributed the
fact to a deranged liver. {0d} This is a theory like another, and,
like another, can be tested. But, if it holds water, then we have
discovered the origin of the world-wide practice of crystal-gazing.
It arises from an equally world-wide form of hepatic malady.
In answer to all that has been urged here, anthropologists are wont
to ejaculate that blessed word 'Survival'. Our savage, and
mediaeval, and Puritan ancestors were ignorant and superstitious;
and we, or some of us, inherit their beliefs, as we may inherit
their complexions. They have bequeathed to us a tendency to see the
viewless things, and hear the airy tongues which they saw and heard;
and they have left us the legacy of their animistic or
spiritualistic explanation of these subjective experiences.
Well, be it so; what does anthropology study with so much zest as
survivals? When, then, we find plenty of sane and honest people
ready with tales of their own 'abnormal' experiences,
anthropologists ought to feel fortunate. Here, in the persons of
witnesses, say, to 'death-bed wraiths,' are 'survivals' of the
liveliest and most interesting kind. Here are parsons, solicitors,
soldiers, actors, men of letters, peers, honourable women not a few,
all (as far as wraiths go), in exactly the mental condition of a
Maori. Anthropology then will seek out these witnesses, these
contemporary survivals, these examples of the truth of its own
hypothesis, and listen to them as lovingly as it listens to a
garrulous old village wife, or to an untutored Mincopi.
This is what we expect; but anthropology, never glancing at our
'survivals,' never interrogating them, goes to the Aquarium to study
a friendly Zulu. The consistency of this method laisse a desirer!
One says to anthropologists: 'If all educated men who have had, or
believe they have had "psychical experiences" are mere "survivals,"
why don't you friends of "survivals" examine them and cross examine
them? Their psychology ought to be a most interesting proof of the
correctness of your theory. But, far from studying the cases of
these gentlemen, some of you actually denounce, for doing so, the
Society for Psychical Research.'
The real explanation of these singular scientific inconsistencies is
probably this. Many men of science have, consciously or
unconsciously, adopted the belief that the whole subject of the
'abnormal,' or, let us say, the 'psychical,' is closed. Every
phenomenon admits of an already ascertained physical explanation.
Therefore, when a man (however apparently free from superstitious
prejudice) investigates a reported abnormal phenomenon, he is
instantly accused of _wanting to believe_ in a 'supernatural
explanation'. Wanting (ex hypothesi) to believe, he is unfit to
investigate, all his conclusions will be affirmative, and all will
be worthless.
This scientific argument is exactly the old argument of the pulpit
against the atheist who 'does not believe because he does not want
to believe'. The writer is only too well aware that even scientific
minds, when bent on these topics, are apt to lose balance and
sanity. But this tendency, like any other mental bad habit, is to
be overcome, and may be vanquished.
Manifestly it is as fair for a psychical researcher to say to Mr.
Clodd, 'You won't examine my haunted house because you are afraid of
being obliged to believe in spirits,' as it is fair for Mr. Clodd to
say to a psychical researcher, 'You only examine a haunted house
because you want to believe in spirits; and, therefore, if you _do_
see a spook, it does not count'.
We have recently seen an instructive example. Many continental
savants, some of them bred in the straitest sect of materialists,
examined, and were puzzled by an Italian female 'medium'. Effects
apparently abnormal were attested. In the autumn of 1895 this woman
was brought to England by the Society for Psychical Research. They,
of course, as they, ex hypothesi, 'wish to believe,' should, ex
hypothesi, have gone on believing. But, in fact, they detected the
medium in the act of cheating, and publicly denounced her as an
impostor. The argument, therefore, that investigation implies
credulity, and that credulity implies inevitable and final
deception, scarcely holds water.
One or two slight corrections may be offered here. The author
understands that Mr. Howitt does not regard the Australian conjurers
described on p. 41, as being actually _bound_ by the bark cords
'wound about their heads, bodies, and limbs'. Of course, Mr.
Howitt's is the best evidence possible.
To the cases of savage table-turning (p. 49), add Dr. Codrington's
curious examples in The Melanesians, p. 223 (Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1891).
To stories of fire-handling, or of walking-uninjured through fire
(p. 49), add examples in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol.
ii., No. 2, June, 1893, pp. 105-108. See also 'At the Sign of the
Ship,' Longman's Magazine, August, 1894, and The Quarterly Review,
August, 1895, article on 'The Evil Eye'.
Mr. J. W. Maskelyne, the eminent expert in conjuring, has remarked
to the author that the old historical reports of 'physical
phenomena,' such as those which were said to accompany D. D. Home,
do not impress him at all. For, as Mr. Maskelyne justly remarks,
their antiquity and world-wide diffusion (see essays on 'Comparative
Psychical Research,' and on 'Savage and Classical Spiritualism') may
be accounted for with ease. Like other myths, equally uniform and
widely diffused, they represent the natural play of human fancy.
Inanimate objects are stationary, therefore let us say that they
move about. Men do not float in the air. Let us say that they do.
Then we have the 'physical phenomena' of spiritualism. This
objection had already occurred to, and been stated by, the author.
But the difficulty of accounting for the large body of respectable
evidence as to the real occurrence of the alleged phenomena remains.
Consequently the author has little doubt that there is a genuine
substratum of fact, probably fact of conjuring, and of more or less
hallucinatory experience. If so, the great antiquity and uniformity
of the tricks, make them proper subjects of anthropological inquiry,
like other matters of human tradition. Where conditions of darkness
and so on are imposed, he does not think that it is worth while to
waste time in examination.
Finally, the author has often been asked: 'But what do you believe
yourself?'
He believes that all these matters are legitimate subjects of
anthropological inquiry.
London, 27th October, 1895.