Cock Lane and Common-Sense | Page 2

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