Cock Lane and Common-Sense | Page 3

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.

INTRODUCTION.
Nature of the subject. Persistent survival of certain Animistic beliefs.
Examples of the Lady Onkhari, Lucian, General Campbell. The
Anthropological aspect of the study. Difference between this Animistic
belief, and other widely diffused ideas and institutions. Scientific
admission of certain phenomena, and rejection of others. Connection
between the rejected and accepted phenomena. The attitude of Science.
Difficulties of investigation illustrated. Dr. Carpenter's Theory of
unconscious Cerebration. Illustration of this Theory. The Failure of the
Inquiry by the Dialectical Society. Professor Huxley, Mr. G.