_ through the ordinary channels of
sense, a thing _in rerum natura_?' Because, if it is, we must obviously
increase our list of the savage's reasons for believing in a soul: we
must make his reasons include 'psychical' experiences, and there must be
an X region to investigate.

These considerations did not fail to present themselves to Mr. Tylor. But
his manner of dealing with them is peculiar. With his unequalled knowledge
of the lower races, it was easy for him to examine travellers' tales about
savage seers who beheld distant events in vision, and to allow them what
weight he thought proper, after discounting possibilities of falsehood and
collusion. He might then have examined modern narratives of similar
performances among the civilised, which are abundant. It is obvious and
undeniable that if the supernormal acquisition of knowledge in trance is a
_vera causa_, a real process, however rare, Mr. Tylor's theory needs
modifications; while the character of the savage's reasoning becomes more
creditable to the savage, and appears as better bottomed than we had been
asked to suppose. But Mr. Tylor does not examine this large body of
evidence at all, or, at least, does not offer us the details of his
examination. He merely writes in this place:

'A typical spiritualistic instance may be quoted from Jung-Stilling, who
says that examples have come to his knowledge of sick persons who,
longing to see absent friends, have fallen into a swoon, during which
they have appeared to the distant objects of their affection.'[29]

Jung-Stilling (though he wrote before modern 'Spiritualism' came in) is
not a very valid authority; there is plenty of better evidence than his,
but Mr. Tylor passes it by, merely remarking that 'modern Europe has kept
closely enough to the lines of early philosophy.' Modern Europe has indeed
done so, if it explains the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, or the
hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend by a theory of
wandering 'spirits.' But facts do not cease to be facts because wrong
interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung-Stilling, or
by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and
higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We
gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a
theory of 'wandering spirits,' is probably untenable, as it is assuredly
of savage origin. But we are not absolutely s