eivably, be of
considerable importance. But, stating the case at the lowest, if we are
only concerned with illusions and fables, it cannot but be curious to note
their persistent uniformity in savage and civilised life.

To make the first of our two main positions clear, and in part to justify
ourselves in asking any attention for such matters, we now offer an
historical sketch of the relations between Science and the so-called
'Miraculous' in the past.

[Footnote 1: _Primitive Culture_, i. 156. London, 1891.]

[Footnote 2: _Ueber psychische Beobachiungen bei Naiurvuelkern_. Leipzig,
Gunther, 1890.]

[Footnote 3: See especially pp. 922-926. The book is interesting in other
ways, and, indeed, touching, as it describes the founding of a new Red
Indian religion, on a basis of Hypnotism and Christianity.]

[Footnote 4: Programme of the Society, p. iv.]

[Footnote 5: Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i, 9, 10.]

[Footnote 6: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, ii. p. 240.]

[Footnote 7: _Hallucinations and Illusions_, English edition, pp. 69-70,
297.]

[Footnote 8: Sir William Hamilton's _Lectures_, i. 345.]

[Footnote 9: Maudsley, Kerner, Carpentor, Du Prel, Zangwill.]

[Footnote 10: Coleridge's mythical maid (p. 10) is set down by Mr. Samuel
Laing to an experiment of Braid's! No references are given.--Laing:
_Problems of the Future._]

II

SCIENCE AND 'MIRACLES'

_Historical Sketch_

Research in the X region is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul
disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made
an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus,
the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the
oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a
given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very _bizarre_. We
do not know how the Delphic oracle found out the right answer, but various
easy methods of fraud at once occur to the mind. However, the procedure of
Croesus, if he took certain precautions, was relatively scientific.
Relatively scientific also was the inquiry of Porphyry, with whose
position our own is not unlikely to be compared. Unable, or reluctant, to
accept Christianity, Porphyry 'sought after a sign' of an element of
supernormal truth in Paganism. But he began at the wrong end, namely at
Pagan spiritualistic _seances_, with the usual accompaniments of darkness
and fraud. His perplexed letter to Anebo, w