y. If the public were
interested in the question, and understood its nature, and if everybody
who had an hallucination at once recorded it in black and white, duly
attested on oath before a magistrate, by persons to whom he reported,
before the coincidence was known, and if all such records, coincidental or
not, were kept in the British Museum for fifty years, then an examination
of them might teach us something. But all this is quite impossible.
We may form a belief, on this point of veridical hallucinations, for
ourselves, but beyond that it is impossible to advance. Still, Science
might read her brief!

[Footnote 1: Walter Scott.]

[Footnote 2: Parish, p. 278.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid. pp. 282, 283.]

[Footnote 4: P. 287, Mr. Sims, _Proceedings_, x. 230.]

[Footnote 5: Parish pp. 288, 289.]

[Footnote 6: _Report_, p. 68.]

[Footnote 7: P. 274, note 1.]

[Footnote 8: Parish, p. 290.]

[Footnote 9: _Report_, p. 297.]

[Footnote 10: Parish, p. 290.]

[Footnote 11: Pp. 291, 292.]

[Footnote 12: Moll, _Hypnotism_, p. 1.]

[Footnote 13 _Proceedings_, vol. vi. p. 433.]

[Footnote 14: Parish, p. 313.]

[Footnote 15: Compare _Report_, pp. 181-83, with Parish, pp. 190 and
313, 314.]

APPENDIX B

THE POLTERGEIST AND HIS EXPLAINERS.

In the chapter on 'Fetishism and Spiritualism' it was suggested that the
movements of inanimate objects, apparently without contact, may have been
one of the causes leading to fetishism, to the opinion that a spirit may
inhabit a stick, stone, or what not. We added that, whether such movements
were caused by trickery or not, was inessential as long as the savage did
not discover the imposture.

The evidence for the genuine supernormal character of such phenomena was
not discussed, that we might preserve the continuity of the general
argument. The history of such phenomena is too long for statement here.
The same reports are found 'from China to Peru,' from Eskimo to the Cape,
from Egyptian magical papyri to yesterday's provincial newspaper.[1]

About 1850-1870 phenomena, which had previously been reported as of
sporadic and spontaneous occurrence, were domesticated and organised by
Mediums, generally American. These were imitators of the enigmatic David
Dunglas Home, who was certainly a most oddly gifted man, or a most
successful impostor. A good deal of scientific attention was given to
the occurrences; Mr. Darwin, Mr. Tyndall, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Huxley, had
all glanced