," Miss Johnson draws
attention to the fact, so often pointed out by Mr. Podmore, that the
various witnesses in subsequent accounts do not describe the phenomena
in the same terms or in precisely the same manner. The narrative differs
in the various accounts, and the phenomena appear far more remarkable
in some than in others. The inference is that none of them is
right--certainly not the more remarkable ones--and that the inaccuracy
of the reports invalidates the records.

Now I have nothing to say against this method _as_ a method. But I think
it can be pushed too far and wrong deductions drawn therefrom. It is
right to discount the value of the evidence, but that is a different
thing from discrediting it altogether. If individual records differ when
describing any particular phenomenon it is right that the less
marvellous be accepted as the more probable; but this is not saying that
the phenomenon did not take place at all! Any two accounts of a given
phenomenon must necessarily differ--more or less, according to
circumstances. But if all the accounts obviously concern a given
phenomenon, and if they agree, even in the essential outlines, it is
probable that the event resembled the description more or less; and if
in all these accounts there is no evidence of fraud forthcoming, and no
indications that it existed, we must take it for granted that no
suspicious circumstances were noted and no fraud detected--for otherwise
it would have found its way into the records. And the fact that it never
did find its way into any of them (with one doubtful exception,
_Journal, S.P.R._, vol. iv. pp. 120-21, and Jan. and May 1903) seems to
indicate, not that the phenomena were necessarily genuine, but that the
central theme of the account, so to speak--the phenomenon--was seen
alike by all, and was variously described by the witnesses afterward in
the subsequent reports. The minor discrepancies do not suffice to
explain away the phenomenon altogether. They serve merely to render it
less marvellous. Many psychic researchers, however, seem to imagine that
because the various accounts do not agree, the fact recorded probably
did not occur at all. That is surely an entirely unwarranted
supposition, and were this carried to its logical conclusion, would
suffice to disprove the whole of the past history of the human race.

Miss Johnson's discussion of Home's famous levitation out of one window
and in at another is surely masterly, and i