h, while
anxiously examining all the modern instances which Folklore rejects,
has hitherto neglected, on the whole, that evidence from history,
tradition, savage superstition, saintly legend, and so forth, which
Folklore deigns to regard with interest. The neglect is not
universal, and the historical aspect of these beliefs has been dealt
with by Mr. Gurney (on Witchcraft), by Mr. Myers (on the Classical
Oracles), and by Miss X. (on Crystal-Gazing). Still, the savage and
traditional evidence is nearly as much eschewed by psychical
research, as the living and contemporary evidence is by Folklore.
The truth is that anthropology and Folklore have a ready-made theory
as to the savage and illusory origin of all belief in the spiritual,
from ghosts to God. The reported occurrence, therefore, of
phenomena which suggest the possible existence of causes of belief
_not_ accepted by anthropology, is a distasteful thing, and is
avoided. On the other hand, psychical research averts its gaze, as
a rule, from tradition, because the testimony of tradition is not
'evidential,' not at first hand.

In Cock Lane and Common-Sense an attempt is made to reconcile these
rather hostile sisters in science. Anthropology ought to think
humani nihil a se alienum. Now the abnormal and more or less
inexplicable experiences vouched for by countless living persons of
honour and sanity, are, at all events, _human_. As they usually
coincide in character with the testimony of the lower races all over
the world; with historical evidence from the past, and with rural
Folklore now and always, it really seems hard to understand how
anthropology can turn her back on this large human province. For
example, the famous affair of the disturbances at Mr. Samuel
Wesley's parsonage at Epworth, in 1716, is reported on evidence
undeniably honest, and absolutely contemporary. Dr. Salmon, the
learned and acute Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, has twice
tried to explain the phenomena as the results of deliberate
imposture by Hetty Wesley, alone, and unaided. {0a} The present
writer examined Dr. Salmon's arguments (in the Contemporary Review,
August, 1895), and was able, he thinks, to demonstrate that scarcely
one of them was based on an accurate reading of the evidence. The
writer later came across the diary of Mr. Proctor of Wellington,
near Newcastle (about 1840), and found to his surprise that Mr.
Proctor registered on occasion, day by day, for many yea