rs,
precisely the same phenomena as those which had vexed the Wesleys.
{0b} Various contradictory and mutually exclusive theories of these
affairs have been advanced. Not one hypothesis satisfies the
friends of the others: not one bears examination. The present
writer has no theory, except the theory that these experiences (or
these modern myths, if any one pleases), are part of the province of
anthropology and Folklore.

He would add one obvious yet neglected truth. If a 'ghost-story' be
found to contain some slight discrepancy between the narratives of
two witnesses, it is at once rejected, both by science and common-
sense, as obviously and necessarily and essentially false. Yet no
story of the most normal incident in daily life, can well be told
without _some_ discrepancies in the relations of witnesses. None
the less such stories are accepted even by juries and judges. We
cannot expect human testimony suddenly to become impeccable and
infallible in all details, just because a 'ghost' is concerned. Nor
is it logical to demand here a degree of congruity in testimony,
which daily experience of human evidence proves to be impossible,
even in ordinary matters.

A collection of recent reports of 'fire-walking' by unscorched
ministrants, in the South Seas, in Sarawak, in Bulgaria, and among
the Klings, appeals to the present writer in a similar way.
Anthropology, he thinks, should compare these reports of living
witnesses, with the older reports of similar phenomena, in Virgil,
in many books of travel, in saintly legends, in trials by ordeal,
and in Iamblichus. {0c} Anthropology has treasured the accounts of
trials by the ordeal of fire, and has not neglected the tales of old
travellers, such as Pallas, and Gmelin. Why she should stand aloof
from analogous descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living
witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the
more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the
abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his
testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the
writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in
fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as
a trick it is so old, so world-wide, that we should ascertain the
modus of it. Mr. Clodd, following Sir B. W. Richardson, suggests
the use of diluted sulphuric acid, or of alum. But I am not aware
that he has trie