anation must either be that Delacourt lied; or
that a tradition, surviving from savagery, and enforced by the
example of the Bishop of Tilopolis, made a missionary, un peu
incredule, as he says, believe that he saw, and watched for half an
hour, a phenomenon which he never saw at all. But then Dr.
Carpenter also dismisses, with none but the general theory already
quoted, the experience of 'a nobleman of high scientific
attainments,' who 'seriously assures us' that he saw Home 'sail in
the air, by moonlight, out of one window and in at another, at the
height of seventy feet from the ground.' {326}

Here is the stumbling-block. A nobleman of high scientific
attainment, in company with another nobleman, and a captain in the
army, all vouched for this performance of Home. Now could the
savage tradition, which attributes flight to convulsive and
entranced persons, exercise such an influence on these three
educated modern witnesses; could an old piece of folklore, in
company with 'expectancy,' so wildly delude them? Can 'high
scientific attainments' leave their possessor with such humble
powers of observation? But, to be sure, Dr. Carpenter does not tell
his readers that there were _three_ witnesses. Dr. Carpenter says
that, if we believe Lord Crawford (and his friends), we can 'have no
reason for refusing credit to the historical evidence of the
demoniacal elevation of Simon Magus'. Let us point out that we have
no contemporary evidence at all about Simon's feat, while for
Home's, we have the evidence of three living and honourable men,
whom Dr. Carpenter might have cross-examined. The doings of Home
and of Simon were parallel, but nothing can be more different than
the nature of the evidence for what they are said to have done.
This, perhaps, might have been patent to a man like Dr. Carpenter of
'early scientific training'. But he illustrated his own doctrine of
'the dominant idea'; he did not see that he was guilty of a fallacy,
because his 'idea' dominated him. Stumbling into as deep a gulf,
Dr. Carpenter put Lord Crawford's evidence (he omitted that of his
friends) on a level with, or below, the depositions of witnesses as
to 'the aerial transport of witches to attend their demoniacal
festivities'. But who ever swore that he _saw_ witches so
transported? The evidence was not to witnessed facts, but only to a
current belief, backed by confessions under torture. No testimony
could be less on a par with that