At this point an end might be made, were it not that, folklore being the psychical side of anthropology, his efforts to establish a working alliance between it and psychical research demand reference. These are urged in Cock Lane and Common Sense, published in 1894. He wanted the folklorist to see that such reported phenomena as ghosts, wraiths, and all their kind, are within the province of anthropology to deal with; and he regretted that "Folk-Lore officially refuses to have anything to do with the subject." And he wanted the psychical researcher, in examining evidence for the occult, not to neglect the evidence furnished by tradition, savage superstition, and aught else that comes under the purview of folklore. In this attempt, as a sort of "honest broker," he admitted that he, Psycho-Folklorist[1] as he dubbed himself when we had our bloodless duel over my Presidential Address, had "not quite succeeded," nor is success possible where the evidence of fact and the prepossessions of fancy essay harmony. "I have," he says, "been unable to reach any conclusion, negative or affirmative."[2] But the effort showed the open mind hesitating to dogmatise, although it brought him the title "our effective ally," bestowed by Dr. Walter Leaf. He accepted the presidency of the Society for Psychical Research, but his attitude towards the whole business remained elusive, sceptical. When Eusapia Palladino, the "humorist" as he called her, was detected in tricks which had "deceived the very elect," he remarked that "it looked as if psychical research does, somehow, damage and pervert the logical faculty of scientific minds."[3] Discussing these matters at the Savile Club some years ago, I quoted the verse "the devils also believe and tremble," when, with a twinkle, he replied, "I don't believe, but I tremble." Yet he gave some comfort to the psychists when, reviewing F. W. H. Myers' Human Personality after Death, he wrote: "I think (religious faith apart) that human faculty lends fairly strong presumption in favour of the survival of human consciousness."[4] And a like
- ↑ Folk-Lore, vol. vi. p. 236.
- ↑ Cock Lane and Common Sense, p. 22.
- ↑ Longmans' Magazine, Dec. 1895, p. 320.
- ↑ The Monthly Review March 1903, p. 95.
