Cock Lane and Common Sense

Cock Lane AND Common-Sense s==i<r> ? -CD 2=(^ ^i 1^ o rr — > ' 2==C£) [>- 00 \3^v'^' SfVyt^^ Messrs. Longmans intend this "book to be sold to tlie Public at tbe adver- j it to the Trade j tised price, and supply which will not allow of j on terms I discount. c^. COCK LANE AND COMMON-SENSE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. COCK LANE COMMON-SENSE ANDREW LANG LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST i6th STREET ScRVtC^^ I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/cocklanecommonseOOIanguoft TO JAMES PAYN, Esq. Dear Payn, Spirits much more rare and valuable than those ' spoken of in this book are yours. Whatever 'Mediums may be able to do, you can * transfer ' High Spirits to your readers; one of whom does not hope to convert you, and will be fortunate enough if, by this work, he can occasionally bring a smile to the lips of his favourite novelist. With more affection and admiration than can be publicly expressed, Believe me, Yours ever, ANDREW LANG. CONTENTS. Preface --..... j^ Introduction ----... j Savage Spiritualism - ..... ^^ Ancient Spiritualism- - - - . .35 Comparative Psychical Research - - - - 84 Haunted Houses --.... 127 Cock Lane and Common-sense .... 151 Apparitions, Ghosts, and Hallucinations - - 180 Scrying or Crystal-gazing - - . 212 The Second Sight ...... 226 Ghosts before the Law ..... 248 A Modern Trial for Witchcraft .... 274 Presbyterian Ghost Hunters - - . 285 The Logic of Table-turning .... ^04 The Ghost Theory of the Origin of Religion - - 333 s; PREFACE. This book deals with topics which it seems difficult to discuss in a spirit of fairness and right reason. While engaged on the essays, the author has orjeaned the remonstrances of a few philosophers and friends. One of these thinkers (a rural dean) points out that human evidence is very untrustworthy, that he himself has been described as wearing the kilt, whereas he wears the trews ; as editor of the Monk Vade-Mecwn, a paper which he never saw as constant in his devotion to a large green umbrella, his umbrella, in fact, being blue, and so forth. ^ The writer has answered that these objections apply to all human evidence, and that several of the statements in this volume are not the chatter of personal paragraph-makers, but are, in some cases, attested on oath, in others, have survived strict cross-examination. Again, the writer has urged that the testimony to abnormal events is much on a par with that 1 These, of course, are fanciful examples. X PREFACE. for anthropological details, manners and customs. When Anthropology first challenged the interpretation of myths given by Philolo- gists, we were told that Anthropology relied on mere travellers' tales. It was answered that the coincidence of report, in all ages and countries, and from all manner of independent observers, unaware of each other's existence, was a strong proof of general accuracy, while the statements of learned and scholarly men, like Codrington, Callaway, and many others, confirmed the strange stories of travellers like Herodotus, of missionaries, traders and ad- venturers. The same test of evidence, uni- versally coincident, applies to many of the alleged phenomena in this book. Indeed, the anthropological aspect of the phenomena led to the writing of the essays. The author was next informed that many * ghost stories ' had broken down, like a noted one from China, and it was inferred that all were equally incapable of standing examination. But this is not really the case ; many of them (whatever we may think about them) are not destroyed by comparison of dates. In anthropology we receive many reports, as that such a people has no religion, or that it practises this or that custom, whereas later inquiry proves that : PREFACE. XI it has plenty of religion, and that the custom is absent from its institutions. But we do not, therefore, conclude that all anthropological evidence is worthless, because some of it is incorrect. This is an argument of no value in any branch of human affairs. In every field of study there occur incorrect descriptions, and, in all, the bias of witnesses has to be allowed for illusions of memory, of vanity, of the artistic instinct have to be discounted. But these illusions, and other idola, are not all on one side. Let any one compare Sir David Brewster's letter to his daughter on the phenomena which he witnessed in the presence of Home, with his contemporary letter to the Times on the same subject.-^ In which letter did Sir David tell the truth "^ '^ Here we have a trained observer, an authority in exact science, who flatly contradicts himself about an event not a week old at the time of his writing. He has one story for the public, a story directly con- tradictory of it for his family circle. Next we are informed that hallucinations occur, and that chance coincidences are common. Precisely, hallucinations do occur ; the ^ Brewster's Life, p. 257, 1869. - The letter to the Times is published in the Life of D. D. Home. ! Xll PREFACE. only question is, do coincidences correspond with them more frequently than the laws of chance allow for, or are the hallucinations and the coincidences so common as to suggest a causal connection ? Lord Brougham, as a boy, made a covenant with a friend that he who died first should appear to the survivor. The friend went to India. Many years passed ; the friend was not in Lord Brougham's conscious mind when he appeared to that nobleman in his bath The friend's day for dying chanced to coincide with Lord Brougham's day for having an hallucination. This is very scientific, but it is also scientific to ask whether such coincidences are more frequent than mere chance will explain. Oddly enough the writer's rural friend, already spoken of, at once introduces the phrase, ' the supernatural '. This argument is a mere sur- vival. Nobody is talking about ' the super- ' natural ; we are merely discussing the rather unusual. A 'wraith,' if wraiths there be, is as ' natural ' as an indii^^estion. Then we come to imposture. The ' rapping trick,' says another friend, ' is one of the oldest things in the world '. That is one reason why it interests us : a secular and world-wide imposture is a matter of curious interest, like a fairy tale which is found all the world over. PREFACE. Xm But is it impossible that impostures are imita- tions of real phenomena which gave the suggestion ? In many cases, as we show, the explanations offered by common-sense are inconsistent, inadequate, and can only be accepted by aid of a strong bias which influences the reasoner. No doubt the writer himself has a bias. He is conscious of a bias in favour of fair play and ordinary logic. He is unconscious of a bias in favour of common-sense. Fair play and right reason have but rarely been applied to these subjects. The old inquirers of the Restoration frankly avowed their desire to con- fute scepticism. From 1720 to our own day Rationalism has been just as prejudiced, and hardly less frank. It has been often said that, ' when exact inquiry is made, all ghosts ' will vanish, as in the Chinese case, and such inquiry, it is urged, should be made. But when people make it, they are accused of superstition. Common-sense bullied several generations, till they were positively afraid to attest their own unusual experience. Then it was triumphantly proclaimed that no unusual experiences were ever attested. Even now many people dare not say what they believe about occurrences witnessed by their own senses. All this frame of mind is as unphilosophical as may be. On Xiv PREFACE. the other side we have writers, like the late Mr. Dale Owen, who avow and display a potent bias in favour of establishing a belief in a future life. They, too, just like the sceptics, blink awkward facts. Mr. Dale Owen gives the story of the Stockwell mystery, but does not give Hone's account of Braidley's account of the medium's confession of imposture, whatever it may be worth. In brief, the themes are not treated with scientific fairness as a general rule. Arguments are advanced and accepted on both sides which would scarcely be looked at in any other matter. The writer has endeavoured to be fair, and trusts that, relatively speaking, he has succeeded. To his mind the most plausible theory is that our savage ancestors were subject to great mental confusion ; that they did not distinguish between dreams and waking ; that their condi- tions of life and scanty supplies of food were favourable to trances and hallucinations ; and that they practised a kind of elementary hyp- notism. From all this would arise a set of unfounded beliefs. These beliefs, like myths and customs, would endure among the peasant classes. The folk would inherit the traditions as to what hallucinatory phenomena they might expect, and, as a result of self-suggestion and of PREFACE. XV expectant attention, these phenomena they would actually behold. This would account for the continuity of phenomena, which again are fraudulently imitated by mediums. This is a conceivable and even probable theory. The writer, however, cannot say that he holds it with exclusive and perfect conviction. He does not feel perfectly assured that Lord Craw- ford, Sir David Brewster, Mr. Crookes, Mr. Hamilton Aide, and many others, were deceived by conjuring (on all occasions), or saw tables and people float about in the air, because of the traditional influence exercised by savage hallucinations.

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