For this view of the subject it is not necessary that we should admit the preternatural character of the phenomena which form the subject-matter of psychical research, but only that we should acknowledge the hardly disputable fact that belief in such marvels is universal and persistent among savages--a fact which science is bound by its own principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether, as Mr. Lang seems inclined to think, among much illusion, chicanery, and ignorance, there may not be truth enough to make the inference of an X-world legitimate, whether the said universality, persistence, and recrudescence of this seeming credulity can be accounted for in any other satisfactory way, is a further consideration. If in some dim fashion the Northern Indians anticipated modern science in their explanation of the _aurora borealis_, connecting it with familiar electric manifestations, may it not be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their inference from supernormal facts which experimental science refuses to hear of or to examine, they have again been sagaciously beforehand? Doubtless their explanation is crude and inadequate in both cases; but is it much more so than that offered by supposing electricity to be a fluid subject to currents; or by assigning many inexplicable psychic phenomena to "hysteria"--a mere word-cause? The supposition is somewhat favoured if we give ear to that crowd of witnesses whose combined evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it clear that even among those who ought to have been civilized out of all belief in aught behind the veil, the very same superstitions break out, or creep in, time after time, with new names perhaps, new clothes, new faces, but in substance identical with those held by what we esteem the most benighted races. Further, it is evident that savages pay attention--over-attention, no doubt--to these supernormal phenomena, being free from hostile philosophic bias in the matter, and bent the other way; and that in consequence they have everywhere observed, classified, and systematized them in their own rude, simple way, and have thus forestalled what the S.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring to do scientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere chance that reveals a "medium," or hypnotic subject here and there: but with savages they are sought out diligently, and all who have any latent aptitude that way are detected and utilized; and thus the field of their experience is considerably widened. But besides all this, it seems more than plausible to suppose that among primitive and undeveloped races such preternatural phenomena either occur, or seem to occur, much more frequently and extensively; and that apparently supernormal faculties are more often developed.