The distinction here drawn is so great and obvious that for proof of the
German girl's case we need better evidence than Coleridge's rumour of a
rumour, cited, as it is, by Hamilton, Maudsley, Carpenter, Du Prel, and
the common run of manuals.
Not that I deny, _a priori_, the possibility of Coleridge's story. As Mr.
Huxley says, 'strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right
to the title of an "impossibility," except a contradiction in terms.'[7]
To the horror of some of his admirers, Mr. Huxley would not call the
existence of demons and demoniacal possession 'impossible.'[8] Mr. Huxley
was no blind follower of Hume. I, too, do not call Coleridge's tale
'impossible,' but, unlike the psychologists, I refuse to accept it on
'Bardolph's security.' And I contrast their conduct, in swallowing
Coleridge's legend, with their refusal (if they do refuse) to accept the
evidence for the automatic writing of not-consciously-known languages (as
of eleventh-century French poetry and prose by Mr. Schiller), or their
refusal (if they do refuse) to look at the evidence for telepathic
crystal-gazing, or any other supernormal exhibitions of faculty, attested
by living and honourable persons.
I wish I saw a way for orthodox unimaginative psychology out of its
dilemma.
After offering to anthropologists and psychologists these considerations,
which I purposely reiterate, we examined historically the relations of
science to 'the marvellous,' showing for example how Hume, following his
_a priori_ theory of the impossible, would have declined to investigate,
because they were 'miraculous,' certain occurrences which, to Charcot,
were ordinary incidents in medical experience.
We next took up and criticised the anthropological theory of religion as
expounded by Mr. Tylor. We then collected from his work a series of
alleged supernormal phenomena in savage belief, all making for the
foundation of animistic religion. Through several chapters we pursued the
study of these phenomena, choosing savage instances, and setting beside
them civilised testimony to facts of experience. Our conclusion was that
such civilised experiences, if they occurred, as they are universally said
to do, among savages, would help to originate, and would very strongly
support the savage doctrine of souls, the base of religion in the theory
of English anthropologists. But apart from the savage doctrine of
'spirits' (whether they exist or not), the evidence points to the
existence of human faculties not allowed for in the current systems of
materialism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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