Cock Lane and Common-Sense Part 1

c.o.c.k Lane and Common-Sense.

by Andrew Lang.

PREFACE.

Since the first publication of c.o.c.k Lane and Common-Sense in 1894, nothing has occurred to alter greatly the author's opinions. He has tried to make the Folklore Society see that such things as modern reports of wraiths, ghosts, 'fire-walking,' 'corpse-lights,'

'crystal-gazing,' and so on, are within their province, and within the province of anthropology. In this attempt he has not quite succeeded. As he understands the situation, folklorists and anthropologists will hear gladly about wraiths, ghosts, corpse- candles, hauntings, crystal-gazing, and walking unharmed through fire, as long as these things are part of vague rural tradition, or of savage belief. But, as soon as there is first-hand evidence of honourable men and women for the apparent existence of any of the phenomena enumerated, then Folklore officially refuses to have anything to do with the subject. Folklore will register and compare vague savage or popular beliefs; but when educated living persons vouch for phenomena which (if truly stated) account in part for the origin of these popular or savage beliefs, then Folklore turns a deaf ear. The logic of this att.i.tude does not commend itself to the author of c.o.c.k Lane and Common-Sense.

On the other side, the Society for Psychical Research, while anxiously examining all the modern instances which Folklore rejects, has. .h.i.therto neglected, on the whole, that evidence from history, tradition, savage superst.i.tion, saintly legend, and so forth, which Folklore deigns to regard with interest. The neglect is not universal, and the historical aspect of these beliefs has been dealt with by Mr. Gurney (on Witchcraft), by Mr. Myers (on the Cla.s.sical Oracles), and by Miss X. (on Crystal-Gazing). Still, the savage and traditional evidence is nearly as much eschewed by psychical research, as the living and contemporary evidence is by Folklore.

The truth is that anthropology and Folklore have a ready-made theory as to the savage and illusory origin of all belief in the spiritual, from ghosts to G.o.d. The reported occurrence, therefore, of phenomena which suggest the possible existence of causes of belief _not_ accepted by anthropology, is a distasteful thing, and is avoided. On the other hand, psychical research averts its gaze, as a rule, from tradition, because the testimony of tradition is not 'evidential,' not at first hand.

In c.o.c.k Lane and Common-Sense an attempt is made to reconcile these rather hostile sisters in science. Anthropology ought to think humani nihil a se alienum. Now the abnormal and more or less inexplicable experiences vouched for by countless living persons of honour and sanity, are, at all events, _human_. As they usually coincide in character with the testimony of the lower races all over the world; with historical evidence from the past, and with rural Folklore now and always, it really seems hard to understand how anthropology can turn her back on this large human province. For example, the famous affair of the disturbances at Mr. Samuel Wesley's parsonage at Epworth, in 1716, is reported on evidence undeniably honest, and absolutely contemporary. Dr. Salmon, the learned and acute Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, has twice tried to explain the phenomena as the results of deliberate imposture by Hetty Wesley, alone, and unaided. {0a} The present writer examined Dr. Salmon's arguments (in the Contemporary Review, August, 1895), and was able, he thinks, to demonstrate that scarcely one of them was based on an accurate reading of the evidence. The writer later came across the diary of Mr. Proctor of Wellington, near Newcastle (about 1840), and found to his surprise that Mr.

Proctor registered on occasion, day by day, for many years, precisely the same phenomena as those which had vexed the Wesleys.

{0b} Various contradictory and mutually exclusive theories of these affairs have been advanced. Not one hypothesis satisfies the friends of the others: not one bears examination. The present writer has no theory, except the theory that these experiences (or these modern myths, if any one pleases), are part of the province of anthropology and Folklore.

He would add one obvious yet neglected truth. If a 'ghost-story' be found to contain some slight discrepancy between the narratives of two witnesses, it is at once rejected, both by science and common- sense, as obviously and necessarily and essentially false. Yet no story of the most normal incident in daily life, can well be told without _some_ discrepancies in the relations of witnesses. None the less such stories are accepted even by juries and judges. We cannot expect human testimony suddenly to become impeccable and infallible in all details, just because a 'ghost' is concerned. Nor is it logical to demand here a degree of congruity in testimony, which daily experience of human evidence proves to be impossible, even in ordinary matters.

A collection of recent reports of 'fire-walking' by unscorched ministrants, in the South Seas, in Sarawak, in Bulgaria, and among the Klings, appeals to the present writer in a similar way.

Anthropology, he thinks, should compare these reports of living witnesses, with the older reports of similar phenomena, in Virgil, in many books of travel, in saintly legends, in trials by ordeal, and in Iamblichus. {0c} Anthropology has treasured the accounts of trials by the ordeal of fire, and has not neglected the tales of old travellers, such as Pallas, and Gmelin. Why she should stand aloof from a.n.a.logous descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as a trick it is so old, so world-wide, that we should ascertain the modus of it. Mr. Clodd, following Sir B. W. Richardson, suggests the use of diluted sulphuric acid, or of alum. But I am not aware that he has tried the experiment on his own person, nor has he produced an example in which it was successfully tried. Science demands actual experiment.

The very same remarks apply to 'Crystal-Gazing'. Folklore welcomes it in legend or in cla.s.sical or savage divination. When it is a.s.serted that a percentage of living and educated and honourable people are actually hallucinated by gazing into crystals, the President of the Folklore Society (Mr. Clodd) has attributed the fact to a deranged liver. {0d} This is a theory like another, and, like another, can be tested. But, if it holds water, then we have discovered the origin of the world-wide practice of crystal-gazing.

It arises from an equally world-wide form of hepatic malady.

In answer to all that has been urged here, anthropologists are wont to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e that blessed word 'Survival'. Our savage, and mediaeval, and Puritan ancestors were ignorant and superst.i.tious; and we, or some of us, inherit their beliefs, as we may inherit their complexions. They have bequeathed to us a tendency to see the viewless things, and hear the airy tongues which they saw and heard; and they have left us the legacy of their animistic or spiritualistic explanation of these subjective experiences.

Well, be it so; what does anthropology study with so much zest as survivals? When, then, we find plenty of sane and honest people ready with tales of their own 'abnormal' experiences, anthropologists ought to feel fortunate. Here, in the persons of witnesses, say, to 'death-bed wraiths,' are 'survivals' of the liveliest and most interesting kind. Here are parsons, solicitors, soldiers, actors, men of letters, peers, honourable women not a few, all (as far as wraiths go), in exactly the mental condition of a Maori. Anthropology then will seek out these witnesses, these contemporary survivals, these examples of the truth of its own hypothesis, and listen to them as lovingly as it listens to a garrulous old village wife, or to an untutored Mincopi.

This is what we expect; but anthropology, never glancing at our 'survivals,' never interrogating them, goes to the Aquarium to study a friendly Zulu. The consistency of this method laisse a desirer!

One says to anthropologists: 'If all educated men who have had, or believe they have had "psychical experiences" are mere "survivals,"

why don't you friends of "survivals" examine them and cross examine them? Their psychology ought to be a most interesting proof of the correctness of your theory. But, far from studying the cases of these gentlemen, some of you actually denounce, for doing so, the Society for Psychical Research.'

The real explanation of these singular scientific inconsistencies is probably this. Many men of science have, consciously or unconsciously, adopted the belief that the whole subject of the 'abnormal,' or, let us say, the 'psychical,' is closed. Every phenomenon admits of an already ascertained physical explanation.

Therefore, when a man (however apparently free from superst.i.tious prejudice) investigates a reported abnormal phenomenon, he is instantly accused of _wanting to believe_ in a 'supernatural explanation'. Wanting (ex hypothesi) to believe, he is unfit to investigate, all his conclusions will be affirmative, and all will be worthless.

This scientific argument is exactly the old argument of the pulpit against the atheist who 'does not believe because he does not want to believe'. The writer is only too well aware that even scientific minds, when bent on these topics, are apt to lose balance and sanity. But this tendency, like any other mental bad habit, is to be overcome, and may be vanquished.

Manifestly it is as fair for a psychical researcher to say to Mr.

Clodd, 'You won't examine my haunted house because you are afraid of being obliged to believe in spirits,' as it is fair for Mr. Clodd to say to a psychical researcher, 'You only examine a haunted house because you want to believe in spirits; and, therefore, if you _do_ see a spook, it does not count'.

We have recently seen an instructive example. Many continental savants, some of them bred in the straitest sect of materialists, examined, and were puzzled by an Italian female 'medium'. Effects apparently abnormal were attested. In the autumn of 1895 this woman was brought to England by the Society for Psychical Research. They, of course, as they, ex hypothesi, 'wish to believe,' should, ex hypothesi, have gone on believing. But, in fact, they detected the medium in the act of cheating, and publicly denounced her as an impostor. The argument, therefore, that investigation implies credulity, and that credulity implies inevitable and final deception, scarcely holds water.

One or two slight corrections may be offered here. The author understands that Mr. Howitt does not regard the Australian conjurers described on p. 41, as being actually _bound_ by the bark cords 'wound about their heads, bodies, and limbs'. Of course, Mr.

Howitt's is the best evidence possible.

To the cases of savage table-turning (p. 49), add Dr. Codrington's curious examples in The Melanesians, p. 223 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891).

To stories of fire-handling, or of walking-uninjured through fire (p. 49), add examples in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol.

ii., No. 2, June, 1893, pp. 105-108. See also 'At the Sign of the Ship,' Longman's Magazine, August, 1894, and The Quarterly Review, August, 1895, article on 'The Evil Eye'.

Mr. J. W. Maskelyne, the eminent expert in conjuring, has remarked to the author that the old historical reports of 'physical phenomena,' such as those which were said to accompany D. D. Home, do not impress him at all. For, as Mr. Maskelyne justly remarks, their antiquity and world-wide diffusion (see essays on 'Comparative Psychical Research,' and on 'Savage and Cla.s.sical Spiritualism') may be accounted for with ease. Like other myths, equally uniform and widely diffused, they represent the natural play of human fancy.

Inanimate objects are stationary, therefore let us say that they move about. Men do not float in the air. Let us say that they do.

Then we have the 'physical phenomena' of spiritualism. This objection had already occurred to, and been stated by, the author.

But the difficulty of accounting for the large body of respectable evidence as to the real occurrence of the alleged phenomena remains.

Consequently the author has little doubt that there is a genuine substratum of fact, probably fact of conjuring, and of more or less hallucinatory experience. If so, the great antiquity and uniformity of the tricks, make them proper subjects of anthropological inquiry, like other matters of human tradition. Where conditions of darkness and so on are imposed, he does not think that it is worth while to waste time in examination.

Finally, the author has often been asked: 'But what do you believe yourself?'

He believes that all these matters are legitimate subjects of anthropological inquiry.

London, 27th October, 1895.

INTRODUCTION.

Nature of the subject. Persistent survival of certain Animistic beliefs. Examples of the Lady Onkhari, Lucian, General Campbell.

The Anthropological aspect of the study. Difference between this Animistic belief, and other widely diffused ideas and inst.i.tutions.

Scientific admission of certain phenomena, and rejection of others.

Connection between the rejected and accepted phenomena. The att.i.tude of Science. Difficulties of investigation ill.u.s.trated.

Dr. Carpenter's Theory of unconscious Cerebration. Ill.u.s.tration of this Theory. The Failure of the Inquiry by the Dialectical Society.

Professor Huxley, Mr. G. H. Lewes. Absurdity and charlatanism of 'Spiritualism'. Historical aspect of the subject. Universality of Animistic Beliefs, in every stage of culture. Not peculiar to savagery, ignorance, the Dark Ages, or periods of Religious crisis.

Nature of the Evidence.

It is not without hesitation that this book is offered to the reader. Very many people, for very various reasons, would taboo the subjects here discoursed of altogether. These subjects are a certain set of ancient beliefs, for example the belief in clairvoyance, in 'hauntings,' in events transcending ordinary natural laws. The peculiarity of these beliefs is, that they have survived the wreck of faith in such elements of witchcraft as metamorphosis, and power to cause tempest or drought. To study such themes is 'impious,' or 'superst.i.tious,' or 'useless'. Yet to a pathologist, or anthropologist, the survivals of beliefs must always be curious and attractive ill.u.s.trations of human nature.

Ages, empires, civilisations pa.s.s, and leave some members even of educated mankind still, in certain points, on the level of the savage who propitiates with gifts, or addresses with prayers, the spirits of the dead.

An example of this endurance, this secular survival of belief, may be more instructive and is certainly more entertaining than a world of a.s.sertions. In his Etudes Egyptiennes (Tome i. fascic. 2) M.

Maspero publishes the text and translation of a papyrus fragment.

This papyrus was discovered still attached to a statuette in wood, representing 'the singer of Ammen, Kena,' in ceremonial dress. The doc.u.ment is a letter written by an ancient Egyptian scribe, 'To the Instructed Khou of the Dame Onkhari,' his own dead wife, the Khou, or Khu, being the spirit of that lady. The scribe has been 'haunted' since her decease, his home has been disturbed, he asks Onkhari what he has done to deserve such treatment: 'What wrong have I been guilty of that I should be in this state of trouble?

what have I done that thou should'st help to a.s.sail me? no crime has been wrought against thee. From the hour of my marriage till this day, what have I wrought against thee that I need conceal?'

He vows that, when they meet at the tribunal of Osiris, he will have right on his side.

This letter to the dead is deposited in the tomb of the dead, and we may trust that the scribe was no longer annoyed by a Khou, which being instructed, should have known better. To take another ancient instance, in his Philopseudes Lucian introduces a kind of club of superst.i.tious men, telling ghost stories. One of them a.s.sures his friend that the spectre of his late wife has visited and vexed him, because he had accidentally neglected to burn one of a pair of gilt shoes, to which she was attached. She indicated the place where the shoe was lying hidden, and she was pacified. Lucian, of course, treats this narrative in a spirit of unfeeling mirth, but, if such tales were not current in his time, there would have been no point in his banter. Thus the belief in the haunting of a husband by the spirit of his wife, the belief which drives a native Australian servant from the station where his gin is buried, survived old Egypt, and descended to Greece. We now take a modern instance, closely corresponding to that of the Instructed Khou of the Dame Onkhari.

In the Proceedings of the Psychical Society (part xiv. p. 477) the late General Campbell sends, from Gwalior House, Southgate, N., April 27, 1884, a tale of personal experiences and actions, which exactly reproduces the story of the Egyptian Scribe. The narrative is long and not interesting, except as an ill.u.s.tration of survival,-- in all senses of the word.

General Campbell says that his wife died in July, 1882. He describes himself as of advanced age, and cautious in forming opinions. In 1882 he had never given any consideration to 'the subject of ultra-mundane indications'. Yet he recounts examples of 'about thirty inexplicable sounds, as if inviting my attention specially, and two apparitions or visions, apparently of a carefully calculated nature, seen by a child visitor, a blood relation of my late wife, whom this child had never seen, nor yet any likeness of her'. The general then describes his house, a new one, and his unsuccessful endeavours to detect the cause of the knocks, raps, crashes, and other disturbances. Unable to discover any ordinary cause, he read some books on 'Spiritualism,' and, finally, addressed a note, as the Egyptian Scribe directed a letter, to the 'agent': {4} _Give three raps if from my deceased wife_!

He was rewarded by three crashing sounds, and by other peculiar phenomena. All these, unlike the scribe, he regarded as sent 'for my particular conviction and comfort'.

These instances prove that, from the Australian blacks in the Bush, who hear raps when the spirits come, to ancient Egypt, and thence to Greece, and last, in our own time, and in a London suburb, similar experiences, real or imaginary, are explained by the same hypothesis. No 'survival' can be more odd and striking, none more ill.u.s.trative of the permanence, in human nature, of certain elements. To examine these psychological curiosities may, or may not, be 'useful,' but, at lowest, the study may rank as a branch of Mythology, or of Folklore.

It is in the spirit of these sciences, themselves parts of a general historical inquiry into the past and present of our race, that we would glance at the anecdotes, legends, and superst.i.tions which are here collected. The writer has been chiefly interested in the question of the Evidence, its nature and motives, rather than in the question of Fact. It is desirable to know why independent witnesses, practically everywhere and always, tell the same tales.

To examine the origin of these tales is not more 'superst.i.tious'