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a charge of sorcery as the cause of the phenomena. The Wesleys suspected that their house was bewitched.
But examples in witch trials are not usual. Mr. Graham Dalyell, however, gives one case, 'the firlote rynning
about with the stuff popling,' on the floor of a barn, and one where 'the sive and the wecht dancit throw the
hous'. {123b}
A clasped knife opened in the pocket of Christina Shaw, and her glove falling, it was lifted by a hand invisible
to several persons present. One is reminded of the nursery rhyme, 'the dish it ran after the spoon'. In the
presence of Home, even a bookcase is said to have forgotten itself, and committed the most deplorable
excesses. In the article of Mr. Myers, already cited, we find a table which jumps by the bedside of a dying
man. {124} A handbag of Miss Power's flies from an arm-chair, and hides under a table; raps are heard; all
this when Miss Power is alone. Mr. H. W. Gore Graham sees a table move about. A heavy table of Mr. G. A.
Armstrong's rises high in the air. A tea-table 'runs after' Professor Alexander, and 'attempts to hem me in,'
this was at Rio de Janeiro, in the Davis family, where raps 'ranged from hardly perceptible ticks up to
resounding blows, such as might be struck by a wooden mallet'. A Mr. H. falls into convulsions, during
which all sorts of things fly about. All these stories closely correspond to the tales in Increase Mather's
Remarkable Providences in New England, in which the phenomena sometimes occur in the presence of an
epileptic and convulsed boy, about 1680. To take one classic French case, Segrais declares that a M. Patris
was lodged in the Château d'Egmont. At dinner-time, he went into the room of a friend, whom he found lost
in the utmost astonishment. A huge book, Cardan's De Subtilitate, had flown at him across the room, and the
leaves had turned, under invisible fingers! There are plenty of bogles in that book. M. Patris laughed at this
tale, and went into the gallery, when a large chair, so heavy that two men could scarcely lift it, shook itself
and came at him. He remonstrated, and the chair returned to its usual position. 'This made a deep impression
on M. Patris, and contributed in no slight degree to make him a converted character' à le faire devenir devot.
{125a}
Tales like this, with that odd uniformity of tone and detail which makes them curious, might be collected from
old literature to any extent. Thus, among the sounds usually called 'rappings,' Mr. Crookes mentions, as
matter within his own experience, 'a cracking like that heard when a frictional machine is at work'. Now, as
may be read in Southey's Life of Wesley and in Clarke's Memoirs of the Wesleys, this was the very noise which
usually heralded the arrival of 'Jeffrey,' as they called the Epworth 'spirit'. {125b} It has been alleged that the
charming and ill-fated Hetty Wesley caused the disturbances. If so (and Dr. Salmon, who supports this
thesis, does not even hazard a guess as to the modus operandi), Hetty must have been familiar with almost the
whole extent of psychical literature, for she scarcely left a single phenomenon unrepresented. It does not
appear that she supplied visible 'hands'. We have seen Glanvill lay stress on the apparition of a hand. In the
case of the devil of Glenluce, 'there appeared a naked hand, and an arm from the elbow down, beating upon
the floor till the house did shake again'. {126a} At Rerrick, in 1695, 'it knocked upon the chests and boards,
COMPARATIVE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 44
Cock Lane and Common-Sense
as people do at a door'. 'And as I was at prayer,' says the Rev. Alexander Telfair, 'leaning on the side of a bed,
I felt something thrusting my arm up, and casting my eyes thitherward, perceived a little white hand, and an
arm from the elbow down, but it vanished presently.' {126b} The hands viewed, grasped, and examined by
Home's clientèle, hands which melted away in their clutch, are innumerable, and the phenomenon, with the
'cold breeze,' is among the most common in modern narratives.
Our only conclusion is that the psychological conditions which begat the ancient narratives produce the new
legends. These surprise us by the apparent good faith in marvel and myth of many otherwise credible
narrators, and by the coincidence, accidental or designed, with old stories not generally familiar to the modern
public. Do impostors and credulous persons deliberately 'get up' the subject in rare old books? Is there a
method of imposture handed down by one generation of bad little girls to another? Is there such a thing as
persistent identity of hallucination among the sane? This was Coleridge's theory, but it is not without
difficulties. These questions are the present results of Comparative Psychological Research.
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