FALLACIES OF TESTIMONY. 577 



my own inquiries into mesmerism, spiritualism, etc. The most diverse 

 accounts of the facts of a seance will be given by a believer and a 

 skeptic. One will declare that a table rose in the air, while another 

 (who had been watching its feet) is confident that it never left the 

 ground; a whole party of believers will affirm tliat they saw Mr. 

 Home float out of one window and in at another, while a single honest 

 skeptic declares that Mr, Home was sitting in his chair all the time. 

 And in this last case we have an example of a fact, of wMch there is 

 ample illustration, that during the prevalence of an epidemic delusion 

 the honest testimony of any number of individuals on one side, if given 

 under a " prepossession," is of no more weight than that of a single 

 adverse witness if so much. Thus I think it cannot be doubted by 

 any one who candidly studies the witchcraft trials of two centuries 

 back, that, as a rule, the witnesses really believed what they deposed 

 to as facts ; and it further seems pretty clear that in many instances 

 the persons incriminated were themselves "possessed" with the notion 

 of the reality of the occult powers attributed to them. No more 

 instructive lesson can be found, as to the importance of the "subjec- 

 tive " element in humfhi testimony, than is presented in the records 

 of these trials. Thus, Jane Brooks was hung at Chard assizes in 1658, 

 for having bewitched Richard Jones, a sprightly lad of twelve years 

 old ; he was seen to rise in the air and pass over a garden-wall some 

 thirty yards ; and nine people deposed to finding him, in open day- 

 light, with his hands flat against a beam at the top of the room, and 

 his body two or three feet from the ground ? If this " lev Jtation of the 

 human body," confirmed as it is in modeim times by the testimony of 

 Mr. Crookes, Lord Lindsay, and Lord Adair, to say nothing of the 

 dozen witnesses to Mrs. Gnjjpy's descent through the ceiling of a 

 closed and darkened room, has a valid claim on our belief, how are we 

 to stop short of accepting, on the like testimony, all the marvels and 

 extravagances of witchcraft ? If, on tlie other hand, we put these wit- 

 nesses out of court, as rendered untrustworthy by their " preposses- 

 sion," what credit can we attach to the testimony of any individuals 

 or bodies doraiixated by a strong religious " prepossession ;" that tes- 

 timony having neither been recorded at the time, nor subjected to the 

 test of judicial examination? 



Though I have hitherto spoken of " prepossessions " as ideational 

 states, there are very few in which the emotions do not take a share ; 

 and bow strongly the influence of these may pervert the representa- 

 tions of actual facts, we best see in that early stage of many forms of 

 monomania, in which there are as yet no fixed delusions, but the occur- 

 rences of daily life are wrongly interpreted by the emotional coloring 

 they receive. But we may recognize the same influence in matters 

 which are constantly passing under our observation ; and a better 

 illustration of it could scarcely be found than in the following circum- 

 stance, mentioned to me as having recently occurred in the practice 



VOL. Tin. 37 



