436 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



narratives such as those related by Mr. Owen, is 

 altogether unwarrantable in the presence of all that is 

 known about the nature and the laws of evidence. In 

 works like Mr. Owen's the author is witness, judge, 

 and advocate (especially advocate) in one. Those who 

 do not agree with him have not only no power of 

 cross-examining, but they commonly have neither time 

 nor inclination to obtain specific evidence on their side 

 of the question. It requires indeed some considerable 

 degree of faith in the supernatural to undertake the 

 deliberate examination of the evidence adduced for 

 ghost stories by which I mean, not the study of the 

 story as related, but the actual questioning of the 

 persons concerned, as well as an examination of the 

 scene and all the circumstances of the event. Therefore 

 I cannot see any force in the following remarks by Pro- 

 fessor Wallace : ' How is such evidence as this,' he 

 says, speaking of one of Owen's stories, c refuted or 

 explained away ? Scores, and even hundreds of equally 

 attested facts are on record, but no attempt is made to 

 explain them. They are simply ignored, and in many 

 cases admitted to be inexplicable.' Yet this is not 

 quite satisfactory, as any reader of Mr. Owen's book 

 will be inclined to admit. Punch once made a Yankee 

 debtor say 



This debt I have repudiated long ago ; 

 'Tis therefore settled. Yet this Britisher 

 Keeps for repayment worritting me still. 



So our philosophers declare that they have long ago 

 decided these ghost stories to be all delusions ; there- 



