248 MATURE AND MAN. 



every observer, and to which the most conscientious have 

 frequently yielded ; but I do not know any more striking illustra- 

 tions of it than I could narrate from my own inquiries into mes- 

 merism, spiritualism, etc. The most diverse accounts of the 

 facts of a seance will be given by a believer and a sceptic. 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 that they saw Mr. Home float 

 out of one window and in at another, whilst a single honest 

 sceptic 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 

 which there is ample illustration, that during the prevalence of an 

 epidemic delusion the honest testimony of any number of indi- 

 viduals 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 wit- 

 nesses 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 in- 

 structive lesson can be found, as to the importance of the 

 "subjective" element in human 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 daylight, 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 " levitation of the human body," 

 confirmed as it is in modern times by the testimony of Mr. 

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

 dozen witnesses to Mrs. Guppy'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 the other 

 hand, we put these witnesses out of court, as rendered un- 

 trustworthy by their "prepossession," what credit can we attach 



