My suggestion is that, in spite of his fantasies, the savage had possibly
drawn from his premises an inference not wholly, or not demonstrably
erroneous. As the sparks of the deer-skin indicated electricity, so the
strange lights in the night of human nature may indicate faculties which
science, till of late and in a few instances, has laughed at, ignored,
'thrown aside as worthless.'

It should be observed that I am not speaking of 'spiritualism,' a word of
the worst associations, inextricably entangled with fraud, bad logic, and
the blindest credulity. Some of the phenomena alluded to have, however,
been claimed as their own province by 'spiritists,' and need to be rescued
from them. Mr. Tylor writes:

'The issue raised by the comparison of savage, barbaric, and civilised
spiritualism is this: Do the Red Indian medicine-man, the Tatar
necromancer, the Highland ghost-seer, and the Boston medium, share the
possession of belief and knowledge of the highest truth and import,
which, nevertheless, the great intellectual movement of the last two
centuries has simply thrown aside as worthless?'

_Distinguo!_ That does not seem to me to be the issue. In my opinion the
issue is: 'Have the Red Indian, the Tatar, the Highland seer, and the
Boston medium (the least reputable of the menagerie) observed, and
reasoned wildly from, and counterfeited, and darkened with imposture,
certain genuine by-products of human faculty, which do not _prima facie_
deserve to be thrown aside?'

That, I venture to think, is the real issue. That science may toss aside
as worthless some valuable observations of savages is now universally
admitted by people who know the facts. Among these observations is the