'Psychical planes' had not been invented; hypnotism, with its problems,
had not been much noticed in England. But 'Spiritualism' was flourishing.
Mr. Tylor did not ignore this revival of savage philosophy. He saw very
well that the end of the century was beholding the partial rehabilitation
of beliefs which were scouted from 1660 to 1850. Seventy years ago, as Mr.
Tylor says, Dr. Macculloch, in his 'Description of the Western Islands of
Scotland,' wrote of 'the famous Highland second sight' that 'ceasing to be
believed it has ceased to exist.'[25]

Dr. Macculloch was mistaken in his facts. 'Second sight' has never
ceased to exist (or to be believed to exist), and it has recently been
investigated in the 'Journal' of the Caledonian Medical Society. Mr. Tylor
himself says that it has been 'reinstated in a far larger range of
society, and under far better circumstances of learning and prosperity.'
This fact he ascribes generally to 'a direct revival from the regions of
savage philosophy and peasant folklore,' a revival brought about in great
part by the writings of Swedenborg. To-day things have altered. The
students now interested in this whole class of alleged supernormal
phenomena are seldom believers in the philosophy of Spiritualism in the
American sense of the word.[26]

Mr. Tylor, as we have seen, attributes the revival of interest in this
obscure class of subjects to the influence of Swedenborg. It is true, as
has been shown, that Swedenborg attracted the attention of Kant. But
modern interest has chiefly been aroused and kept alive by the phenomena
of hypnotism. The interest is now, among educated students, really
scientific.

Thus Mr. William James, Professor of Psychology in the University of
Harvard, writes: