not a very valid authority; there is plenty of better evidence than his,
but Mr. Tylor passes it by, merely remarking that 'modern Europe has kept
closely enough to the lines of early philosophy.' Modern Europe has indeed
done so, if it explains the supernormal acquisition of knowledge, or the
hallucinatory appearance of a distant person to his friend by a theory of
wandering 'spirits.' But facts do not cease to be facts because wrong
interpretations have been put upon them by savages, by Jung-Stilling, or
by anyone else. The real question is, Do such events occur among lower and
higher races, beyond explanation by fraud and fortuitous coincidence? We
gladly grant that the belief in Animism, when it takes the form of a
theory of 'wandering spirits,' is probably untenable, as it is assuredly
of savage origin. But we are not absolutely so sure that in this aspect
the theory is not based on actual experiences, not of a normal and
ordinary kind. If so, the savage philosophy and its supposed survivals in
belief will appear in a new light. And we are inclined to hold that an
examination of the mass of evidence to which Mr. Tylor offers here so
slight an allusion will at least make it wise to suspend our judgment,
not only as to the origins of the savage theory of spirits, but as to the
materialistic hypothesis of the absence of a psychical element in man.

I may seem to have outrun already the limits of permissible hypothesis. It
may appear absurd to surmise that there can exist in man, savage or
civilised, a faculty for acquiring information not accessible by the known
channels of sense, a faculty attributed by savage philosophers to the
wandering soul. But one may be permitted to quote the opinion of
M. Charles Richet, Professor of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine
in Paris. It is not cited because M. Richet is a professor of physiology,
but because he reached his conclusion after six years of minute
experiment. He says: 'There exists in certain persons, at certain moments,
a faculty of acquiring knowledge which has no _rapport_ with our normal