and in Iamblichus. {0c} Anthropology has treasured the accounts of
trials by the ordeal of fire, and has not neglected the tales of old
travellers, such as Pallas, and Gmelin. Why she should stand aloof
from analogous descriptions by Mr. Basil Thomson, and other living
witnesses, the present writer is unable to imagine. The better, the
more closely contemporary the evidence, the more a witness of the
abnormal is ready to submit to cross-examination, the more his
testimony is apt to be neglected by Folklorists. Of course, the
writer is not maintaining that there is anything 'psychical' in
fire-walking, or in fire-handling. Put it down as a trick. Then as
a trick it is so old, so world-wide, that we should ascertain the
modus of it. Mr. Clodd, following Sir B. W. Richardson, suggests
the use of diluted sulphuric acid, or of alum. But I am not aware
that he has tried the experiment on his own person, nor has he
produced an example in which it was successfully tried. Science
demands actual experiment.

The very same remarks apply to 'Crystal-Gazing'. Folklore welcomes
it in legend or in classical or savage divination. When it is
asserted that a percentage of living and educated and honourable
people are actually hallucinated by gazing into crystals, the
President of the Folklore Society (Mr. Clodd) has attributed the
fact to a deranged liver. {0d} This is a theory like another, and,
like another, can be tested. But, if it holds water, then we have
discovered the origin of the world-wide practice of crystal-gazing.
It arises from an equally world-wide form of hepatic malady.

In answer to all that has been urged here, anthropologists are wont
to ejaculate that blessed word 'Survival'. Our savage, and
mediaeval, and Puritan ancestors were ignorant and superstitious;