| | | What is Superstition? Everyone | has a tolerably clear notion of what he means by the word; but | if he attempts a definition of it, such as will suit general use, he | will find himself considerably perplexed. Dr. Maitland was once | asked to write the article “Superstition” for a cyclopaedia. He | declined; but the proposal led him to inquire into the subject, | and his conclusion was, that people do not precisely know | what they mean by the word: ~~ | The conclusion, then, to which Dr. Maitland points, is that men | consider those who believe more than they do to be | superstitious: ~~ | To illustrate the views here implied, Dr. Maitland has written a | very able and agreeable essay ~~ able, we mean, as a | defence of his own position, though we think that position false, | and agreeable in the felicity of its illustrations. | It seems to us, that had Dr. Maitland pushed his inquiries | further, he would have seen clearly the force of the arguments | which annihilate table-turning, spirit-rapping, and clairvoyance; | and he would have understood the real meaning of the contest | between Science and Superstition, which, if we may say it | without impertinence, he does not seem to have thoroughly | seized. | We are not prepared with a definition of the word Superstition, | but we think that if all the cases which are classed under that | head be considered in what is characteristic, they will be found | to be cases in which Presumptions are elevated into | Dogmas. Superstition belongs to the region above | evidence. Different minds will place the boundary line at | different altitudes; but all minds will place it somewhere, and | beyond the line superstition begins. Thus those who | call belief in ghost superstitious, do so because they declare | there is no evidence, but only hallucination, fancy, | presumption, for the belief. | Now, as soon as we have reduced the question to one of | evidence, we have not indeed settled it, but simplified it. The | ground is circumscribed; the errant tendencies of

“man’s large | discourse of reason”

are kept within definite limits. Dr. | Maitland distrusts All the scientific explanations of modern | mysteries, believing the superstitious faith in mysteries to be | more philosophical: ~ | Against unreasoning scepticism we are as ready to fight as Dr. | Maitland himself; but we protest against unreasoning credulity. | He has given us no canon of belief, no criterion at all. Are we | to accept every astounding proposition? Are we to believe | every miracle? Are we never to doubt? And if doubt is | permissible, when? What are the grounds upon which to justify | the rejection of a cock-and-bull story? | Dr. Maitland, like thousands of other cultivated men, seems to | think that personal respectability is a guarantee for facts (pp. | 19, 20), not at all suspecting the excessive complexity of those |

“matters of fact” ,/p> which are thought to be so simple. On this | point, to save repetition, we beg to refer our readers to a former | article in this journal (No. 9, p. 162). It was there shown that a |

“fact”

is, in nine cases out of ten, a bundle of inferences, | by no means to be implicitly accepted. Dr. Maitland, not aware | of the fallacious nature of statements

“relating to matters of | fact,”

and apparently seeing no alternative but fraud and | imposture unless the statements are credible, constantly | refers to the testimony of respectable witnesses, and does not | perceive that their testimony is worthless, because in truth | they do not and cannot testify to the real case. For example, | he quotes the testimony of a Mr. Prichard, a Fellow of the | College of Surgeons, who wrote a pamphlet against | Table-turning, and who, in a second edition, retracted his | arguments, with praiseworthy candour, having subsequently | seem reason to doubt their correctness. Surely here is a most | trustworthy witness! A gentleman belonging to a scientific | profession, a man candid enough to avow his former pamphlet | fallacious, is, one would say, worth a host of

“highly | respectable”

witnesses. Well, now observe the nature of his | testimony: ~~ Mr. Prichard testifies to the fact | of the tables mounting into space. So far his evidence is | decisive. But no-one ever doubted | such facts. Unless tables had moved, we should | not have heard of table-turning; no hypothetical

“spirit,” |

or

“electricity,”

or

“volitional projection” |

could have been offered as explanations. | Mr. Prichard, then, testifying what he did see, | adds nothing to our knowledge. But he is not satisfied with that | ~~ he testifies to what he did not see. He declares, | in unequivocal language, that | was the contact of the fingers. Who told him that there was no | other agent? He did not discover one! But he cannot discover | the agent in a conjuror’s tricks. If there was fraud in this case, | and the trick was successful, how could Mr. Prichard’s | non-detection of it guarantee

“the fact”

that there was | no other agent used except the agent he detected? And if there was no | fraud in this case ~~ if the contact of six fingers with the table | really was all does Mr. Prichard pretend to testify to | the

“fact”

of the contact being simply | contact, and not also pressure? | People are so confused in their notions of what a fact is, that | they get angry when their testimony is doubted. It seems of | simple a matter of fact when a man says,

“I did not push,”

| that he reddens with wrath if you tell him you doubt his assertion. | He does not perceive that, although

“I did not push”

is a | simple statement of fact, it is not a simple fact , but a | delicate and complex fact, which he is stating. If he merely | said,

“I was not conscious of pushing,”

he would | state a simple fact; but by substituting

“I did not,”

| for

“I was not conscious,”

he has relegated | the question to another category. | The physiologist will tell him of a multitude of unconscious | efforts which are very effective although unconscious. He is | not conscious, for example, of the adjustment of muscles | which keeps his head erect, his body rest, which directs his | motions; yet, if the approach of sleep relax those efforts, he | quickly becomes aware of them.