Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/402

378 does not aid us in the investigation,—except (and that undesignedly) by his researches in the psychology of ants. He merely does not believe that our studies "are likely to throw any light upon the great mystery of existence." After all that is only his private opinion, a pious opinion, perhaps, but purely personal. I do not expect to throw much "light on the great mystery of existence," but I do think that human faculties are not beneath the notice of the science of man, and of human nature. "She is a rum one, Nature," said the contemplative teacher, Mr. Squeers; and Hamlet made a well-known remark, of similar tendency, to Horatio. Lord Avebury thinks that we "have better grounds of hope" than anything in our line of psychical research. But Dr. Johnson "asked for more," and to more I have no objection. As Lord Avebury "does not regret" our attention to an obscure but decidedly lively field of human nature, I can cultivate it with "a conscience like the sea at rest." As to "better methods of investigation," if Lord Avebury has any kind of psychical story to tell, he will find that our methods of investigation are, to put it mildly, extremely harassing to the percipient.