My qualities, in the field of study, are first, I venture to think, a fixed desire to be sportsmanlike – ‘at least as far as I am able’ – and, in the second place, familiarity with the historical, the folk-lorish, and the anthropological aspects of the topics which we study.

These aspects do not greatly interest the Society, for what the Society desires is ‘modern instances,’ fresh evidence from just persons ready to submit to cross-examination. But in my own mind the enormous volume of historical and anthropological reports of supernormal phenomena, and their striking uniformity with alleged modern experiences, produces the conviction that so much smoke can only be explained by the existence of some fire. I must not speak of the psychical experiences of savages; these, for want of contemporary records duly attested, are illustrative, not evidential. Nor must I, for the same reason, dilate on the strange stories of the psychical experiences of men of genius. This is a most curious theme. Among such cases, in various degrees, I have observed those in the wraith Byron, seen by Sir Robert Peel; of incidents in the lives of George Sand, Goethe, Dickens, Thackeray, Lord Nelson, Dr. Donne, Shelley; the last words of de Quincey – a most pathetic story; – the experiences of Sir Walter Scott; and – a record, from his own pen, of the Duke of Wellington. But this is ‘the blue smoke’ of literature; and of history, you will say. Still, with this blue smoke there is some fire, as the cause thereof. The Duke of Wellington, in a private letter of his, published in Sir Herbert Maxwell's Life of that great man, could not guess that he was playing into the hands of Mr. Myers's theory of the Subliminal Self, and Mr. Myers obviously never read the letter.

To be fair is the first thing of all, and I dare to say that the Society has been fair. It is not in human nature not to make mistakes, and never to be inclined to accept evidence which examination proves to be erroneous; never to indulge in hypotheses which criticism demonstrates to be worthless. But when the Society has been deceived, it has not concealed the fact, and, as to hypotheses, as a Society we have none.