necdotes of movements of objects
untouched.[11]

By a happy accident, as this chapter was passing through the press, a
scientific account of a demoniac and his cure was published by Dr. Pierre
Janet.[12] Dr. Janet has explained, with complete success, everything in
the matter of possession, except the facts which, in the opinion of Dr.
Nevius, were in need of explanation. These facts did not occur in the case
of the demoniac 'exorcised' by Dr. Janet. Thus the learned essay of that
eminent authority would not have satisfied Dr. Nevius. The facts in which
he was interested did not present themselves in Dr. Janet's patient, and
so Dr. Janet does not explain them.

The simplest plan, here, is to deny that the facts in which Dr. Nevius
believes ever present themselves at all; but, if they ever do, Dr. Janet's
explanation does not explain them.

1. His patient, Achille, did _not_ act out a new personality.

2. Achille displayed _no_ knowledge or intellectual power which he did not
possess in his normal state.

3. His moral character was _not_ completely changed; he was only more
hypochondriacal and hysterical than usual.

Achille was a poor devil of a French tradesman who, like Captain Booth,
had infringed the laws of strict chastity and virtue. He brooded on this
till he became deranged, and thought that Satan had him. He was convulsed,
anaesthetic, suicidal, involuntarily blasphemous. He was not 'exorcised'
by a prayer or by a command, but after a long course of mental and
physical treatment. His cure does not explain the cures in which Dr.
Nevius believed. His case did not present the features of which Dr.
Nevius asked science for an explanation. Dr. Janet's essay is the
_dernier cri_ of science, and leaves Dr. Nevius just where it found him.

Science, therefore, can, and does, tell Dr. Nevius that his evidence for
his facts is worthless, through the lips of Professor W. Romaine Newbold,
in 'Proceedings, S.P.R.,' February 1898 (pp. 602-604). And the same
number of the same periodical shows us Dr. Hodgson accepting facts similar
to those of Dr. Nevius, and explaining them by--possession! (p. 406).

Dr. Nevius's observations practically cover the whole field of
'possession' in non-European peoples. But other examples from other areas
are here included.

A rather impressive example of possession may be selected from
Livingstone's 'Missionary Travels' (p. 86). The adventurous Sebituane was
harried by the Matabele in