HAUNTED HOUSES. By Camille Flammarion. (T. Fisher Unwin. 12s. 6d.
net.) Certain people are so constituted that they are unable to accept positive evidence of the ultra-normal, however reliable and fully documented it may be. Personal experi- ence is their sole criterion ; the, statements of others: must go by the board. They fail to realise how extremely limited would be their range of beliefs were they 'eoneistently to regard the test of personal experience in all matters as alone conclusive. This class of person:1=st indeed be irritating to scientific psychical researchers, but they -should realize by now that this one-sidedness is to them inevitable rather than wilful. M. Flammarion wastes much effort and space in attempting to convince the unconvinceable of the reality of the phenomena which he describes. Haunted Houses contains many valuable and interesting accounts of ultra- normal happenings, but it is not an exceptional contribution to metapsychical literature on account of its faulty arrangement and lack of classification. Ernest Bozzano's book on Haunting still remains the standard iwork on this subject. M. Flammarion would have done well to have adopted that writer's classification or some modification of it in the arrange- ment of his material for publication. At the same time we must once more acknowledge our indebtedness to the dis- tinguished astronomer for giving us further selections from the immense :wealth of tnetapsychical reeords which he has acquired with so much labour, courage and single-mindedness.
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