These stories may be looked at from two standpoints, and no doubt the standpoint the reader chooses will be dictated by personal taste and previous knowledge of the subject under discussion. They may be regarded as fiction, designed, like the conversation of the Fat Boy recorded in The Pickwick Papers, "to make your flesh creep," or they may be considered to be what they actually are, studies in little-known aspects of psychology put in the form of fiction because, if published as a serious contribution to science, they would have no chance of a hearing.