In 1880, the philosopher Alexander Bain complained about the way in which Victorian society disciplined its children. While he saw many methods as ineffectual, he reserved his greatest hostility to what he dubbed “spiritual, ghostly, or supernatural terrors”. 1 Bain was a rationalist, heavily influenced by the utilitarian philosophers of the early 19th century, and his hostility towards what he regarded as superstition is therefore hardly surprising. What disturbed him most, however, was not the nature of this means of disciplining children, but its ubiquity; in a society that wished to regard itself as rational and modern, most children were frightened into quiescence by the threat of supernatural terrors.
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