if von helrung should succeed-if we allow our noble cause to be reduced to the study of the silly superstitions of the masses-so that we jibber-jabber on about the nature of the vampire or the zombie as if they sat at the same table as the manticore and the anthropophagus , then monstrumology is as dead as alchemy , as ridiculous as astrology , as serious as one of mr. barnum 's sideshow freaks !