THE greater number of ghost stories — perhaps nearly the whole of them — are generally disbelieved in the nineteenth century. Few persons will dispute the propriety and justice of this result. Many of the stories represent the ghosts as beings of so foolish and unmeaning a character, that respect for the spirits of the departed almost enforces unbelief. Many have been explained by physical and even commonplace and vulgar causes — such as rats, starlings, and even mischievous boys and girls, or wicked people who have some purpose to gain by deluding their neighbours into belief in a supernatural visitation. Falsehood, imagination, exaggeration, and that peculiar process of evolution or growth which goes on when a story passes from mouth to mouth — vires acquirit eundo — account for a large portion. And, lastly, there are many stories which would be remarkable if they could be substantiated, but which it is impossible to lay hold of in their original form, and the basis of which, therefore, it is impossible to estimate as to its reality or unreality.

       The most sceptical person, however, will allow that there are to be found in the midst of the rabble and mob of ghost stories certain narratives of a very respectable and even solemn aspect, which it is not easy entirely to put on one side as manifestly fictitious, and which certainly do not seem to be chargeable with obviously puerile or anile absurdity. There is, for example, a remarkable class of stories depending upon one alleged fact — namely, the appearance of a person deceased, nearly at the moment of decease, to some other person to whom the deceased has been known in life. These stories may be described as well-nigh legion; there are several which may be mentioned as even deserving the epithet of classical; and they seem to be occurring in this rationalistic nineteenth century as frequently as in the less enlightened centuries which have preceded it. Whatever else may be said of stories of this class, at least it cannot and must not be said that they are so absurd and childish that they are unworthy of the slightest consideration on the part of sensible and thoughtful men.

       Reflection upon this class of story has led me to some speculative thoughts of a partly physical and partly spiritual kind, which, I think, may possibly be interesting; possibly, also, useful and suggestive, and which therefore I have written down, and now submit to the consideration of the candid and thoughtful reader.

       It will, however, make my paper more readable, and therefore will assist the purpose which I have in view, if I introduce the subject by telling a story of the kind above indicated, which was lately told in my presence by the person concerned — which has, I believe, not been in print before, and which will bring vividly before the reader's mind the kind of apparition, or alleged apparition, upon which I desire in this paper chiefly to fix his thoughts.

       A Cambridge student, my informant, had arranged, some years ago, with a fellow-student that they should meet together in Cambridge at a certain time for the purpose of reading. A short time before going up to keep his appointment my informant was in the South of England. Waking in the night he saw, as he imagined, his friend sitting at the foot of his bed. He was surprised by the sight, the more so as his friend was dripping with water: he spoke, but the apparition, for so it seems to have been, only shook its head and disappeared. This appearance of the absent friend occurred twice during the night. Information was soon received that, shortly before the time of the apparition being seen by the young student, his friend had been drowned while bathing.

       This story has the typical features of a whole class. The essential characteristic is the recognition, after physical dissolution, of a deceased person, by one who has known him in his lifetime, in the form which distinguished him while a member of the living human family. Stories of this class contain, in a simple, humble, prosaic form, the features of Shakespeare's magnificent poetical creation in "Hamlet." It will be remembered how, in this case, the poet lays stress upon the identity of appearance between the deceased king and the ghost:—

Marcellus — Is it not like the king? Horatio — As thou art to thyself: Such was the very armour he had on, When he the ambitious Norway combated: So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle, He smote the sledded Polack on the ice. 'Tis strange.

       Again:—

Hamlet — His beard was grizzled: No? Horatio — It was as I have seen it in his life, A sable silvered.

       Observe, not merely the face and features, but the armour also, identifying the apparition with the deceased king.

       Now let me pass from the spiritual to the physical, and endeavour to expound some notions concerning real vision and supposed vision of objects, which may be useful in helping us to form something like a rationale of such apparitions as those of which I have been speaking.

       Most persons, in these days of science and science-gossip, I suppose, know something of the manner in which vision is produced, so far at least as the process can be known. It will be necessary, however, for my purpose briefly to describe the process.

       When an object is placed before the eye, the light emanating from each point of the object falls upon the eye, and having passed through the several lenses and humours of which the eye is composed, is made to converge upon a point in the screen or retina which constitutes the hinder portion of the eye; and so a picture is formed upon the retina, much in the same way as in the photographer's camera-obscura. In fact, the eye may be described with some advantage, and without much error, as being a living camera-obscura. The retina is in reality the expanded extremity of the optic nerve, which communicates with the brain; our object, therefore, by means of the machinery of the eye, is placed in immediate communication with the brain; every wave of light from each point of the object produces a vibration on the retina, and so presumably on the brain. After this our physical investigation comes to an end — the vibrations of light from our visible object are lost in mystery. It is no exaggeration to say that we know nothing more than men knew centuries ago. A man says, "I see a ship;" and he tells the truth, but how he sees it neither he nor any one else can tell. You track the ship to its picture on the retina, but there you must leave it: even if you say that you can connect it with the brain, you have still an infinite gap between the impression on the brain and the result expressed by the words "I see."

       The fact is, that in vision we have a demonstrable transition from the physical to the spiritual; how the transition takes place it baffles our intellect and our imagination even to guess, but that there is such a transition no one can doubt. The electric telegraph conveys its vibrations along the wires and affects the receiving instrument (whatever it may be) at the other end of the wire, but you need your receiving clerk to interpret the vibrations and make intelligible the message conveyed. And there is quite as definite a transformation and transition in the case of sight, when the visual message from an external object has been received by the brain; the brain is the receiving instrument, the receiving clerk is the mind of man.

       This being so, is it not at least conceivable that, as the object moves the visual machinery of the eye, and this machinery moves the mind, so if the mind be directly moved (supposing for a moment that this is possible), the result may be the movement of the visual machinery, or at all events the production of the impression that it has been so moved?^*

* The distinction between ordinary vision and the reverse process suggested in the text may be represented thus — Ordinary process. Sight — Brain-effect — Knowledge. Extraordinary process. Knowledge — Brain-effect — Sight.

       To illustrate my meaning, take the case of the ringing of a bell. The pulling of the bell-rope causes the bell to give forth a sound; if you hear that sound, you conclude that the rope has been pulled; and if the bell should, in reality, have been rung by some one who had immediate access to it, you would still, in default of other knowledge, conclude, though erroneously, that the sound arose from the pulling of the rope.

       Now let it be supposed, for argument's sake, that the mind can be acted upon otherwise than through the senses. The senses, as we all know, are the ordinary avenues to the mind, especially the two highest of the senses — namely, seeing and hearing; still it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that there may be other avenues. If man has a spiritual nature which is embodied in a fleshly tenement — which is at least a reasonable supposition, and corresponds almost to a human instinct — and if there be spiritual beings which are not so embodied, then it would seem not unreasonable to suppose that those spiritual beings should be able to hold converse with the spiritual part of men without the use of those avenues which the senses supply, and which are the only means whereby one material being can communicate with another. To take the highest example of all: it seems reasonable to suppose that God can, and does, communicate directly with the spirit of man. Certainly this is assumed in Holy Scripture, and it is difficult to conceive of any form of religion in which the possibility of commerce between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man does not constitute an important element. The notion of actions being inspired by God, or of communications which may properly be expressed by the phrase "God said," or "Thus saith the Lord," does not, to say the very least, strike the mind as an impossible or even as a strange notion. On the other hand, the difficulty is rather to conceive of God as a spiritual being, to whose will and power the being of mankind is due, without recognizing, as a first principle, the possibility of communication between God and that part of man which may be said to be most akin to Himself.

       Let us go a step further. Is it not conceivable that the spiritual part of man, when "set free from the burden of the flesh," may (under conditions which we, of course, are not in a position to determine) have communication with the spiritual part of another man who still lives in the body? I do not at all say that we could anticipate by the power of reason that this would be so; but I can see nothing unreasonable in supposing it possible, and if phenomena should be in favour of the hypothesis, I think the hypothesis could not be set aside by any à priori considerations. The only thing really postulated by the supposition is the double being of man, material and spiritual, which almost every one concedes, and which many consider to be self-evident. I conclude, therefore, that the supposition of some kind of intercourse taking place between the spirit of one departed and the spirit of a living man is not absolutely absurd and incredible.

       But if this be so, we arrive at a case similar to that of the bell being rung without any pull upon the rope. In other words, may it not be, that a communication made directly by one spirit to another may seem to arise from that action of the senses to which mental impressions are usually due? I lose a friend, and that friend is able (I know not how or why) to communicate with me; his spirit makes itself known to my spirit; I become conscious of his presence by a direct though inexplicable spiritual action; what more probable than the supposition that this direct communication will seem to have been made through the senses? In fact, as being myself subject to the laws of sense, could I be conscious of my friend's presence in any other way than by imagining that I saw his form or that I heard his voice?

       To take the case the particulars of which I have already related. If we suppose that the student who was drowned was able to hold, at the moment after his decease by drowning, some kind of spiritual communication with his friend in Cambridge, is it not conceivable that the spiritual communication would transform itself into a brain action by the reverse of the process according to which brain action normally transforms itself into a spiritual communication, and that so the effect would be the production of a persuasion in the mind of the student in Cambridge that he actually saw with his eyes his absent friend? ^*

* A friend, to whom this essay was submitted in manuscript, has remarked that nothing which I have advanced gets rid of the difficulty arising from the irregularity and apparent caprice of the communications between the living world and the world of spirits, which must be admitted, if the truth of such stories as that above discussed, be granted. The criticism is quite correct, and it cannot be denied that irregularity and apparent caprice are formidable difficulties in the way of a frank acceptance of the stories. The extent, however, of my own acceptance, and all that I ask from the reader, is the acknowledgment that the testimony is too good to permit of a haughty dismissal of the allegation of apparitions of the kind described. The speculation which I have submitted does not increase any of the difficulties connected with the subject; while, on the supposition that apparitions are sometimes permitted, it helps us to conceive how the effect of the apparition is conveyed to the mind.

       This view of apparitions has the advantage of explaining a difficulty, which I think Coleridge is credited with having been the person to suggest, though in truth the difficulty is sufficiently obvious. It is alleged that one person sees another who is departed; but then what he sees is, for the most part, merely the clothes of the departed, and not the man himself. On the other hand, if there is an apparition at all, how can the departed be recognized by him to whom he appears, except by the fact of the same appearance being presented which characterized the deceased in his lifetime? You may say it is the ghost of the clothes and not of the man, if you please; but if ghost there is to be at all, the clothes must somehow appear to identify the man; you cannot conceive of a nebulous figure with the name of the deceased written under it. Now all this difficulty vanishes if the process by which an apparition is rendered possible be such as that which I have ventured to suggest. Grant the possibility of communication between spirit and spirit, and regard the so-called apparition as the brain representation of the spiritual communication, and then it seems to follow of necessity that the appearance being supplied by the living man's own mind will represent the departed person as the survivor knew him.

       The rationale of apparitions which has been suggested will, perhaps, receive confirmation from the consideration, that instances occur in which the full sense of vision is produced by the brain itself, without any suspicion of what may be called preternatural agency. The following story was related to me some years ago, in the presence of one of the persons to whom the event described happened, and who vouched for its truth:—

       A lady with a family of young children was occupying a house in Cheltenham, while the husband and father was absent on business in Scotland. Looking out of the windows of a back drawing-room upon a small garden, which communicated by a door with a back lane, several of the children saw the garden-door open and their father walk through and come towards the house. They were surprised, because they were not expecting their father's return; but uttering a shout of joy, several of the party ran downstairs, there to find, to their disappointment and sorrow, that no father had arrived. So strong was the illusion that when the father did return, a week or more afterwards, he was reproached for having played some trick, of which he was perfectly innocent. I ought to add that the curious illusion which has been described had no consequences of any kind — good, bad, or indifferent; no one died, no one was taken ill, no family event of any sort took place; the whole thing was an illusion, and nothing more.

       It is however curious, as having been shared by several persons; the member of the family, whom I knew, and in whose presence I heard the story, assured me that she never saw anything in her life more distinct than her father seemed to her to be, and that her sisters had said the same. It is easy to say that the thing was all imagination; and so far as this phrase is intended as a negation of substantial reality, no doubt it expresses the truth; but what is imagination? Is it more than a word? Does it express the physical and spiritual action by means of which a certain result is brought about? If the phrase " result of imagination" be examined as to its real meaning, it would seem to me that it probably means this: that an effect is somehow, it matters not how, produced upon the mind, and that this mental product affects the brain by an action the reverse of that which normally takes place, and that so the eye believes that it sees what in the ordinary sense of vision it does not.

       I may remark by the way that the eye is easily deceived. No language is more delusive than that which one hears so frequently — "I cannot doubt my own eyes," "seeing is believing," " ocular demonstration," &c. &c. It is true that in most of the practical affairs of life we are compelled to trust our eyes — we have nothing else upon which we can depend; but the moment we come to any scientific investigation of facts, the less we say concerning the infallibility of the eye the better.

       The chief reason why I have cited the story last told is that the illusion was shared by several persons. In this respect, I believe the fact detailed is very uncommon; for myself, I have never met with another instance; cases in which one person only is concerned are, I apprehend, by no means rare. One was made public not long ago, in which the writer describes the apparent vision of an old man sitting in an easy-chair in the library in which he himself was writing late at night. The apparition was of a purely subjective kind: it evidently arose from the condition of brain which had been induced by night study: it caused no alarm, as an objective vision almost certainly would have done; in ordinary parlance, it was " all imagination." Still the fact remains that the writer who detailed his experience in a certain sense saw the figure sitting in the armchair as distinctly as he ever saw anything in his life; and what I wish to suggest is, that in a certain sense he did see it, but he saw it backwards; first came the thought, then the brain action, then it may be the picture on the retina, or at all events such optic action as would, if it had been caused by luminous vibrations from without, have affected the brain and raised the picture which existed in the mind.

       Connected with this subject is probably that of dreams. John Bunyan's phrase, "Now I saw in my dream," is a representation of what takes place abundantly in common life, though on a much humbler scale. People see in their dreams; but how do they see? A writer of a letter, which I saw recently in one of the newspapers, describes a dream which he had when an undergraduate at Cambridge, and in which he saw a large herd of cattle. The vision connected itself with a succession of events which were flashed upon his mind; and the whole was apparently the result of a knock at his door, and an announcement that his bedmaker had brought his kettle. The similarity of the words kettle and cattle was sufficient to constitute the basis of the whole dream. In what way then, I say, do men see in their dreams? Certainly the vision does not commence with the eye, for it is closed. In some manner the effect is produced upon the mind, — in the instance just quoted, apparently through the ear, — and then the vision, or quasi-vision, follows. I do not assert that there is any picture produced upon the retina; probably not; but virtually the effect of vision is produced, sometimes most distinctly. Who has not had an experience of the following kind? You see in your dream some scene with peculiar vividness. You say, I have often been deceived by a dream before, but I am sure that this is not a dream; it is too living, too real; I cannot be deceived this time. And then you wake, and find that nevertheless you are deceived once more. It may be wrong to call this mental process seeing, because the eye is shut; but if the result be the same as that of seeing, it would seem to be not altogether erroneous to describe it by that name. What I wish the reader, however, to observe is, that somehow in sleep the mind can be affected as if by sight. Generally the vision so produced is of a very confused and unprofitable kind. But there are cases in which it is otherwise. Crimes have sometimes come to light in this way. I remember that, some fifty years ago, the execution took place of a young man, at Bury St. Edmunds, for the murder of his newly married wife. The young man, William Corder by name, had married a young woman named Maria Martin; they had gone away after the marriage, and all seemed to be well with them; but the mother of the bride dreamed several times that her daughter was murdered and buried in a certain barn. The barn was examined, the body was found, the murder was traced to the husband, and he was executed, as already stated. Now I do not assert any supernatural revelation, or any appearance of the deceased woman to her mother; I am quite content to suppose that some circumstances, I know not what, had suggested the thought of foul play to the mother, and that this thought presented itself in a concrete form to the sleeping woman; all that I wish to lay stress upon is this, that sometimes and somehow there is something which corresponds to vision in sleep, and that this vision does not always correspond to what is trivial and transitory: "the stuff that dreams are made of" is sometimes solid and real.^*

* Almost immediately after writing the above paragraph, I met with the following in a local newspaper; —   DISCOVERY THROUGH A DREAM. — The coroner for West Kent held an inquest at Lewisham, on Tuesday, on the body of Ernest Louis Armstrong, clerk, aged twenty-one, residing lately with his brother, a chemist. Some few months ago deceased met with an accident while playing football, and, in the opinion of his medical adviser, his brain has since been affected. He had no pecuniary difficulties that the witnesses knew of. On Thursday night last he went to the Freemasons' Railway Tavern, Ladywell, and there got into conversation with a man named Andrews, and a railway porter named Norton, to whom he stated that he had had an argument as to which was the most vulnerable part in which a man could shoot himself. One said in the forehead, the other through the heart, but deceased said, "I think it is here," pointing to his throat. He also said he had had some words at home, and Andrews told him to get in at the window by a ladder. After paying for some drink he bade them good night, and went across some fields leading to the grounds of his brother's house, and was never after seen alive. When he was missed Andrews had a dream that deceased was in the summer-house in the grounds, and wrote a note to that effect to his employer, Mr. H. P. Hopwood, of Crosby House, High Street, Lewisham, and on Monday, when he saw him, repeated his impression that deceased was there. Mr. Hopwood did not believe it, but said they would soon ascertain. They then went towards the summer-house, and on reaching it, Mr. Hopwood came back and said "He is there." Information was then given to the police at Lewisham station. Deceased was found lying on his back in a pool of blood, a six-chambered Colt revolver lying by his side as it had fallen from his left hand, and there was a pistol bullet wound under the chin. One of the chambers had been discharged, and the other five were loaded.

       Sleep itself is a mystery. I, at least, have never been able to find in any scientific work, or to learn from any scientific man, a description of what sleep really is. It is not much to be wondered at, therefore, if the action of the eye and the brain and the mental powers during sleep be also a mystery. But some light seems to be thrown upon the question if we apply to the case of dreams the notion of reversed action which is the foundation of this essay. Suppose the mind or the brain to be first acted upon, either by a message through some other sense, as that of feeling or hearing, or by some process originating in the mind itself, the remembrance of some thought which has been dwelt upon in the waking hours, the whisper of an angel — if you please to recognize angelic agency — or what not; and then it certainly seems to come within the bounds of practical speculation that we should conceive of vision in sleep as a possible thing. Waking visions and dreams have often, and very naturally, been connected with each other. If we get near to a scientific connection of them the conception becomes all the more real.

       There is a very interesting discussion by Sir William Hamilton (Edinburgh) ^* on the condition of the mind during sleep, to which reference may be advantageously made in connection with the remarks which have been now offered. The concluding sentence is as follows:— "In the case of sleep, therefore, so far is it from being proved that the mind is at any moment unconscious, that the result of observation would incline us to the opposite conclusion." The result of Sir W. Hamilton's own observations, and that of Mr. Jouffroy, whom he quotes at length, is to suggest that during sleep the mind is awake and active; so much so, that when communications are made to the senses, the mind decides whether notice shall be taken of the communications or not. Thus a man comes from the quiet of the country to a noisy city; for the first few nights he cannot sleep, soon he sleeps as soundly as in the country; be is accustomed to the noise; the action on the physical organs is the same as before, but the mind knows that the noise means nothing, and therefore does not disturb the sleeping limbs. In like manner we have the phenomena of waking early, contrary to our established habit, when an early rise is necessary; the mind acts as night-porter, and stirs the body up when the proper hour arrives. Experiences such as these are common and familiar; but in the lecture to which I refer there is a story of an experience similar in kind, but more remarkable in its circumstances, which it may be worth while to quote. It is that of a postman, who was in the habit of traversing a certain route daily. "A considerable portion of his way lay across unenclosed meadow land, and in walking over this the postman was generally asleep. But at the termination of this part of his road there was a narrow footbridge over a stream, and to reach this bridge it was necessary to ascend some broken steps. Now, it was ascertained as completely as any fact of the kind could be, (1) that the postman was asleep in passing over the level course; (2) that he held on his way in this state without deflection towards the bridge; and (3) that just before arriving at the bridge, he awoke."

* "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. lecture xvii.

       I have referred to Sir W. Hamilton's lecture, because the facts and conclusions contained in it seem to strengthen the view put forward in this paper as to the possible reversal of the ordinary process of mental action. In general, the mind sits upon its throne with the senses as its ministers, and only approachable through them, as the Queen can only be approached in general through her Secretaries of State. Sometimes it would seem, however, that the mind asserts its essential royalty and supremacy, and communicates with the senses instead of permitting the senses to take the initiative. Certainly this view of the mind is a very interesting one, and there is much to be said for it; it helps the apparition question, with which this essay is more immediately concerned, but it is interesting and worthy of examination in itself, without any reference to apparitions.

       I am tempted to carry the speculative view of apparitions which is developed in this essay into a region in which any such treatment must be applied with great delicacy-I mean the region of angelic visitation, as it is unfolded in Holy Scripture.

       In some schools of neologian divinity the existence of angels is simply on à priori grounds ignored. I am not going to debate that question further than to observe that the general analogy which arises from the infinite variety of life in material form, and from the improbability that we are cognizant of all the forms of possible life, together with the argument which arises from the spiritual, invisible character of God Himself, seems to me to make the à priori probability of the existence of spiritual or angelic beings much greater than that of their non-existence. But however this may be, it is clearly assumed in Holy Scripture that such beings exist, and that they have, under Divine guidance, communion with man; nor only so, for they are represented as being seen and heard by those to whom they are sent.

       Take an example. In Acts x. we read of a revelation made to the Roman Centurion Cornelius — "He saw in a vision evidently," or, as the Revised Version has it, openly, "an angel of God coming in to him" — εἶδεν ἐν ὁράματι φανερῶς ἄγγελον τοῦ θεοῦ εἰσελθόντα πρὸς αὐτὸν Now, treating this passage literally and physically, what was it that Cornelius saw? No one will contend that it was a case of ordinary vision — that is, of light impinging upon the retina from a material substance, however ethereal and refined: the phrase ἐν ὁράματι in fact, sufficiently bars this explanation. Neither is it hinted that the vision was identical with a dream, which seems not consistent with the description φανερῶς It may be said, therefore, and I have no fault to find with the solution, that a certain impression was made upon the mind of Cornelius by Divine mission, which is represented in the phraseology which our material nature makes intelligible: just as we often say "I see," when we understand something which is explained to us, and when nevertheless the eye does not come into play at all. Nevertheless, I apprehend that Cornelius had the full impression of having actually seen and heard some supernatural visitor, and that this visitor was in human form. If so, will not the theory of reverse action, which has been applied in other cases, give us help also in this? Assume the existence of higher orders of beings than ourselves — beings having much in common with that which is highest in man, but not, like him, material — suppose that it is the duty, or one of the duties, of these higher beings to minister under certain conditions to the spirits of men; and then, upon the principles of this paper, there is nothing impossible nor even inconceivable in the communication made by an angel assuming the form of a visit from a being like ourselves: the actual communication is supersensual, spiritual, immaterial, independent of ear or eye or any sense; the communication, as it presents itself to the mind of the man who sees the vision, is appreciable by ear and eye, and comes as from one man to another.

       I trust that no one who reads what I have written will suppose that I regard my speculation as an absolute solution of a mystery, or indeed as anything more than an essay in the direction of solution. But it seems to me, that however incomplete the speculation may be, it may help us in the contemplation of that marvellous combination of matter with something that is not matter, which is exhibited in human life. That man is material and spiritual, that he combines in his complicated and composite nature the brute and the angel, is the old belief, and I trust is true; and it is agreeable to such a belief to think of the material laws, which govern man as part of the material universe, sometimes making way for the action of supermaterial laws, and permitting man to pose for the time as a creature in some sense and degree himself super-material. It is from this point of view, in my judgment, that sober tales of alleged apparitions have an interest for thoughtful persons. The vulgar ghost story is a poor contemptible thing, fitted chiefly to amuse a Christmas party sitting round the Yule log and enjoying the excitement of a little harmless mystery; but it is impossible to class as mere vulgar ghost stories all the tales which have been told concerning the appearance of persons deceased; there is a curious consistency in such tales, and a mutual support and confirmation arising from such consistency, and an abundance of individual and independent instances of the same kind of phenomenon, which make it impossible to pooh-pooh the whole subject, and, on the other hand, give a value to any attempt made to render it more thinkable.

       I trust that I shall not be regarded as guilty of the unpardonable logical sin of reasoning in a circle, if I suggest that the considerations which have been offered in this essay tend to render probable the possibility of communication between spiritual beings and the mind of man without the intervention of the senses. I have assumed this possibility in order to explain a certain alleged phenomenon, and it may be objected that I must not make the alleged phenomenon an argument for the possibility. But in truth the whole subject holds together as one, and the different parts afford each other a mutual support; and, taking a bird's-eye view of the whole, I trust that the reader will find something in it to strengthen, if necessary, his belief in the possibility of such communications between the spirit of man and other spiritual existences, as cannot be dreamed of in the philosophy of the materialistic philosopher. At all times speculations concerning that which is not material in man's nature can scarcely fail to have some kind and degree of interest; in times like our own, when the existence of the immaterial is not unfrequently denied, such speculations may have a practical value, which it is difficult to over-estimate.

HARVEY CARLISLE.       

(THE END)

reaction to this essay was discussed in a sequel:
Further thoughts on apparitions.