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antagonisms created by the excesses of materialistic and infidel opinions, which denied the truth of the miracles recorded in the Christian Scriptures. John Wesley says, "It is true that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wife's fables." He expresses great sorrow at this and says, "If but one account of the intercourse of men with superior spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air (deism, atheism, materialism) falls to the ground."

The discussion of Mr. Wesley's views of the relation of witchcraft to true Christianity is not in place here. His testimony as to the opinions of men of his time is the best of which the case admits, and the assertion quoted concerning the value of proof of that kind in the then pending conflicts with the freethinkers justifies the use made of it by Dr. Hibbert in his "Philosophy of Apparitions," published not more than forty years after Wesley's death.

Two subjects which have a bearing upon any theory of apparitions, telepathy and modern spiritualism, are also postponed. Telepathy does not bear directly upon apparitions in the sense of the direct manifestations of the dead only so far as it is connected with alleged perceptions of persons just dead or dying. At the close of the second part of "A Theory of Apparitions," published by the Society of Psychical Research, the writer says, "Of apparitions after death we say nothing here," and makes use of telepathy merely for the purpose of analogy. Modern spiritualism has so many phases, and its alleged and real phenomena are many of them so dissimilar in matter and manner to the spontaneous apparitions referred to by Lord Byron in

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,

vestigated, because to be told of the appearance of a ghost excited no more surprise than to be informed of a storm at sea, or of an extraordinary flash of lightning. In Greece and Rome such narratives furnish the materials of poetry, and for ages after the hold of the marvelous upon ordinary writers was broken the impression of primeval superstitions was so strong that the questions which science now asks-nay, more, the questions which practical men now ask were not propounded.

To believe in such cases what antiquity believed, because antiquity believed it, is but to tighten the swaddling-clothes of the infant about the grown man and force him back into the cradle.

The testimony of a single witness to an apparition can be of little value, because whatever he thinks he sees may be a spectral illusion or an hallucination. The state of mind of a person who thinks that he sees an apparition is entirely unfavorable to calm observation; and after he has seen it he has nothing but his recollection of what he saw, unsupported by analogies or memoranda taken during the vision. To say that immediately after he witnessed such a thing he made a note of it, is at best to say only that he wrote down what he could remember at that time.

The identification of the dead must be a matter of very great difficulty to a living person, particularly as in many of the ghost stories the deceased has not been seen for twenty or twenty-five years, or perhaps was never seen by the person to whom he is alleged to appear. In view of the mental excitement, not to say trepidation, induced by the belief that he sees a spontaneous and unexpected apparition, the one who fancies that he sees the dead must be the least competent to determine whether it be a subjective vision or an actual object.

It has frequently been laid down as indis

That in the course of some six thousand years, putable that if two persons see a vision at the

All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears,

as to make it necessary to consider it separately. What I design is to show that when the evidence is rigorously though fairly examined, the Scotch verdict of "Not proven" must be rendered concerning the reality of apparitions; and that the presumptions of their natural origin are so strong as to leave little doubt in minds not intoxicated by a love of the marvelous, or who do not desire to find by sensuous evidence an "Elysian road which will conduct man undoubtingly to such beliefs as his heart most craves."

The belief in apparitions was universal before the development of the scientific spirit. Scarce an instance can be given from antiquity of a tale of supernatural events carefully in

same time its objective and authentic character is conclusively demonstrated. This by no means follows; on the contrary, a hundred persons may be confident that they see an apparition, and the proof that they do not may be conclusive. In the Middle Ages thousands believed in Vampyrism. Less than two hundred years ago in Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Lorraine it was prevalent. "Some dreamed that these malicious specters took them by the throat, and, having strangled them, sucked their blood." Others believed that they actually saw them. At times when the imagination is greatly excited, and a belief in ghosts exists, they can be manufactured by the thousand, and thousands can see them. The colored people in the South have no trouble on this point. It is a common occur

rence for the ghosts of persons hanged to appear to the prisoners in the jail, and though the officers may look at midnight, or whenever the ghost is said to appear, and can see nothing, scores of the prisoners are certain that they see the dreadful vision, and great revivals occur among them. An instance of this kind has occurred within a few years, resulting in the permanent reformation of several persons. Sailors, naturally superstitious, have great powers as seers of ghosts. A vessel that sailed from Newcastle-upon-Tyne had on board a cook one of whose legs was shorter than the other, so that he walked in that way which in the vulgar idiom is called "with an up and a down." He died on the trip and was buried at sea. A few nights afterwards the captain was told by the mate that the cook was walking before the ship, and that all hands were on deck to see him. Angry at being awakened, the captain told the mate to let the cook alone and race with him to see whether the ship or he would get first to Newcastle. But being further importuned the captain finally turned out. I will now quote the words of Mr. Ellis (who published "Brand's Popular Antiquities") as they were received from the captain:

He honestly confessed that he had like to have caught the contagion, and on seeing something move in a way so similar to that which an old friend used, and withal having a cap on so like that which he was wont to wear, verily thought there was more in the report than he was at first willing to believe. A general panic diffused itself. He ordered the ship to be steered towards the object, but not a man would move the helm. Compelled to do this himself, he found on a nearer approach that the ridiculous cause of all their terror was part of a maintop, the remains of some wreck, floating before them.

If he had really caught the contagion the evidence would have been complete; the Society for Psychical Research might make much of it, and it would be declared to be a convincing proof of a future state.

Dr. Tuke gives an instance of a general misapprehension of vision. At the conflagration in the Crystal Palace, in the winter of 1866-67, when the animals were destroyed by fire, it was supposed that the chimpanzee had succeeded in escaping from his cage. Men saw the unhappy animal holding on to the roof and writhing in agony while trying to get hold of one of the iron ribs. They watched its struggles with sickening dread-but there was no animal there. "It was a tattered piece of blind, so torn as to resemble, to the eye of fancy, the body, arms, and legs of an ape!"

When Brigham Young asserted that he saw the angel of the Lord from Ensign Point, making signs that that was the place where the great city and tabernacle of the Latter Day VOL. XXXVIII.-61.

Saints would be established, the surrounding Mormons thought they beheld it, and nothing could shake their conviction of its reality.

Mistaken identity accounts for many apparitions. Resemblances between persons in no way related are much more numerous and striking than is generally supposed. Many instances of this were given in an article in this series entitled, " Astrology, Divination, and Coincidences." Lord Byron, who was superstitious, in speaking of ghosts said: Is that, whatever bar the reason rears And what is strangest upon this strange head Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still In its behalf, let those deny who will.

Yet he occasionally laughed at ghosts. In 1811, writing to Mr. Murray, he says, "My old school and form fellow Peel, the Irish Secretary, told me he saw me in St. James street; I was then in Turkey. A day or two afterwards he pointed out to his brother a person across the way and said, 'There is the man I took for Byron.' His brother answered, 'Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' I was at this time seen to write my name in the Palace book. I was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died, here would have been a ghost story." According to the telepathic theory, Byron's self might have left his body in Turkey where he was sick and made an excursion to London. It would be interesting to have an account of the state of his body on that day; whether much agitated, or enjoying a calm and refreshing sleep in the absence of the perturbed spirit of the poet, who must have been an uneasy tenant at the best of times. But these details were omitted, and the natural explanation would be "mistaken identity."

A whole city was excited by the appearance of a person known to be dead-a silent man, who entered a hotel, registered his name, and looked wistfully about, speaking to no one, and not willing to explain his business. Terror seized upon the people. Every person who looked at him affirmed that he was the dead man. He was compelled after a few days to account for himself, and had no difficulty in proving, not only that he was a living man, but that he had never seen the man whom he so strongly resembled. A remarkable fact about this case was, that both the dead man and his double had three moles on the left cheek.

Jugglery and intentional deception, subsequently confessed, have explained many cases of apparition which within a short period previous to the exposure had been generally believed real in the communities where they were reported. One of the most common sources of supposed supernatural interference with ordinary laws is unexplained noises, especially

those that appear to respond to questions. Many of these have been subsequently explained by chemical conditions; others by the wind shrieking through bottles, down chimneys, and occasionally by pendulum motions caused by gravitation, shakings, or motions by the movements of distant bodies; one famous case by changes that had taken place, the result of mining operations beneath the ground upon which the house stood. The ringing of bells when it was obvious no one was pulling the wires-occasionally the result of electricity, at other times of cats-has terrified some ordinarily intelligent persons almost out of their senses. The disturbances produced by dogs, cats, and even rats, magnified by large rooms, immense fireplaces, and the transformation of innocent objects in nights when the moon is at the full, and the deep shadows produced by the movements of the limbs of trees reflected in mirrors, have all contributed to the production of awful impressions.

In a certain rectory within forty miles of the city of New York stood an old-fashioned candlestick surrounded by prisms of glass which were pendent from the top. On several occasions the family were awakened by the ringing of these in the night, the effect of which was to terrify the servants and all the inmates of the house, except the wife of the rector, who determined to solve the mystery. For a long time the sounds were not produced except in total darkness, but by gradually introducing the practice of burning a light at night the ringing was finally heard one night when there was a light in the room. The lady of the house then went quietly down to the dining-room and saw a large rat with every expression of pleasure leaping forward and with his forelegs striking the prisms so as to make them ring, and evidently taking the keenest delight in the sound thus produced.

In an article on Apparitions written by Andrew Lang, in the second volume of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," ninth edition, he

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more so, as I have shown abundantly, than many coincidences in trifles, and many other circumstances absolutely disconnected, and many subjective impressions without any coincidences. Mr. Lang, in the article referred to, has written like one who has crammed with the literature of the subject without being at the pains to reason closely upon the alleged facts. He refers to the superstitious horror shown by a dog at the moment of a supposed apparition to his master. That the dog exhibited horror when his owner thought he saw an apparition may be readily believed. And one familiar with dogs knows that nothing will terrify them more than a great appearance of alarm on the part of their masters without any visible cause. Of the same nature is the remark concerning the mysterious disturbances at the house of the Wesleys: "The mastiff was more afraid than any of the children." The volatile imaginations of children have never shown any great horror of mysteries; they were sustained, too, by confidence in their parents. But the dog heard mysterious noises which naturally greatly agitated him.

Mr. Lang closes his remarks on this part of the subject by naïvely saying, "The case of Baalam's ass is sufficiently well known." This case is not pertinent. Balaam's ass, according to the record, not only saw a supernatural appearance, but engaged in a process of reasoning in which his past life as an ass was called up to vindicate him from abuse, and further engaged in a conversation with his master in the latter's vernacular. Indeed, according to the record, he exhibited a cogency of reasoning which applied to most of the tales attested to prove the reality of apparitions would effectually "lay" the ghosts.

Many persons fancy that mysterious noises which will appear to respond to questions, to make raps or answer raps, conclusively prove that they are directed by intelligence. Sometimes they may, and the intelligence is quite likely to be of human origin; but noises of atmospheric, chemical, or electrical origin may furnish astonishing coincidences, just as the fissures in the rocks are extremely difficult to be distinguished from hieroglyphics. Some years ago an alphabet based on the spiritualistic alphabet was applied to the successive gusts of wind of a stormy autumn day, and the coincidences were astonishing. Whole sentences of a very significant character at times appeared to respond to the arbitrary standard. And in any case the conclusion that a noise the cause of which is not yet understood must be supernatural is a process of reasoning ab ignorantia.

That ghosts do not come to those most interested in them, and seldom or never to any who

long for them, has been a matter of note from the earliest times. Wordsworth's words, often quoted, state the conclusion drawn from this in language natural and almost convincing:

'T is falsely said

That there was ever intercourse
Betwixt the living and the dead,
For surely then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night

With love and longings infinite. The ceremonies practiced by the Christian Church in the Middle Ages in the successful exorcising of ghosts are not less striking than the sort of evidence on which the ghosts were accepted. Two or three clergymen are necessary and the ceremony must be performed in Latin, "the language which strikes the most audacious ghost with terror." According to history and tradition the ghost may be laid for any term less than a hundred years, "in any place or body, filled or empty." But what a ghost hates most is the Red Sea. It is related on the most indisputable authority that the ghosts have earnestly besought exorcists not to confine them in that place; nor is any instance given of their escaping before the time!

When we consider the horrible injustice inflicted upon orphans whose estates are squandered by trustees, the concealment or destruction of wills, the ingratitude to destitute benefactors, the diverting of trust funds for benevolent purposes to objects abhorrent to those who with painful toil accumulated them and with confidence in the stability of human laws

bequeathed them, the loneliness and despair that fill human hearts, and the gloomy doubts of the reality of a future existence,—all of which would be rendered impossible if actual apparitions took place,- the conclusion that neither in the manner of the alleged comings nor in the objects for which they come is there any evidence to be found of their reality gathers almost irresistible force.

If it be assumed that the testimony of one person or of one hundred persons to a supernatural event is not sufficient to prove that it occurred, the question, "What becomes of the testimony of the Apostles and the five hundred brethren to the resurrection of Christ, and of Stephen to his seeing the heavens open," comes up again. It admits of but one answer. If they had nothing to give us but the fact that they saw a person alive who had been dead, it would be necessary to reject it on the ground that it is far more probable that they were deceived than that such a thing occurred. But that is not the case. They present to us the whole body of Christian doctrine, declaring that it was received from that person who predicted that he would rise from the dead, and whom they believed themselves to see, and with whom on various occasions they conversed after his resurrection. If the body of Christian doctrine in its relation to the moral nature of the thinker does not convince him of the divine origin and consequent truth of the record, we know of no means of doing so.

J. M. Buckley.

IN THE CENTURY for July, 1888, in an article of this series entitled "Dreams, Nightmare, and Somnambulism," a quotation concerning Laura Bridgman, taken from an article by Joseph Jastrow, was erroneously attributed to the " Presbyterian Review" instead of to the "New Princeton Review," and the language to Prof. G. Stanley Hall. The facts were derived by Mr. Jastrow from an unpublished manuscript of Professor Hall, but the language quoted was his own.-J. M. B.

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I

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

The Day of Independence.

T is probable that the era of "centennialism," if the coinage of such a word be permissible, which set in about 1875, is now at an end for a long time to come. The successive events of the American Revolution, of the period of confasion which followed it, and of the final establishment of sound national government, have ali had their days of remembrance, concluded fittingly by the great celebration of last April in New York City; and it is not easy to see any near occasion for renewing the series. There have been events in our history for which remembrance might be suggested during the next twenty years; but they are those in which the United States can claim no peculiar property, such as the discovery of America, or events in the special history of the individual States, which can hardly excite general interest, or such as the voyages of the Cabots, which, however important, are somewhat too academic to enlist any genuine popular enthusiasm. It is most probable, then, that we are to have no recurrence of " centennial" anniversaries this side of the naval victories of 1812 at least, and that patriotism must content itself for that length of time with the simple and less heroic interests of the present, reiying no longer for inspiration upon the great occasions of the past.

It should not be believed that the occasions of the present lose in real dignity by comparison with those of the past, any more than that the fathers of the Republic would have been better engaged in holding "centennial" celebrations themselves than in doing the duty which lay nearest to them. It is not by great occasions, or by the spasmodic energies of a desperate patriotism, that the rank of a people in history is to be measured. Such events are like the stamp of the die upon the coin; it may be impressed on bullion or on base metal. Spain had her Zaragoza, as we had our Bunker Hill; but when King Ferdinand resumed his throne he found no tools of his tyranny more subservient than the rural population, such as had defended Zaragoza. The true metal, to which alone the stamp can give permanent currency, is that courage which is the representative of long years of the assiduous practice of the homelier virtues of good citizenship. If Bunker Hill had represented only brute courage, or "war to the knife," the British Ministry might have found it a real victory, or some American usurper might have made it a stepping-stone to a despotism: the secret of the battle was in the fact that Miles Standish, and the Winthrops, and Thomas Hooker, and all the host of unnamed worthies of New England history for a hundred and fifty years, stood behind the breastworks, and made certain of permanent results in spite of temporary defeat. The interest of such an event is not in the mere pugilist's wonder that embattled farmers should withstand regular soldiers, but in the struggle of good citizenship, with its inevitable results, against the prizes and incentives offered by a privileged class.

It may be or may not be that the exercise of the simple civic virtues in the present is a preparation for some future Bunker Hill; but he must be strangely blind who cannot see the approach of enemies as fatal to the Republic and as easily visible as the long line of red-coats which landed at Charlestown on that June morning of 1775. Here is the professional politician, who buys votes and corrupts citizenship at its fountain-head; the venal politician, to whom office is valuable only for its opportunities of marketing his own vote; the "ring"-leader, who exploits the taxingpower and leaves behind him a broad track of pecula. tion and debt; the demagogue, who makes political and personal profit out of religious and race differences; the machine politician, who appropriates his share of the civil service while he cants about the people's right to the offices; the man who thinks it an act of tyranny to impose limits or checks upon his right to tempt his neighbors to drink; the corporate tyranny which insists on having only helpless workmen to deal with, or the "labor "tyranny which hounds, cripples, or murders the helpless individual-every grade of civic offenders, from the petty larcenist up or down, to the imported scoundrel who prepares dynamite bombs for the police. More terrible than an army with banners, more insidious and aggressive than the assaulting line at Bunker Hill, these modern foes of the Republic are to be met and overcome, not by "centennial" celebrations, but by just those civic virtues which gave possibility to the great events of the past.

The power of the Republic in the present is great, but it is an error to believe that it was not fully foreseen a hundred years since. Franklin and others amused their leisure with mathematical calculations of the increase of population, which time has shown to have been singularly correct. President Stiles of Yale College, who, in a sermon of 1760, on the conquest of Canada, had predicted the development of “a Provincial Confederacy," and perhaps the growth of an “imperial dominion" out of the Confederacy, went further into the future in his election sermon of 1783. "It is probable that within a century from our independence the sun will shine on fifty millions of inhabitants in the United States. This will be a great, a very great nation, nearly equal to half Europe. And if the present rate of increase should be rather diminished in some of the other settlements, yet an accelerated multiplication will attend our general propagation, and overspread the whole territory westward for ages." But the preacher saw the attendant dangers with equal clearness. He warned posterity, as well as his hearers, that there was need of "vigilance against corruption in purchasing elections and in designations to office in the legislatures and Congress, instituting such efficacious provisions against corruption as shall preclude the possibility of its rising to any great height before it shall be controlled and corrected. Although, in every political administration, the appointment to office will ever be considerably influenced by the sinister, private,

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