most dimly comprehended operations of the
human frame observed in men and women,
the sources of fallacy are very numerous. To
detect and acknowledge these, to get rid of
them experimentally, is very difficult, even to
the most candid and enlightened mind.

I have no faith in ghosts, according to the
old sense of the word, and I could grope with
comfort through any amount of dark old
rooms, or midnight aisles, or over churchyards,
between sunset and cock-crow. I can
face a spectre. Being at one time troubled
with illusions, I have myself crushed a
hobgoblin by sitting on its lap. Nevertheless, I
do believe that the great mass of "ghost
stories," of which the world is full, has not
been built entirely upon the inventions of the
ignorant and superstitious. In plain words,
while I, of course, throw aside a million of idle
fictions, or exaggerated facts, I do believe in
ghosts—or, rather, spectres — only I do not
believe them to be supernatural.

That, in certain states of the body, many of
us in our waking hours picture as vividly as
we habitually do in dreams, and seem to see
or hear in fair reality that which is in our
minds, is an old fact, and requires no confirmation.
An ignorant or superstitious man fallen
into this state, may find good reason to tell
ghost stories to his neighbours. Disease, and
the debility preceding death, make people on
their death-beds very liable to plays of this
kind on their failing faculties; and one
solemnity, or cause of dread, thus being added
to another, seems to give the strength of
reason to a superstitious feeling.

Concerning my own experience, which
comes under the class of natural ghost-seeing
above mentioned, I may mention in good
faith that, if such phantoms were worth
recalling, I could fill up an hour with
the narration of those spectral sights and
sounds which were most prominent among
the illusions of my childhood. Sights and
sounds were equally distinct and lifelike.
I have run up-stairs obedient to a spectral
call. Every successive night for a fortnight,
my childish breath was stilled by the
proceedings of a spectral rat, audible, never
visible. It nightly, at the same hour, burst
open a cupboard door, scampered across the
floor, and shook the chair by my bedside.
Wide awake and alone in the broad daylight,
I have heard the voices of two nobodies
gravely conversing, after the absurd dream
fashion, in my room. Then as for spectral
sights:— During the cholera of 1832, I, then a
boy, walking in Holborn, saw in the sky the
veritable flaming sword which I had learnt
by heart out of a picture in an old folio of
" Paradise Lost." And round the fiery sword
there was a regular oval of blue sky to be
seen through parted clouds. It was a fact
not unimportant, that this phantom sword
did not move with my eye, but remained for
some time, apparently, only in one part of the
heavens. I looked aside and lost it. When
I looked back, there was the image still.
These are hallucinations which arise from a
disordered condition of the nervous system;
they are the seeing or the hearing of what is
not, and they are not by any means uncommon.
Out of these there must, undoubtedly,
arise a large number of well-attested stories
of ghosts, seen by one person only. Such
ghosts ought to excite no more terror than a
twinge of rheumatism, or a nervous head-ache.

There can be no doubt, however, that, in
our minds or bodies, there are powers latent,
or nearly latent, in the ordinary healthy man,
which, in some peculiar constitutions, or
under the influence of certain agents, or
certain classes of disease, become active, and
develope themselves in an extraordinary way.
It is not very uncommon to find people who
have acquired intuitive perception of each
others' current thoughts, beyond what can be
ascribed to community of interests, or
comprehension of character.

Zschokke, the German writer and teacher,
is a peculiarly honourable and unimpeachable
witness. What he affirms, as of his own
knowledge, we have no right to disbelieve.
Many of us have read the marvellous account given
by him of his sudden discovery, that he
possessed the power in regard to a few people — by
no means in regard to all—of knowing, when
he came near to them, not only their present
thoughts, but much of what was in their
memories. The details will be found in his
Autobiography, which, being translated, has
become a common book among us. When, for the
first time while conversing with some person,
he acquired a sense of power over the secrets
of that person's past lite, he gave, of course,
but little heed to his sensation. Afterwards,
as from time to time the sense recurred, he
tested the accuracy of his impressions, and
was alarmed to find that, at certain times, and
in regard to certain persons, the mysterious
knowledge was undoubtedly acquired. Once
when a young man at the table with him
was dismissing very flippantly all manner
of unexplained phenomena as the gross food
of ignorance and credulity, Zschokke
requested to know what he would say if he,
a stranger, by aid of an unexplained power,
should be able to tell him secrets out of
his past life. Zschokke was defied to do
that; but he did it. Among other things he
described a certain upper room, in which
there was a certain strong box, and from
which certain moneys, the property of his
master, had been abstracted by that young
man; who, overwhelmed with astonishment,
confessed the theft.

Many glimmerings of intuition, which at
certain times occur in the experience of all
of us, and seem to be something more than
shrewd or lucky guesses, may be referred to
the same power which we find, in the case
just quoted, more perfectly developed.
Nothing supernatural, but a natural gift, imperceptible