Immortality proved by the testimony of sense

by Abraham Cummings

We find in the Scriptures such a connection of means and ends as the wisdom of some moderns would never dictate: as that of Ezek. 4: 15, and the marriage of Hosea transacted, either in reality or in vision. These means, doubtless, would not have appeared the most decent and eligible to some of those who seem capable of dictating for apparitions, the proper mode of their procedure.

But suppose Tavernor’s ghost had first appeared to Eleanor Welsh and her husband, and frighted them into compliance at once, would the existence of Spectres be any more believed than it is at present? Would not the objection have been that Eleanor Welsh had the maternal affection for her son? Had never really consented to the crime—that her own fear was feigned, and that the ghost was some friend employed by her to frighten and deceive her husband?

Or if the ghost had first appeared to a magistrate: should we not have been told how much more probable it was that a magistrate should bear a part in some artifice which afforded him profit, than that a miracle had happened equal to the transition from a state of manhood to that which preceded our birth? It is no dishonor to the most illustrious of mankind that they frequently entertain the same opinion as that of their inferiors. On the mode of conduct proper for a Spectre, our authors agree in sentiment with that Heroine of a famous English ballad,[7] who with the habiliments there described, frightened a person into compliance at once. She gave him no opportunity to deliberate or to authenticate her mission. Compliance, or immediate ruin were his only alternative. Her name was honored by three queens, and the favor of Henry the eighth.

Spectres from heaven are rational creatures, and come down from the fountain of reason, and will therefore deal reasonably with us, by allowing us a fair opportunity to ascertain the reality of their mission. But for this examination, the mind is incapable when terrified by a sudden surprise.

Eleanor Welsh being the mother of the injured, must have been interested, and therefore, if the Spectre had first appeared to her and her husband, there certainly would have been less evidence of reality (coct. par) than there was by its first appearing to Tavernor, who, by the very supposition of our author, was a disinterested person, and “had no concern in the matter.”

We find in the next place several naked assertions, and then the inference that, “The evidence of Spectres is destroyed.” They tell us that Spectres appear only to one person at a time—that they are seen only in the night, and visible only to the illiterate and credulous. “A man must be prejudiced in favor of this opinion beforehand, say they, or he will never see a ghost.”

I must not offend the reader by needless detention. He may easily find instances to disprove these assertions. As to the last, besides Doctor Scott, several persons of distinguished abilities, probity and literature, who have seen ghosts, have declared to the writer, that instead of previously believing their existence, their minds had been strongly prejudiced against it.

Our authors desire to know why Spectres should appear in the night, and “why they could not deliver their messages with as much ease and more success in the day time.” And doubtless Bolingbroke had a similar enquiry respecting the angel who appeared to the shepherds in the night.

“To render the testimony of any person credible, say these writers, he must not only be a man of veracity, but of sufficient ability to judge of the subject to which he is to bear witness. It is not on the evidence of an ignorant, illiterate person, who has more fancy and fear than judgment, that we are to rest our belief of what is supernatural.” Here again their weapon is from the arsenal of those who oppose our Saviour’s resurrection, known first to some of “the timorous and pious sex,” as Hume has termed them, and then to illiterate, ignorant fishermen, who, say the deists, had more fancy and fear than judgment. The truth is, some ignorant men have no more fancy nor fear than the learned, and a much better judgment than many of the latter. The corporeal senses of the illiterate are as infallible as those of the learned. The former can see and hear a ghost or an angel as distinctly as the latter, and can attempt to handle a ghost with as much composure of mind, and so are capable of knowing whether they can feel a substance or not, as a Locke or a Newton.

On the whole, it appears that the reason why mankind in this enlightened age, must believe that apparitions are a mere fiction, is not because this negative thesis was ever established by any solid demonstration, but because the unanimity of modern names, the substitute of argument, has given it popularity.