Hallucination! Fortuitous coincidence. Is that a satisfactory explanation? At all events, it is an explanation which explains nothing at all.
A host of ignorant persons, of all ages and trades, clerks, merchants or deputies, sceptics by temperament or habit, simply declare that they do not believe these stories, that there is nothing true about them. That also is not a very good solution of them. Minds accustomed to study cannot content themselves with so trifling a denial. A fact is a fact; we cannot refuse to admit it, even when we cannot in the present state of our knowledge explain it.
Of course medical annals acknowledge that there is really more than one kind of hallucination, and that certain nervous organizations are their dupes. But there is a wide gulf between that and concluding that all psycho-biological phenomena are hallucinations.
The scientific spirit of our century rightly seeks to free all these facts from the deceptive fogs of supernaturalism, inasmuch as nothing is supernatural, and Nature, whose kingdom is infinite, embraces everything. During the last few years a special scientific society has been organized in England for the study of these phenomena,—the Society for Psychical Research. It has at its head some of the most illustrious savants on the other side of the Channel, and has already sent out important publications. These phenomena of sight at a distance are classed under the general title of Telepathy (τήλε, far, πάθος, sensation). Rigorous inquiries are made to verify their testimony. Its variety is very great. Let us look through one of these collections[2] together for a moment, and take out a few of the documents which are duly and scientifically established.
In the following recently observed case, the observer was as wide awake as you and I are at this moment. It is about a certain Mr. Robert Bee, who lives at Wigan, England. Here is the curious revelation, written by the observer himself.
"On the 18th of December, 1873, my wife and I went to visit my wife's family at Southport, leaving my parents to all appearance in perfect health. The next afternoon we were strolling on the beach, when I became so depressed that it was impossible for me to interest myself in anything whatever, so that we soon returned to the house.
"All at once my wife showed signs of great uneasiness, and said she was going to her mother's room for a few moments. A minute afterwards I rose from my armchair and went into the drawing-room.
"A lady in walking costume came towards me from an adjacent sleeping-room. I did not notice her features, because her face was turned away from me; still, I spoke to her, and greeted her at once, but I do not remember now what I said.
"At the same time, while she was passing before me, my wife was coming from her mother's chamber, and walked right over the place where I saw the lady, without seeming to notice her. I said at once, in great surprise, 'Who is that lady whom you just met?' 'I met no one,' replied my wife, still more astonished than I was. 'What!' I replied, 'do you mean to tell me that you did not see a lady this very minute who passed by just where you are now? She probably came from your mother's room, and must be now in the vestibule.'
"'It is impossible,' she said; 'there is positively no one in the house at this moment but my mother and ourselves.'
"Sure enough. No strange lady had been there, and the search which we immediately began was without result.
"It was then ten minutes to eight o'clock. The next morning a telegram informed us of my mother's sudden death from heart-disease at exactly that hour. She was then in the street, and dressed precisely like the unknown lady who had passed in front of me."
Such is the observer's story. The inquiries made by the Society for Psychical Research have proved its absolute authenticity and the agreement of the witnesses. It is as positive a fact as a meteorological, astronomical, philosophical, or chemical observation. How can it be explained? Coincidence, you will say. Can a strict scientific criticism be satisfied with this word?
Still another case.
Mr. Frederick Wingfield, living at Belle-Isle en Terre (Côtes-du-Nord), writes that on the 25th of March, 1880, having gone to bed rather late, after reading a part of the evening, he dreamed that his brother, living in the county of Essex, in England, was with him; but instead of answering a question asked him, merely shook his head, rose from his chair, and went away. The impression was so strong that the narrator sprang from his bed half asleep, awaking as his foot touched the floor, and called his brother. Three days later he received news that his brother had been killed by a fall from his horse the same day, March 25th, 1880, in the evening, about half-past eight o'clock, a few hours before the dream just reported.
An inquiry proved that the date of this death was exact, and that the author of this narrative had written his dream in a diary at the very date of the event, and not afterwards.