If this principle be admitted, it is adequate to explain all the puzzling phenomena of real ghosts and of true dreams. For example, the ghostly and intersomnial communications, with which we have as yet dealt, have been announcements of the deaths of absent parties. Suppose our new principle brought into play; the soul of the dying person is to be supposed to have come into direct communication with the mind of his friend, with the effect of suggesting his present condition. If the seer be dreaming, the suggestion shapes a corresponding dream; if he be awake, it originates a sensorial illusion. To speak figuratively, merely figuratively, in reference to the circulation of this partial mental obituary, I will suppose that the death of a human being throws a sort of gleam through the spiritual world, which may now and then touch with light some fittingly disposed object; or even two simultaneously, if chance have placed them in the right relation;—as the twin-spires of a cathedral may be momentarily illuminated by some far-off flash, which does not break the gloom upon the roofs below.
The same principle is applicable to the explanation of the vampyr visit. The soul of the buried man is to be supposed to be brought into communication with his friend’s mind. Thence follows, as a sensorial illusion, the apparition of the buried man. Perhaps the visit may have been an instinctive effort to draw the attention of his friend to his living grave. I beg to suggest that it would not be an act of superstition now, but of ordinary humane precaution, if one dreamed pertinaciously of a recently buried acquaintance, or saw his ghost, to take immediate steps to have the state of the body ascertained.
It is not my intention, in the present letter, to push the application of this principle further. With slight modifications it might be brought to explain several other wonderful stories, which we usually neglect just from not seeing how to explain them. One class of these instances is what was termed second-sight. The belief in it formerly prevailed in Scotland, and in the whole of the north of Europe. But the faculty, if it ever existed, seems to be disappearing now. However, it is difficult, one has heard so many examples of the correctness of its warnings and anticipations, not to believe that it once really manifested itself.
A much respected Scottish lady, not unknown in literature, told me very recently how a friend of her mother, whom she perfectly remembered, had been compelled to believe in second-sight through its occurrence in one of her servants. She had a cook, who was a continual annoyance to her through her possession of this gift. On one occasion, when the lady expected some friends, she learned, a short time before they were to arrive, that the culinary preparations she had ordered to honour them had not been made. Upon her remonstrating with the offending cook, the latter simply but doggedly assured her that come they would not; that she knew it to a certainty; and, true enough, they did not come. Some accident had occurred to prevent their visit. The same person frequently knew beforehand what her mistress’s plans were, and was as inconvenient in her kitchen as a calculating prodigy in a counting-house. Things went perfectly right, but the manner was irregular and provoking; so her mistress turned her away. Supposing this story true, the phenomena look just a modification of Zschokke’s seer-gift.
A number of incidents there are turning up, for the most part on trivial occasions, which we put aside for fear of being thought superstitious, because as yet a natural solution is not at hand for them. Sympathy in general, the spread of panic fears, the simultaneous occurrence of the same thoughts to two persons, the intuitive knowledge of mankind possessed by some, the magnetic fascination of others, may eventually be found to have to do with a special and unsuspected cause. Among anecdotes of no great conclusiveness that I have heard narrated of this sort, I will cite two of Lord Nelson, told by the late Sir Thomas Hardy to the late Admiral the Hon. G. Dundas, from whom I heard them. The first was mentioned to exemplify Nelson’s quick insight into character. Captain Hardy was present as Nelson gave directions to the commander of a frigate to make sail with all speed—to proceed to certain points, where he was likely to fall in with the French fleet—having seen the French, to go to a certain harbour, and there await Lord Nelson’s coming. After the commander had left the cabin, Nelson said to Hardy, “He will go to the West Indies, he will see the French; he will go to the harbour I have directed him to; but he will not wait for me—he will sail for England.” The commander did so. Shortly before the battle of Trafalgar an English frigate was in advance, looking out for the enemy; her place in the offing was hardly discernible. Of a sudden Nelson said to Hardy, who was at his side, “The Celeste,” (or whatever the frigate’s name was,) “the Celeste sees the French.” Hardy had nothing to say on the matter. “She sees the French; she’ll fire a gun.” Within a little time, the boom of the signal-gun was heard.[3]
I am not sure that my new principle will be a general favourite. It will be said that the cases, in which I suppose it manifested, are of too trivial a nature to justify so novel a hypothesis. My answer is, the cases are few and trivial only because the subject has not been attended to. For how many centuries were the laws of electricity preindicated by the single fact that a piece of amber, when rubbed, would attract light bodies! Again, the school of physiological materialists will of course be opposed to it. They hold that the mind is but a function or product of the brain, and cannot therefore consistently admit its separate action. But their fundamental tenet is unsound, even upon considering the analogies of matter alone.
What is meant by a product?—in what does production consist? Let us look for instances: a metal is produced from an ore; alcohol is produced from saccharine matter; the bones and sinews of an animal are produced from its food. Production, in the common signification of the word, means the conversion of one substance into another, weight for weight, agreeably with, or under, mechanical, chemical, and vital laws. I speak, of course, of material production. But the case of thought is parallel. The products of the poet’s brain are but recombinations of former ideas. Production, with him, is but a rearrangement of the elements of thought. His food may turn into or produce new brain; but it is the mental impressions he has stored which turn into new imagery. To say that the brain turns into thought, is to assert that consciousness and the brain are one and the same thing, which would be an idle abuse of language.
It is indeed true that, with the manifestation of each thought or feeling, a corresponding decomposition of the brain takes place. But it is equally true that, in a voltaic battery in action, each movement of electric force developed there is attended with a waste of the metal-plates which help to form it. But that waste is not converted into electric fluid. The exact quantity of pure zinc which disappears may be detected in the form of sulphate of zinc. The electricity was not produced, it was only set in motion, by the chemical decomposition. Here is the true material analogy of the relation of the brain to the mind. Mind, like electricity, is an imponderable force pervading the universe: and there happen to be known to us certain material arrangements, through which each may be influenced. We cannot, indeed, pursue the analogy beyond this step. Consciousness and electricity have nothing further in common. Their further relations to the dissimilar material arrangements, through which they may be excited or disturbed, are subjects of totally distinct studies, and resolvable into laws which have no affinity, and admit of no comparison.
It is singular how early in the history of mankind the belief in the separate existence of the soul developed itself as an instinct of our nature.
Timarchus, who was curious on the subject of the demon of Socrates, went to the cave of Trophonius to consult the oracle about it. There, having for a short time inhaled the mephitic vapour, he felt as if he had received a sudden blow on the head, and sank down insensible. Then his head appeared to him to open, and to give issue to his soul into the other world; and an imaginary being seemed to inform him that “the part of the soul engaged in the body, entrammelled in its organization, is the soul as ordinarily understood; but that there is another part or province of the soul which is the daimon. This has a certain control over the bodily soul, and among other offices constitutes conscience.”—“In three months,” the vision added, “you will know more of this.” At the end of three months Timarchus died.