All Men are Ghosts

by L. P. Jacks

He looked at me closely for a few seconds, and then said:

"It may be. I too have often suspected that throughout the whole of my gardening operations I was under the control of an intelligence other than my own. But I would never have guessed that it was yours. Anyhow, this particular idea, no matter what its origin may be, is admirable. No other background will compare with the cypress for bringing out the colour of the roses. See how gorgeous they look at this moment."

"And the cypress too," I said, "are, thanks to the contrast, full of majesty. But, though you and I understand one another so completely at this point, there is another at which I confess you bewilder me." And I indicated the sky-sign, which at that moment had turned its legend—"No Psychologists"—full towards us.

"You will not be surprised to learn," he answered, "that this house, like other haunted houses, has been the scene of a tragedy. The tragedy is the explanation of the sign, and it is essential you should know the story, as the ghosts are certain to refer to it. You remember that I once had a religion?"

"I trust you have one still," I said.

"I prefer to be silent on that point," he answered. "Whatever religion I may have at the present moment I am resolved to protect from the disasters which befell the religion I had long ago. A certain psychologist got wind of it, and I, in my innocence, granted his request to submit my religious consciousness to a scientific investigation. I was highly flattered by the result. The man, having completed his investigation, came to the conclusion that my religion was destined to be the religion of the future, and went up and down the country announcing his prophecy. But the strange thing was that as soon as we all knew that this was going to be the religion of the future it ceased to be the religion of the present. What followed? Why, in a couple of years I and my followers had no religion at all. Incidentally our minds had become a mass of self-complacency and conceit, and the public were coming to regard us as a set of intolerable wind-bags. Such was the tragedy, and ever since its occurrence I have led a haunted life."

"There may be compensations in that," I suggested.

"There are, and I am resolved to maintain them. This house and these grounds are kept as a strict preserve for spirits of every denomination; and you will understand the severity of my measures for their protection when I tell you that the slightest taint of an earth-born psychology in the atmosphere, or the footprint of one of its exponents on the greensward, would instantly cause a general exodus of my ghostly visitors, and thus deprive me of the company which is at once the solace and the inspiration of my declining years. On all such intrusions I decree the penalty of death, being fully determined that no psychology shall pollute this neighbourhood until such time as the ghosts, having completed a psychology of their own, are able to protect themselves. I assure you that my intercourse with the spirits more than makes amends for all that I lost when my former religion was destroyed."

"Which never became the religion of the future after all?" I asked, more sarcastically perhaps than was quite decent.

"Of course not. And the same cause, if suffered to operate, will prevent anything else from becoming the religion of the future. It is one of the signs of decadence in the present age that livelihoods should be procurable by the scientific analysis of religion. Had I the power, I would make it a penal offence to publish the results of such inquiries. As it is, we must protect ourselves. Arm, therefore, my friend—arm yourself with the like of this; and whenever you see one of those marauders, do not hesitate to shoot! The only good psychologist is a dead one."