As for visual phenomena, “ghosts,” Thyraeus does not regard them as space-filling entities, but as hallucinations imposed by spirits on the human senses; the spirit, in each case, not being necessarily the soul of the dead man or woman whom the phantasm represents.
In the matter of alleged hauntings, the symptoms, the phenomena, to-day, are exactly the same as those recorded by Thyraeus. The belief in them is so far a living thing that it greatly lowers the letting value of a house when it is reported to be haunted. (An action for libelling a house as haunted was reported in the London newspapers of the 7th of March 1907). It is true that ancient family legends of haunts are gloried in by the inheritors of stately homes in England, or castles in Scotland, and to discredit the traditional ghost—in the days of Sir Walter Scott—was to come within measurable distance of a duel. But the time-honoured phantasms of old houses usually survive only in the memory of “the oldest aunt telling the saddest tale.” Their historical basis can no more endure criticism than does the family portrait of Queen Mary,—signed by Medina about 1750-1770, and described by the family as “given to our ancestor by the Queen herself.” After many years’ experience of a baronial dwelling credited with seven distinct and separate phantasms, not one of which was ever seen by hosts, guests or domestics, scepticism as regards traditional ghosts is excusable. Legend reports that they punctually appear on the anniversaries of their misfortunes, but no evidence of such punctuality has been produced.
The Society for Psychical Research has investigated hundreds of cases of the alleged haunting of houses, and the reports are in the archives of the society. But, as the mere rumour of a haunt greatly lowers the value of a house, it is seldom possible to publish the names of the witnesses, and hardly ever permitted to publish the name of the house. From the point of view of science this is unfortunate (see Proceedings S.P.R. vol. viii. pp. 311-332 and Proceedings of 1882-1883, 1883-1884). As far as inquiry had any results, they were to the following effect. The spectres were of the most shy and fugitive kind, seen now by one person, now by another, crossing a room, walking along a corridor, and entering chambers in which, on inspection, they were not found. There was almost never any story to account for the appearances, as in magazine ghost-stories, and, if story there were, it lacked evidence. Recognitions of known dead persons were infrequent; occasionally there was recognition of a portrait in the house. The apparitions spoke in only one or two recorded cases, and, as a rule, seemed to have no motive for appearing. The “ghost” resembles nothing so much as a somnambulist, or the dream-walk of one living person made visible, telepathically, to another living person. Almost the only sign of consciousness given by the appearances is their shyness; on being spoken to or approached they generally vanish. Not infrequently they are taken, at first sight, for living human beings. In darkness they are often luminous, otherwise they would be invisible! Unexplained noises often, but not always, occur in houses where these phenomena are perceived. Evidence is only good, approximately, when a series of persons, in the same house, behold the same appearance, without being aware that it has previously been seen by others. Naturally it is almost impossible to prove this ignorance.
When inquirers believe that the appearances are due to the agency of spirits of the dead, they usually suppose the method to be a telepathic impact on the mind of the living by some “mere automatic projection from a consciousness which has its centre elsewhere” (Myers, Proceedings S.P.R. vol. xv. p. 64). Myers, in Human Personality, fell back on “palaeolithic psychology,” and a theory of a phantasmogenetic agency producing a phantasm which had some actual relation to space. But space forbids us to give examples of modern experiences in haunted houses, endured by persons sane, healthy and well educated. The cases, abundantly offered in Proceedings S.P.R., suggest that certain localities, more than others, are “centres of permanent possibilities of being hallucinated in a manner more or less uniform.” The causes of this fact (if causes there be, beyond a casual hallucination or illusion of A, which, when reported, begets by suggestion, or, when not reported, by telepathy, hallucinations in B, C, D and E), remain unknown (Proceedings S.P.R. vol. viii. p. 133 et seq.). Mr Podmore proposed this hypothesis of causation, which was not accepted by Myers; he thought that the theory laid too heavy a burden on telepathy and suggestion. Neither cause, nor any other cause of similar results, ever affects members of the S.P.R. who may be sent to dwell in haunted houses. They have no weird experiences, except when they are visionaries who see phantoms wherever they go.
(A. L.)
HAUPT, MORITZ (1808-1874), German philologist, was born at Zittau, in Lusatia, on the 27th of July 1808. His early education was mainly conducted by his father, Ernst Friedrich Haupt, burgomaster of Zittau, a man of good scholarly attainment, who used to take pleasure in turning German hymns or Goethe’s poems into Latin, and whose memoranda were employed by G. Freytag in the 4th volume of his Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit. From the Zittau gymnasium, where he spent the five years 1821-1826, Haupt removed to the university of Leipzig with the intention of studying theology; but the natural bent of his mind and the influence of Professor G. Hermann soon turned all his energies in the direction of philosophy. On the close of his university course (1830) he returned to his father’s house, and the next seven years were devoted to quiet work, not only at Greek, Latin and German, but at Old French, Provençal and Bohemian. He formed with Lachmann at Berlin a friendship which had great effect on his intellectual development. In September 1837 he “habilitated” at Leipzig as Privatdozent, and his first lectures, dealing with such diverse subjects as Catullus and the Nibelungenlied, indicated the twofold direction of his labours. A new chair of German language and literature being founded for his benefit, he became professor extraordinarius (1841) and then professor ordinarius (1843); and in 1842 he married Louise Hermann, the daughter of his master and colleague. But the peaceful and prosperous course opening out before him at the university of Leipzig was brought to a sudden close. Having taken part in 1849 with Otto Jahn and Theodor Mommsen in a political agitation for the maintenance of the imperial constitution, Haupt was deprived of his professorship by a decree of the 22nd of April 1851. Two years later, however, he was called to succeed Lachmann at the university of Berlin; and at the same time the Berlin academy, which had made him a corresponding member in 1841, elected him an ordinary member. For twenty-one years he continued to hold a prominent place among the scholars of the Prussian capital, making his presence felt, not only by the prestige of his erudition and the clearness of his intellect, but by the tirelessness of his energy and the ardent fearlessness of his temperament. He died, of heart disease, on the 5th of February 1874.
Haupt’s critical work is distinguished by a happy union of the most painstaking investigation with intrepidity of conjecture, and while in his lectures and addresses he was frequently carried away by the excitement of the moment, and made sharp and questionable attacks on his opponents, in his writings he exhibits great self-control. The results of many of his researches are altogether lost, because he could not be prevailed upon to publish what fell much short of his own high ideal of excellence. To the progress of classical scholarship he contributed by Quaestiones Catullianae (1837), Observationes criticae (1841), and editions of Ovid’s Halieutica and the Cynegetica of Gratius and Nemesianus (1838), of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius (3rd ed., 1868), of Horace (3rd ed., 1871) and of Virgil (2nd ed., 1873). As early as 1836, with Hoffmann von Fallersleben, he started the Altdeutsche Blätter, which in 1841 gave place to the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum, of which he continued editor till his death. Hartmann von Aue’s Erec (1839) and his Lieder, Büchlein and Der arme Heinrich (1842), Rudolf von Ems’s Guter Gerhard (1840) and Conrad von Würzburg’s Engelhard (1844) are the principal German works which he edited. To form a collection of the French songs of the 16th century was one of his favourite schemes, but a little volume published after his death, Französische Volkslieder (1877), is the only monument of his labours in that direction. Three volumes of his Opuscula were published at Leipzig (1875-1877).
See Kirchhoff, “Gedächtnisrede,” in Abhandl. der Königl. Akad. der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1875); Otto Belger, Moritz Haupt als Lehrer (1879); Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. iii. (1908).