The worst of a true ghost is, that, to be sure of his genuineness—that is, of his veracity—one must wait the event. He is distinguished by no sensible and positive characteristics from the commoner herd. There is nothing in his outward appearance to raise him in your opinion above a fetch. But even this fact is not barren. His dress,—it is in the ordinary mode of the time, in nothing overdone. To be dressed thus does credit to his taste, as to be dressed at all evinces his sense of propriety; but alas! the same elements convict him of objective unreality. Whence come that aerial coat and waistcoat, whence those visionary trousers?—alas! they can only have issued from the wardrobe in the seer’s fancy. And, like his dress, the wearer is imaginary, a mere sensorial illusion, without a shadow of externality; he is not more substantial than a dream.

But dreams have differences of quality no less than ghosts. All do not come through the ivory gate. Some are true and significant enough. See, there glides one skulking assassin-like into the shade,—he not long since killed his man; “Hilloa, ill-favoured Dream! come hither and give an account of yourself.” (Enter Dream.)

A Scottish gentleman and his wife were travelling four or five years ago in Switzerland. There travelled with them a third party, an intimate friend, a lady, who some time before had been the object of a deep attachment on the part of a foreigner, a Frenchman. Well, she would have nothing to say to him on the topic uppermost in his mind, but she gave him a good deal of serious advice, which she probably thought he wanted; and she ultimately promoted, or was a cognizant party to, his union with a lady whom she likewise knew. The so-married couple were now in America; and the lady occasionally heard from them, and had every reason to believe they were both in perfect health. One morning, on their meeting at breakfast, she told her companions that she had had a very impressive dream the night before, which had recurred twice. The scene was a room in which lay a coffin; near to it stood her ex-lover in a luminous transfigured resplendent state; his wife was by, looking much as usual. The dream had caused the lady some misgivings, but her companions exhorted her to view it as a trick of her fancy, and she was half persuaded so to do. The dream, however, was right, notwithstanding. In process of time, letters arrived announcing the death, after a short illness, of the French gentleman, within the twenty-four hours in which the vision appeared. (Sensation—applause, followed by cries of Shame; the Dream, hurrying away, is hurt by the horn of the gate.)

It would be difficult to persuade the lady who dreamed this dream that there was no connexion between it and the event it foreshadowed in her mind beyond the accidental coincidence of time. Nevertheless, to this conclusion an indifferent auditor would probably come; and upon the following reasoning: We sometimes dream of the death of an absent friend when he is alive and in health, just as we sometimes dream that long-lost friends are alive. And it is quite possible—nay, likely to occur in the chapter of accidents—nay, certain to turn up now and then among the dreams of millions during centuries—that a fortuitous dream, seemingly referring to the fact, should be coincident in point of time with the death of a distant friend. To explain one such case, we need look no further than to the operation of chance. Why, then, ever seek another principle?

Let us examine a parallel ghost-story. A gentleman has a relative in India, healthy, of good constitution, in the civil service, prosperous: he has no cause for anxiety, and entertains none, respecting his relative. But one day he sees his ghost. In due course letters arrive mentioning the occurrence of his relative’s death on that day. The case is more remarkable than the last; for the ghost-seer never in his life but that once experienced a sensorial illusion. Still, it is evidently possible that the two events were, through chance alone, coincident in time. And if in this case, why not in another?

Then let me adduce a more remarkable instance: A late General Wynyard, and the late General Sir John Sherbroke, when young men, were serving in Canada. One day—it was daylight—Mr. Wynyard and Mr. Sherbroke both saw pass through the room where they sat a figure, which Mr. Wynyard recognised as a brother then far away. One of the two walked to the door, and looked out upon the landing-place, but the stranger was not there; and a servant who was on the stairs had seen nobody pass out. In time news arrived that Mr. Wynyard’s brother had died about the time of the visit of the apparition.

I have had opportunities of inquiring of two near relations of this General Wynyard upon what evidence the above story rests. They told me they had each heard it from his own mouth. More recently, a gentleman, whose accuracy of recollection exceeds that of most people, has told me that he had heard the late Sir John Sherbroke, the other party in the ghost-story, tell it much in the same way at a dinner-table.

One does not feel as comfortably satisfied that the complicated coincidences in this tale admit of being referred to chance. The odds are enormous against two persons—young men in perfect health, neither of whom before or after this event experienced a sensorial illusion—being the subjects at the same moment of one, their common and only one, which concurred in point of time with an event that it foreshadowed, unless there were some real connexion between the event and the double apparition. And we feel a nascent inclination to inquire whether—in case such instances as the present occasionally recur, and instances like the two before narrated become, when looked for, startlingly multiplied—there exists any known mental or physical principle, by the help of which they may be explained into natural phenomena.

The more we look after facts of the above nature, the more urgent becomes the want of such a means of explanation. In every family circle, in every party of men accidentally brought together, you will be sure to hear, if the conversation fall on ghosts and dreams, one or more instances—which the narrators represent as well authenticated—of intimations of the deaths of absent persons conveyed to friends either through an apparition or a dream, or an equivalent unaccountable presentiment. A gentleman—himself of distinguished ability—told me that when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, he was secretary to a ghost society formed in sportive earnest by some of the cleverest young men of one of the best modern periods of the university. One of the results of their labours was the collection of about a dozen stories of the above description resting upon good evidence.

Then there transpire occasionally cases with more curious features still. Not only is the general intimation of an event given, but minute particulars attending it are figured in the dream, or communicated by the ghost. Such tales have sometimes been authenticated in courts of justice. Here is one out of last week’s newspaper:—

“In a Durham paper of last week, there was an account of the disappearance of Mr. Smith, gardener to Sir Clifford Constable, who, it was supposed, had fallen into the river Tees, his hat and stick having been found near the water-side. From that time up to Friday last the river had been dragged every day; but every effort so made to find the body proved ineffectual. On the night of Thursday, however, a person named Awde, residing at little Newsham, a small village about four miles from Wycliff, dreamt that Smith was laid under the ledge of a certain rock, about three hundred yards below Whorlton Bridge, and that his right arm was broken. Awde got up early on Friday, and his dream had such an effect upon him that he determined to go and search the river. He accordingly started off for that purpose, without mentioning the matter, being afraid that he would be laughed at by his neighbours. Nevertheless, on his arriving at the boat-house, he disclosed his object on the man asking him for what purpose he required the boat. He rowed to the spot he had seen in his dream; and there, strange to say, upon the very first trial that he made with his boat-hook, he pulled up the body of the unfortunate man, with his right arm actually broken."—(Herald, December, 1848.)

Reviewing all that I have advanced, it appears to me that there are two desiderata which pressingly require to be now supplied. First, some one should take the pains of authenticating at the time, and putting on permanent record, stories like the above, to be at the service of future speculators. But, secondly, so numerous and well attested are those already current, that the bringing forward into light of some principle by which they may be shown to be natural events is now peremptorily called for.

To lead to the supply of the second desideratum, I proceed to mention a physical phenomenon, which from time to time occurred to the late historian and novelist, Heinrich Zschokke. It is described by him in a sort of autobiography, entitled Selbstschau, which he published a few years ago. It was only last year that Zschokke died, having attained a good old age. Early brought into public life in the troubles of Switzerland, and afterwards maintaining his place in public consideration by his numerous writings, he was personally widely known: he was universally esteemed a man of strict veracity and integrity. He writes thus of himself:—

“If the reception of so many visiters was sometimes troublesome, it repaid itself occasionally either by making me acquainted with remarkable personages, or by bringing out a wonderful sort of seer-gift, which I called my inward vision, and which has always remained an enigma to me. I am almost afraid to say a word upon this subject; not for fear of the imputation of being superstitious, but lest I should encourage that disposition in others; and yet it forms a contribution to psychology. So to confess.

“It is acknowledged that the judgment which we form of strangers, on first meeting them, is frequently more correct than that which we adopt upon a longer acquaintance with them. The first impression which, through an instinct of the soul, attracts one towards, or repels one from, another, becomes, after a time, more dim, and is weakened, either through his appearing other than at first, or through our becoming accustomed to him. People speak, too, in reference to such cases of involuntary sympathies and aversions, and attach a special certainty to such manifestations in children, in whom knowledge of mankind by experience is wanting. Others, again, are incredulous, and attribute all to physiognomical skill. But of myself.

“It has happened to me occasionally, at the first meeting with a total stranger, when I have been listening in silence to his conversation, that his past life, up to the present moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other particular scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but distinctly, entirely, involuntarily, and unsought, occupying in duration a few minutes. During this period I am usually so plunged into the representation of the stranger’s life, that at last I neither continue to see distinctly his face, on which I was idly speculating, nor to hear intelligently his voice, which at first I was using as a commentary to the text of his physiognomy. For a long time I was disposed to consider these fleeting visions as a trick of the fancy; the more so that my dream-vision displayed to me the dress and movements of the actors, the appearance of the room, the furniture, and other accidents of the scene; till, on one occasion, in a gamesome mood, I narrated to my family the secret history of a sempstress who had just before quitted the room. I had never seen the person before. Nevertheless the hearers were astonished, and laughed, and would not be persuaded but that I had a previous acquaintance with the former life of the person, inasmuch as what I had stated was perfectly true. I was not less astonished to find that my dream-vision agreed with reality. I then gave more attention to the subject, and, as often as propriety allowed of it, I related to those whose lives had so passed before me the substance of my dream-vision, to obtain from them its contradiction or confirmation. On every occasion its confirmation followed, not without amazement on the part of those who gave it.

“Least of all could I myself give faith to these conjuring tricks of my mind. Every time that I described to any one my dream-vision respecting him, I confidently expected him to answer it was not so. A secret thrill always came over me when the listener replied, ‘It happened as you say;’ or when, before he spoke, his astonishment betrayed that I was not wrong. Instead of recording many instances, I will give one which, at the time, made a strong impression upon me.

“On a fair day, I went into the town of Waldshut, accompanied by two young foresters who are still alive. It was evening, and, tired with our walk, we went into an inn called the Vine. We took our supper with a numerous company at the public table; when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities and simplicity of the Swiss, in connexion with the belief in Mesmerism, Lavater’s physiognomical system, and the like. One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance, who sat opposite, and had indulged in unrestrained ridicule. It happened that the events of this very person’s life had just previously passed before my mind. I turned to him with the question, whether he would reply to me with truth and candour, if I narrated to him the most secret passages of his history, he being as little known to me as I to him? That would, I suggested, go something beyond Lavater’s physiognomical skill. He promised, if I told the truth, to admit it openly. Then I narrated the events with which my dream-vision had furnished me, and the table learnt the history of the young tradesman’s life, of his school years, his peccadilloes, and, finally, of a little act of roguery committed by him on the strong box of his employer. I described the uninhabited room with its white walls, where, to the right of the brown door, there had stood upon the table the small black money-chest, &c. A dead silence reigned in the company during this recital, interrupted only when I occasionally asked if I spoke the truth. The man, much struck, admitted the correctness of each circumstance—even, which I could not expect, of the last. Touched with his frankness, I reached my hand to him across the table, and closed my narrative. He asked my name, which I gave him. We sat up late in the night conversing. He may be alive yet.

“Now I can well imagine how a lively imagination could picture, romance-fashion, from the obvious character of a person, how he would conduct himself under given circumstances. But whence came to me the involuntary knowledge of accessory details, which were without any sort of interest, and respected people who for the most part were utterly indifferent to me, with whom I neither had, nor wished to have, the slightest association? Or was it in each case mere coincidence? Or had the listener, to whom I described his history, each time other images in his mind than the accessory ones of my story, but, in surprise at the essential resemblance of my story to the truth, lost sight of the points of difference? Yet I have, in consideration of this possible source of error, several times taken pains to describe the most trivial circumstances that my dream-vision has shown me.

“Not another word about this strange seer-gift, which I can aver was of no use to me in a single instance, which manifested itself occasionally only, and quite independently of any volition, and often in relation to persons in whose history I took not the slightest interest. Nor am I the only one in possession of this faculty. In a journey with two of my sons, I fell in with an old Tyrolese who travelled about, selling lemons and oranges, at the inn at Unterhauerstein in one of the Jura passes. He fixed his eyes for some time upon me, joined in our conversation, observed that though I did not know him he knew me, and began to describe my acts and deeds, to the no little amusement of the peasants, and astonishment of my children, whom it interested to learn that another possessed the same gift as their father. How the old lemon-merchant acquired his knowledge he was not able to explain to himself nor to me. But he seemed to attach great importance to his hidden wisdom.”2

In the newness of such knowledge, it is worth while to note separately each of the particulars which attended the manifestation of this strange mental faculty, with his account of which Zschokke has enriched psychology.

1. Then, after the power of looking up the entire recollections of another, through some other channel than ordinary inquiry and observation—and as it seemed directly—we may note,—

2. The rapidity, minuteness, and precision, which characterized the act of inspection.

3. The feeling attending it of becoming absent or lost to what was going on around.

4. Its involuntariness and unexpectedness.

5. Its being practicable on some only; and

6. Those entire strangers, and at their first interview with the seer.

At present I shall avail myself of the first broad fact alone, remarking, however, of the conditions observed in it, that they clearly indicate the existence of a law on which the phenomenon depended. And I shall assume it to be proved by the above crucial instance, that the mind, or soul, of one human being can be brought, in the natural course of things, and under physiological laws hereafter to be determined, into immediate relation with the mind of another living person.

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.