In an article on apparitions written by Andrew Lang, in the second
volume of the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” ninth edition, he says:
“The writer once met, as he believed, a well-known and learned
member of an English university who was really dying at a place
more than a hundred miles distant from that in which he was
seen.”
To determine whether or not it was a case of mistaken identity
is very important, but no opportunity is given in the passage
quoted. If it was a subjective impression, the coincidence
would be curious and nothing else; and not more so than many
coincidences in trifles, and many other circumstances absolutely
disconnected, and many subjective impressions without any
coincidences. Mr. Lang refers to the superstitious horror shown
by a dog at the moment of a supposed apparition to his master.
That the dog exhibited horror when his owner thought he saw
an apparition may be readily believed. Any one familiar with
dogs knows that nothing will terrify them more than a great
appearance of alarm on the part of their masters without any
visible cause. Of the same nature is the remark concerning
the mysterious disturbances at the house of the Wesleys. “The
mastiff was more afraid than any of the children.” The volatile
imagination of children have never shown any great horror of
the mysteries; they were sustained, too, by confidence in their
parents. But the dog heard mysterious noises, which naturally
greatly agitated him. Many persons fancy that mysterious
noises that will appear to respond to questions, to make raps
or answer raps, conclusively prove that they are directed by
intelligence. Sometimes they may, and the intelligence is quite
likely to be of human origin; but the noises of atmospheric,
chemical, or electrical origin may furnish astonishing
coincidences, just as the fissures in the rocks are extremely
difficult to be distinguished from hieroglyphics. Some years ago
an alphabet based on the spiritualistic alphabet was applied
to the successive gusts of wind of a stormy autumn day, and
the coincidences were astonishing. Whole sentences of a very
significant character at times appeared to respond to the
arbitrary standard. And in any case the conclusion that a noise,
the cause of which is not yet understood, must be supernatural
is a process of reasoning _ab ignorantia_.--J. M.
BUCKLEY, _Century_.
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=Spiritual Culture=--See APPRECIATION, SPIRITUAL.