The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Night-Side of Nature, by Catherine Crowe

THE

NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE

OR,

GHOSTS AND GHOST-SEERS.

BY

CATHERINE CROWE

AUTHORESS OF “SUSAN HOPLEY,” “LILLY DAWSON,” “ARISTODEMUS,” ETC.

"Thou com’st in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee.”

NEW YORK:

J. S. REDFIELD, CLINTON HALL.

BOSTON:—B. B. MUSSEY & CO.

1850.

PREFACE.

In my late novel of “Lilly Dawson,” I announced my intention of publishing a work to be called “The Night-Side of Nature;" this is it.

The term “Night-Side of Nature” I borrow from the Germans, who derive it from the astronomers, the latter denominating that side of a planet which is turned from the sun, its night-side. We are in this condition for a certain number of hours out of every twenty-four; and as, during this interval, external objects loom upon us but strangely and imperfectly, the Germans draw a parallel between these vague and misty perceptions, and the similar obscure and uncertain glimpses we get of that veiled department of nature, of which, while comprising as it does, the solution of questions concerning us more nearly than any other, we are yet in a state of entire and wilful ignorance. For science, at least science in this country, has put it aside as beneath her notice, because new facts that do not fit into old theories are troublesome, and not to be countenanced.

We are encompassed on all sides by wonders, and we can scarcely set our foot upon the ground, without trampling upon some marvellous production that our whole life and all our faculties would not suffice to comprehend. Familiarity, however, renders us insensible to the ordinary works of nature; we are apt to forget the miracles they comprise, and even, sometimes, mistaking words for conceptions, commit the error of thinking we understand their mystery. But there is one class of these wonders with which, from their comparatively rare occurrence, we do not become familiar; and these, according to the character of the mind to which they are presented, are frequently either denied as ridiculous and impossible, or received as evidences of supernatural interference—interruptions of those general laws by which God governs the universe; which latter mistake arises from our only seeing these facts without the links that connect them with the rest of nature, just as in the faint light of a starlit night we might distinguish the tall mountains that lift their crests high into the sky, though we could not discern the low chain of hills that united them with each other.

There are two or three books by German authors, entitled “The Night-Side,” or “The Night-Dominion of Nature,” which are on subjects, more or less analogous to mine. Heinrick Schubert’s is the most celebrated among them; it is a sort of cosmogony of the world, written in a spirit of philosophical mysticism—too much so for English readers in general.

In undertaking to write a book on these subjects myself, I wholly disclaim the pretension of teaching or of enforcing opinions. My object is to suggest inquiry and stimulate observation, in order that we may endeavor, if possible, to discover something regarding our psychical nature, as it exists here in the flesh; and as it is to exist hereafter, out of it.

If I could only induce a few capable persons, instead of laughing at these things, to look at them, my object would be attained, and I should consider my time well spent.

CONTENTS.

THE

NIGHT-SIDE OF NATURE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

“Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?”

—1 Corinthians, iii. 16.

Most persons are aware that the Greeks and Romans entertained certain notions regarding the state of the soul, or the immortal part of man, after the death of the body, which have been generally held to be purely mythological. Many of them doubtless are so, and of these I am not about to treat; but among their conceptions, there are some which, as they coincide with the opinions of many of the most enlightened persons of the present age, it may be desirable to consider more closely. I allude here particularly to their belief in the tripartite kingdom of the dead. According to this system, there were the Elysian fields, a region in which a certain sort of happiness was enjoyed; and Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked; each of which was, comparatively, but thinly inhabited. But there was also a mid-region, peopled with innumerable hosts of wandering and mournful spirits, who, although undergoing no torments, are represented as incessantly bewailing their condition, pining for the life they once enjoyed in the body, longing after the things of the earth, and occupying themselves with the same pursuits and objects as had formerly constituted their business or their pleasure. Old habits are still dear to them, and they can not snap the link that binds them to the earth.

Now, although we can not believe in the existence of Charon, the three-headed dog, or Alecto, the serpent-haired fury, it may be worth while to consider whether the persuasion of the ancients with regard to that which concerns us all so nearly—namely, the destiny that awaits us when we have shaken off this mortal coil—may not have some foundation in truth: whether it might not be a remnant of a tradition transmitted from the earliest inhabitants of the earth, wrested by observation from nature, if not communicated from a higher source: and also whether circumstances of constant recurrence in all ages and in all nations, frequently observed and recorded by persons utterly ignorant of classical lore, and unacquainted, indeed, with the dogmas of any creed but their own, do not, as well as various passages in the Scriptures, afford a striking confirmation of this theory of a future life; while it, on the other hand, offers a natural and convenient explanation of their mystery.

To minds which can admit nothing but what can be explained and demonstrated, an investigation of this sort must appear perfectly idle: for while, on the one hand, the most acute intellect or the most powerful logic can throw little light on the subject, it is, at the same time—though I have a confident hope that this will not always be the case—equally irreducible within the present bounds of science; meanwhile, experience, observation, and intuition, must be our principal if not our only guides. Because, in the seventeenth century, credulity outran reason and discretion; the eighteenth century, by a natural reaction, threw itself into an opposite extreme. Whoever closely observes the signs of the times, will be aware that another change is approaching. The contemptuous skepticism of the last age is yielding to a more humble spirit of inquiry; and there is a large class of persons among the most enlightened of the present, who are beginning to believe that much which they had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in reality, ill-understood truth. Somewhat of the mystery of our own being, and of the mysteries that compass us about, are beginning to loom upon us—as yet, it is true, but obscurely; and, in the endeavor to follow out the clew they offer, we have but a feeble light to guide us. We must grope our way through the dim path before us, ever in danger of being led into error, while we may confidently reckon on being pursued by the shafts of ridicule—that weapon so easy to wield, so potent to the weak, so weak to the wise—which has delayed the births of so many truths, but never stifled one. The pharisaical skepticism which denies without investigation, is quite as perilous, and much more contemptible, than the blind credulity which accepts all that it is taught without inquiry; it is, indeed, but another form of ignorance assuming to be knowledge. And by investigation, I do not mean the hasty, captious, angry notice of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of pronouncing on a question; but the slow, modest, pains-taking examination, that is content to wait upon Nature, and humbly follow out her disclosures, however opposed to preconceived theories or mortifying to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they discredit the science they really profess, by their despotic arrogance and exclusive skepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very science they love, affect more liberality and candor. This reflection, however, naturally suggests another, namely, do they really love science, or is it not too frequently with them but the means to an end? Were the love of science genuine, I suspect it would produce very different fruits to that which we see borne by the tree of knowledge, as it flourishes at present; and this suspicion is exceedingly strengthened by the recollection that, among the numerous students and professors of science I have at different times encountered, the real worshippers and genuine lovers of it, for its own sake, have all been men of the most single, candid, unprejudiced, and inquiring minds, willing to listen to all new suggestions, and investigate all new facts; not bold and self-sufficient, but humble and reverent suitors, aware of their own ignorance and unworthiness, and that they are yet but in the primer of Nature’s works, they do not permit themselves to pronounce upon her disclosures, or set limits to her decrees. They are content to admit that things new and unsuspected may yet be true; that their own knowledge of facts being extremely circumscribed, the systems attempted to be established on such uncertain data, must needs be very imperfect, and frequently altogether erroneous; and that it is therefore their duty, as it ought to be their pleasure, to welcome as a stranger every gleam of light that appears in the horizon, let it loom from whatever quarter it may.

But, alas! poor Science has few such lovers! Les beaux yeux de sa cassette, I fear, are much more frequently the objects of attraction than her own fair face.

The belief in a God, and in the immortality of what we call the soul, is common to all nations; but our own intellect does not enable us to form any conception of either one or the other. All the information we have on these subjects is comprised in such hints as the Scripture here and there give us: whatever other conclusions we draw, must be the result of observation and experience. Unless founded upon these, the opinion of the most learned theologian or the most profound student of science that ever lived, is worth no more than that of any other person. They know nothing whatever about these mysteries; and all a priori reasoning on them is utterly valueless. The only way, therefore, of attaining any glimpses of the truth in an inquiry of this nature, where our intellect can serve us so little, is to enter on it with the conviction that, knowing nothing, we are not entitled to reject any evidence that may be offered to us, till it has been thoroughly sifted, and proved to be fallacious. That the facts presented to our notice appear to us absurd, and altogether inconsistent with the notions our intellects would have enabled us to form, should have no weight whatever in the investigation. Our intellects are no measure of God Almighty’s designs; and, I must say, that I do think one of the most irreverent, dangerous, and sinful things man or woman can be guilty of, is to reject with scorn and laughter any intimation which, however strangely it may strike upon our minds, and however adverse it may be to our opinions, may possibly be showing us the way to one of God’s truths. Not knowing all the conditions, and wanting so many links of the chain, it is impossible for us to pronounce on what is probable and consistent, and what is not; and, this being the case, I think the time is ripe for drawing attention to certain phenomena, which, under whatever aspect we may consider them, are, beyond doubt, exceedingly interesting and curious; while, if the view many persons are disposed to take of them be the correct one, they are much more than this. I wish, also, to make the English public acquainted with the ideas entertained on these subjects by a large proportion of German minds of the highest order. It is a distinctive characteristic of the thinkers of that country, that, in the first place, they do think independently and courageously; and, in the second, that they never shrink from promulgating the opinions they have been led to form, however new, strange, heterodox, or even absurd, they may appear to others. They do not succumb, as people do in this country, to the fear of ridicule; nor are they in danger of the odium that here pursues those who deviate from established notions; and the consequence is, that, though many fallacious theories and untenable propositions may be advanced, a great deal of new truth is struck out from the collision; and in the result, as must always be the case, what is true lives and is established, and what is false dies and is forgotten. But here, in Britain, our critics and colleges are in such haste to strangle and put down every new discovery that does not emanate from themselves, or which is not a fulfilling of the ideas of the day, but which, being somewhat opposed to them, promises to be troublesome from requiring new thought to render it intelligible, that one might be induced to suppose them divested of all confidence in this inviolable law; while the more important and the higher the results involved may be, the more angry they are with those who advocate them. They do not quarrel with a new metal or a new plant, and even a new comet or a new island stands a fair chance of being well received; the introduction of a planet appears, from late events, to be more difficult; while phrenology and mesmerism testify that any discovery tending to throw light on what most deeply concerns us, namely, our own being, must be prepared to encounter a storm of angry persecution. And one of the evils of this hasty and precipitate opposition is, that the passions and interests of the opposers become involved in the dispute: instead of investigators, they become partisans; having declared against it in the outset, it is important to their petty interests that the thing shall not be true; and they determine that it shall not, if they can help it. Hence, these hasty, angry investigations of new facts, and the triumph with which failures are recorded; and hence the wilful overlooking of the axiom that a thousand negatives can not overthrow the evidence of one affirmative experiment. I always distrust those who have declared themselves strongly in the beginning of a controversy. Opinions which, however rashly avowed, may have been honest at first, may have been changed for many a long day before they are retracted. In the meantime, the march of truth is obstructed, and its triumph is delayed; timid minds are alarmed; those who dare not or can not think for themselves, are subdued; there is much needless suffering incurred, and much good lost; but the truth goes quietly on its way, and reaches the goal at last.

With respect to the subjects I am here going to treat of, it is not simply the result of my own reflections and convictions that I am about to offer. On the contrary, I intend to fortify my position by the opinions of many other writers; the chief of whom will, for the reasons above given, namely, that it is they who have principally attended to the question, be Germans. I am fully aware that in this country a very considerable number of persons lean to some of these opinions, and I think I might venture to assert that I have the majority on my side, as far as regards ghosts—for it is beyond a doubt that many more are disposed to believe than to confess—and those who do confess, are not few. The deep interest with which any narration of spiritual appearances bearing the stamp, or apparent stamp, of authenticity is listened to in every society, is one proof that, though the fear of ridicule may suppress, it can not extinguish that intuitive persuasion, of which almost every one is more or less conscious.

I avow, that in writing this book, I have a higher aim than merely to afford amusement. I wish to engage the earnest attention of my readers; because I am satisfied that the opinions I am about to advocate, seriously entertained, would produce very beneficial results. We are all educated in the belief of a future state, but how vague and ineffective this belief is with the majority of persons, we too well know; for although, as I have said above, the number of those who are what is called believers in ghosts and similar phenomena is very large, it is a belief that they allow to sit extremely lightly on their minds. Although they feel that the evidence from within and from without is too strong to be altogether set aside, they have never permitted themselves to weigh the significance of the facts. They are afraid of that bugbear, Superstition—a title of opprobrium which it is very convenient to attach to whatever we do not believe ourselves. They forget that nobody has a right to call any belief superstitious, till he can prove that it is unfounded. Now, no one that lives can assert that the reappearance of the dead is impossible; all he has a right to say is, that he does not believe it; and the interrogation that should immediately follow this declaration is, “Have you devoted your life to sifting all the evidence that has been adduced on the other side, from the earliest periods of history and tradition?” and even though the answer were in the affirmative, and that the investigation had been conscientiously pursued, it would be still a bold inquirer that would think himself entitled to say, the question was no longer open. But the rashness and levity with which mankind make professions of believing and disbelieving, are, all things considered, phenomena much more extraordinary than the most extraordinary ghost-story that ever was related. The truth is, that not one person in a thousand, in the proper sense of the word, believes anything; they only fancy they believe, because they have never seriously considered the meaning of the word and all that it involves. That which the human mind can not conceive of, is apt to slip from its grasp like water from the hand; and life out of the flesh falls under this category. The observation of any phenomena, therefore, which enabled us to master the idea, must necessarily be extremely beneficial; and it must be remembered, that one single thoroughly well-established instance of the reappearance of a deceased person, would not only have this effect, but that it would afford a demonstrative proof of the deepest of all our intuitions, namely, that a future life awaits us.

Not to mention the modern Germans of eminence, who have devoted themselves to this investigation, there have been men remarkable for intellect in all countries, who have considered the subject worthy of inquiry. Among the rest, Plato, Pliny, and Lucien; and in our own country, that good old divine, Dr. Henry Moore, Dr. Johnson, Addison, Isaac Taylor, and many others. It may be objected that the eternally-quoted case of Nicolai, the bookseller at Berlin, and Dr. Ferriar’s “Theory of Apparitions,” had not then settled the question; but nobody doubts that Nicolai’s was a case of disease; and he was well aware of it himself, as it appears to me, everybody so afflicted, is. I was acquainted with a poor woman, in Edinburgh, who suffered from this malady, brought on, I believe, by drinking; but she was perfectly conscious of the nature of the illusions; and that temperance and a doctor were the proper exorcists to lay the spirits. With respect to Dr. Ferriar’s book, a more shallow one was assuredly never allowed to settle any question; and his own theory can not, without the most violent straining, and the assistance of what he calls coincidences, meet even half the cases he himself adduces. That such a disease, as he describes, exists, nobody doubts; but I maintain that there are hundreds of cases on record, for which the explanation does not suffice; and if they have been instances of spectral illusion, all that remains to be said, is, that a fundamental reconstruction of the theory on that subject is demanded.

La Place says, in his “Essay on Probabilities,” that “any case, however apparently incredible, if it be a recurrent case, is as much entitled, under the laws of induction, to a fair valuation, as if it had been more probable beforehand.” Now, no one will deny that the case in question possesses this claim to investigation. Determined skeptics may, indeed, deny that there exists any well-authenticated instance of an apparition; but that, at present, can only be a mere matter of opinion; since many persons, as competent to judge as themselves, maintain the contrary; and in the meantime, I arraign their right to make this objection till they have qualified themselves to do so, by a long course of patient and honest inquiry; always remembering that every instance of error or imposition discovered and adduced, has no positive value whatever in the argument, but as regards that single instance; though it may enforce upon us the necessity of strong evidence and careful investigation. With respect to the evidence, past and present, I must be allowed here to remark on the extreme difficulty of producing it. Not to mention the acknowledged carelessness of observers and the alleged incapacity of persons to distinguish between reality and illusion, there is an exceeding shyness in most people, who, either have seen, or fancied they have seen, an apparition, to speak of it at all, except to some intimate friend; so that one gets most of the stories second-hand; while even those who are less chary of their communications, are imperative against their name and authority being given to the public. Besides this, there is a great tendency in most people, after the impression is over, to think they may have been deceived; and where there is no communication or other circumstance rendering this conviction impossible, it is not difficult to acquire it, or at least so much of it as leaves the case valueless. The seer is glad to find this refuge from the unpleasant feelings engendered; while surrounding friends, sometimes from genuine skepticism, and sometimes from good-nature, almost invariably lean to this explanation of the mystery. In consequence of these difficulties and those attending the very nature of the phenomena, I freely admit that the facts I shall adduce, as they now stand, can have no scientific value; they can not in short, enter into the region of science at all, still less into that of philosophy. Whatever conclusions we may be led to form, can not be founded on pure induction. We must confine ourselves wholly within the region of opinion; if we venture beyond which, we shall assuredly founder. In the beginning, all sciences have been but a collection of facts, afterward to be examined, compared, and weighed, by intelligent minds. To the vulgar, who do not see the universal law which governs the universe, everything out of the ordinary course of events, is a prodigy; but to the enlightened mind there are no prodigies; for it perceives that in both the moral and the physical world, there is a chain of uninterrupted connection; and that the most strange and even apparently contradictory or supernatural fact or event will be found, on due investigation, to be strictly dependent on its antecedents. It is possible, that there may be a link wanting, and that our investigations may, consequently, be fruitless; but the link is assuredly there, although our imperfect knowledge and limited vision can not find it.

And it is here the proper place to observe, that, in undertaking to treat of the phenomena in question, I do not propose to consider them as supernatural; on the contrary, I am persuaded that the time will come, when they will be reduced strictly within the bounds of science. It was the tendency of the last age to reject and deny everything they did not understand; I hope it is the growing tendency of the present one to examine what we do not understand. Equally disposed with our predecessors of the eighteenth century to reject the supernatural, and to believe the order of nature inviolable, we are disposed to extend the bounds of nature and science, till they comprise within their limits all the phenomena, ordinary and extraordinary, by which we are surrounded. Scarcely a month passes that we do not hear of some new and important discovery in science. It is a domain in which nothing is stable, and every year overthrows some of the hasty and premature theories of the preceding ones; and this will continue to be the case as long as scientific men occupy themselves each with his own subject, without studying the great and primal truths—what the French call les vérités mères—which link the whole together. Meantime, there is a continual unsettling. Truth, if it do not emanate from an acknowledged authority, is generally rejected; and error, if it do, is as often accepted; while, whoever disputes the received theory, whatever it be—we mean especially that adopted by the professors of colleges—does it at his peril. But there is a day yet brooding in the bosom of time, when the sciences will be no longer isolated; when we shall no longer deny, but be able to account for, phenomena apparently prodigious, or have the modesty, if we can not explain them, to admit that the difficulty arises solely from our own incapacity. The system of centralization in statistics seems to be of doubtful advantage; but a greater degree of centralization appears to be very much needed in the domain of science. Some improvement in this respect might do wonders, particularly if reinforced with a slight infusion of patience and humility into the minds of scientific men; together with the recollection that facts and phenomena, which do not depend on our will, must be waited for—that we must be at their command, for they will not be at ours.

But to return once more to our own subject. If we do believe that a future life awaits us, there can be nothing more natural than the desire to obtain some information as to what manner of life that is to be for which any one of us may, before this time to-morrow, have exchanged his present mode of being. That there does not exist a greater interest with regard to this question in the mind of man, arises partly from the vague, intangible kind of belief he entertains of the fact; partly from his absorption in worldly affairs, and the hard and indigestible food upon which his clerical shepherds pasture him—for, under dogmatic theology, religion seems to have withered away to the mere husk of spiritualism; and partly, also, from the apparent impossibility of pursuing the inquiry to any purpose. As I said before, observation and experience can alone guide us in such an inquiry; for, though most people have a more or less intuitive sense of their own immortality, intuition is silent as to the mode of it; and the question I am anxious here to discuss with my readers is, whether we have any facts to observe, or any experience from which, on this most interesting of all subjects, a conclusion may be drawn. Great as the difficulty is of producing evidence, it will, I think, be pretty generally admitted that, although each individual case, as it stands alone, may be comparatively valueless, the amount of recurrent cases forms a body of evidence that, on any other subject, would scarcely be rejected; and since, if the facts are accepted, they imperatively demand an explanation—for, assuredly, the present theory of spectral illusions can not comprise them—our inquiry, let it terminate in whatever conclusion it may, can not be useless or uninteresting. Various views of the phenomena in question may be taken; and although I shall offer my own opinions and the theories and opinions of others, I insist upon none. I do not write to dogmatise, but to suggest reflection and inquiry. The books of Dr. Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and Dr. Thatcher, the American, are all written to support one exclusive theory; and they only give such cases as serve to sustain it. They maintain that the whole phenomena are referrible to nervous or sanguineous derangement, and are mere subjective illusions; and whatever instance can not be covered by this theory, they reject as false, or treat as a case of extraordinary coincidence. In short, they arrange the facts to their theory, not their theory to the facts. Their books can not, therefore, claim to be considered as anything more than essays on a special disease; they have no pretence whatever to the character of investigations. The question, consequently, remains as much an open one as before they treated it; while we have the advantage of their experience and information, with regard to the peculiar malady that forms the subject of their works. On that subject it is not my intention to enter; it is a strictly medical one, and every information may be obtained respecting it in the above-named treatises, and others emanating from the faculty.

The subjects I do intend to treat of are the various kinds of prophetic dreams, presentiments, second-sight, and apparitions; and, in short, all that class of phenomena which appears to throw some light on our physical nature, and on the probable state of the soul after death. In this discussion, I shall make free use of my German authorities, Doctors Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Ennemoser, Passavent, Schubert, Von Meyer, &c., &c.; and I here make a general acknowledgment to that effect, because it would embarrass my book too much to be constantly giving names and references, although, when I quote their words literally, I shall make a point of doing so; and because, also, that, as I have been both thinking and reading much on these subjects for a considerable time past, I am, in fact, no longer in a condition to appropriate, either to them or to myself, each his own. This, however, is a matter of very little consequence, as I am not desirous of claiming any idea as mine that can be found elsewhere. It is enough for me, if I succeed in making a tolerably clear exposition of the subject, and can induce other people to reflect upon it.

CHAPTER II.

THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE.

It is almost needless to observe, that the Scriptures repeatedly speak of man as a tripartite being, consisting of spirit, soul, and body: and that, according to St. Paul, we have two bodies—a natural body and a spiritual body; the former being designed as our means of communication with the external world—an instrument to be used and controlled by our nobler parts. It is this view of it, carried to a fanaticism, which has led to the various and extraordinary mortifications recorded of ascetics. As is remarked by the Rev. Hare Townshend, in a late edition of his book on mesmerism, in this fleshly body consists our organic life; in the body which we are to retain through eternity, consists our fundamental life. May not the first, he says, “be a temporary development of the last, just as leaves, flowers, and fruits, are the temporary developments of a tree? And in the same manner that these pass and drop away, yet leave the principle of reproduction behind, so may our present organs be detached from us by death, and yet the ground of our existence be spared to us continuously.”

Without entering into the subtle disputes of philosophers, with regard to the spirit, a subject on which there is a standing controversy between the disciples of Hegel and those of other teachers, I need only observe that the Scriptures seem to indicate what some of the heathen sages taught, that the spirit that dwells within us is the spirit of God, incorporated in us for a period, for certain ends of his own, to be thereby wrought out. What those ends are, it does not belong to my present subject to consider. In this spirit so imparted to us, dwells, says Eschenmayer, the conscience, which keeps watch over the body and the soul, saying, “Thus shalt thou do!” And it is to this Christ addresses himself when he bids his disciples become perfect, like their Father in heaven. The soul is subject to the spirit; and its functions are, to will, or choose, to think, and to feel, and to become thereby cognizant of the true, the beautiful, and the good; comprehending the highest principle, the highest ideal, and the most perfect happiness. The Ego, or I, is the resultant of the three forces, Pneuma, Psyche, Soma—spirit, soul, and body.

In the spirit or soul, or rather in both conjoined, dwells, also, the power of spiritual seeing, or intuitive knowing; for, as there is a spiritual body, there is a spiritual eye, and a spiritual ear, and so forth; or, to speak more correctly, all these sensuous functions are comprised in one universal sense, which does not need the aid of the bodily organs; but, on the contrary, is most efficient when most freed from them. It remains to be seen whether, or in what degree, such separation can take place during life; complete it can not be till death; but whoever believes sincerely that the divine spirit dwells within him, can, I should think, find no difficulty in conceiving that, although from the temporary conditions to which that spirit is subjected, this universal faculty is limited and obscured, it must still retain its indefeasible attribute.

We may naturally conclude that the most perfect state of man on earth consists in the most perfect unity of the spirit and the soul; and to those who in this life have attained the nearest to that unity will the entire assimilation of the two, after they are separated from the body, be the easiest; while to those who have lived only their intellectual and external life, this union must be extremely difficult, the soul having chosen its part with the body, and divorced itself, as much as in it lay, from the spirit. The voice of conscience is then scarcely heard; and the soul, degraded and debased, can no longer perform its functions of discerning the true, the beautiful, and the good.

On these distinct functions of the soul and spirit, however, it is not my intention to insist, since it appears to me a subject on which we are not yet in a condition to dogmatize. We know rather more about our bodies, by means of which the soul and spirit are united and brought into contact with the material world, and which are constructed wholly with a view to the conditions of that world; such as time, space, solidity, extension, &c., &c. But we must conceive of God as necessarily independent of these conditions. To Him, all times and all places must be for ever present; and it is thus that he is omniscient and omnipresent; and since we are placed by the spirit in immediate relation with God and the spiritual world, just as we are placed by the body in immediate relation with the material world, we may, in the first place, form a notion of the possibility that some faint gleams of these inherent attributes may, at times, shoot up through the clay in which the spirit has taken up its temporary abode; and we may also admit, that through the connection which exists between us and the spiritual world, it is not impossible but that we may, at times, and under certain conditions, become cognizant of, and enter into more immediate relation with it. This is the only postulate I ask; for, as I said before, I do not wish to enforce opinions, but to suggest probabilities, or at least possibilities, and thus arouse reflection and inquiry.

With respect to the term invisible world, I beg to remind my readers, that what we call seeing is merely the function of an organ constructed for that purpose in relation to the external world; and so limited are its powers, that we are surrounded by many things in that world which we can not see without the aid of artificial appliances and many other things which we can not see even with them; the atmosphere in which we live, for example, although its weight and mechanical forces are the subjects of accurate calculation, is entirely imperceptible to our visual organs. Thus, the fact that we do not commonly see them, forms no legitimate objection to the hypothesis of our being surrounded by a world of spirits, or of that world being inter-diffused among us. Supposing the question to be decided that we do sometimes become cognizant of them, which, however, I admit it is not, since, whether the apparitions are subjective, or objective, that is, whether they are the mere phenomena of disease, or real out-standing appearances, is the inquiry I desire to promote—but, I say, supposing that question were decided in the affirmative, the next that arises is, how, or by what means do we see them; or, if they address us, hear them? If that universal sense which appears to me to be inseparable from the idea of spirit, be once admitted, I think there can be no difficulty in answering this question; and if it be objected that we are conscious of no such sense, I answer, that both in dreams and in certain abnormal states of the body, it is frequently manifested. In order to render this more clear, and, at the same time, to give an interesting instance of this sort of phenomenon, I will transcribe a passage from a letter of St. Augustine to his friend Evadius (Epistola 159. Antwerp edition).

“I will relate to you a circumstance,” he writes, “which will furnish you matter for reflection. Our brother Sennadius, well known to us all as an eminent physician, and whom we especially love, who is now at Carthage, after having distinguished himself at Rome, and with whose piety and active benevolence you are well acquainted, could yet, nevertheless, as he has lately narrated to us, by no means bring himself to believe in a life after death. Now, God, doubtless, not willing that his soul should perish, there appeared to him one night, in a dream, a radiant youth of noble aspect, who bade him follow him; and as Sennadius obeyed, they came to a city where, on the right side, he heard a chorus of the most heavenly voices. As he desired to know whence this divine harmony proceeded, the youth told him that what he heard were the songs of the blessed; whereupon he awoke, and thought no more of his dream than people usually do. On another night, however, behold! the youth appears to him again, and asks him if he knows him; and Sennadius related to him all the particulars of his former dream, which he well remembered. ‘Then,’ said the youth, ‘was it while sleeping or waking that you saw these things?’—‘I was sleeping,’ answered Sennadius. ‘You are right,’ returned the youth, ‘it was in your sleep that you saw these things; and know, O Sennadius, that what you see now is also in your sleep. But if this be so, tell me where then is your body?’—‘In my bed-chamber,’ answered Sennadius. ‘But know you not,’ continued the stranger, ‘that your eyes, which form a part of your body, are closed and inactive?’—‘I know it,’ answered he. ‘Then,’ said the youth, ‘with what eyes see you these things?’ And Sennadius could not answer him; and as he hesitated, the youth spoke again, and explained to him the motive of his questions. ‘As the eyes of your body,’ said he, ‘which lies now on your bed and sleeps, are inactive and useless, and yet you have eyes wherewith you see me and these things I have shown unto you; so after death, when these bodily organs fail you, you will have a vital power, whereby you will live, and a sensitive faculty, whereby you will perceive. Doubt, therefore, no longer that there is a life after death.’ And thus,” said this excellent man, “was I convinced, and all doubts removed.”

I confess there appears to me a beauty and a logical truth in this dream that I think might convince more than the dreamer.

It is by the hypothesis of this universal sense, latent within us—an hypothesis which, whoever believes that we are immortal spirits, incorporated for a season in a material body, can scarcely reject—that I seek to explain those perceptions which are not comprised within the functions of our bodily organs. It seems to me to be the key to all or nearly all of them, as far as our own part in the phenomena extends. But, supposing this admitted, there would then remain the difficulty of accounting for the partial and capricious glimpses we get of it; while in that department of the mystery which regards apparitions, except such as are the pure result of disease, we must grope our way, with very little light to guide us, as to the conditions and motives which might possibly bring them into any immediate relation with us.

To any one who has been fortunate enough to witness one genuine case of clairvoyance, I think the conception of this universal sense will not be difficult, however the mode of its exercise may remain utterly incomprehensible. As I have said above—to the great Spirit and Fountain of life, all things, in both space and time, must be present. However impossible it is to our finite minds to conceive this, we must believe it. It may, in some slight degree, facilitate the conception to remember that action, once begun, never ceases—an impulse given is transmitted on for ever; a sound breathed reverberates in eternity; and thus the past is always present, although, for the purpose of fitting us for this mortal life, our ordinary senses are so constituted as to be unperceptive of these phenomena. With respect to what we call the future, it is more difficult still for us to conceive it as present; nor, as far as I know, can we borrow from the sciences the same assistance as mechanical discoveries have just furnished me with in regard to the past. How a spirit sees that which has not yet, to our senses, taken place, seems certainly inexplicable. Foreseeing it is not inexplicable: we foresee many things by arguing on given premises, although, from our own finite views, we are always liable to be mistaken. Louis Lambert says: “Such events as are the product of humanity, and the result of its intelligence, have their own causes, in which they lie latent, just as our actions are accomplished in our thoughts previous to any outward demonstration of them; presentiments and prophecies consist in the intuitive perception of these causes.” This explanation, which is quite conformable with that of Cicero, may aid us in some degree as regards a certain small class of phenomena; but there is something involved in the question much more subtle than this. Our dreams can give us the only idea of it; for there we do actually see and hear, not only that which never was, but that which never will be. Actions and events, words and sounds, persons and places, are as clearly and vividly present to us as if they were actually what they seem; and I should think that most people must be somewhat puzzled to decide in regard to certain scenes and circumstances that live in their memory, whether the images are the result of their waking or sleeping experience. Although by no means a dreamer, and without the most remote approximation to any faculty of presentiment, I know this is the case with myself. I remember also a very curious effect being produced upon me, when I was abroad, some years ago, from eating the unwholesome bread to which we were reduced, in consequence of a scarcity. Some five or six times a day I was seized with a sort of vertigo, during which I seemed to pass through certain scenes, and was conscious of certain words, which appeared to me to have a strange connection, with either some former period of my life, or else some previous state of existence. The words and the scenes were on each occasion precisely the same: I was always aware of that, and I always made the strongest efforts to grasp and retain them in my memory, but I could not. I only knew that the thing had been; the words and the scenes were gone. I seemed to pass momentarily into another sphere and back again. This was purely the result of disorder; but, like a dream, it shows how we may be perceptive of that which is not, and which never may be; rendering it, therefore, possible to conceive that a spirit may be equally perceptive of that which shall be. I am very far from meaning to imply that these examples remove the difficulty: they do not explain the thing; they only show somewhat the mode of it. But it must be remembered that when physiologists pretend to settle the whole question of apparitions by the theory of spectral illusions, they are exactly in the same predicament. They can supply examples of similar phenomena; but how a person, perfectly in his senses, should receive the spectral visits of, not only friends, but strangers, when he is thinking of no such matter—or by what process, mental or optical, the figures are conjured up—remains as much a mystery as before a line was written on the subject.

All people and all ages have believed, more or less, in prophetic dreams, presentiments, and apparitions; and all historians have furnished examples of them. That the truths may be frequently distorted and mingled with fable, is no argument against those traditions; if it were, all history must be rejected on the same plea. Both the Old and New Testaments furnish numerous examples of these phenomena; and although Christ and the apostles reproved all the superstitions of the age, these persuasions are not included in their reprehensions.

Neither is the comparative rarity of these phenomena any argument against their possibility. There are many strange things which occur still more rarely, but which we do not look upon as supernatural or miraculous. Of nature’s ordinary laws, we yet know but little; of their aberrations and perturbations, still less. How should we, when the world is a miracle and life a dream, of which we know neither the beginning nor the end! We do not even know that we see anything as it is, or rather, we know that we do not. We see things but as our visual organs represent them to us; and were those organs differently constructed, the aspect of the world would to us be changed. How, then, can we pretend to decide upon what is and what is not?

Nothing could be more perplexing to any one who read them with attention, than the trials for witchcraft of the seventeenth century. Many of the feats of the ancient thaumaturgists and wonder-workers of the temples might have been nearly as much so, but these were got rid of by the easy expedient of pronouncing them fables and impostures; but, during the witch-mania, so many persons proved their faith in their own miraculous powers by the sacrifice of their lives, that it was scarcely possible to doubt their having some foundation for their own persuasion, though what that foundation could be, till the late discoveries in animal magnetism, it was difficult to conceive; but here we have a new page opened to us which concerns both the history of the world and the history of man, as an individual; and we begin to see that that which the ignorant thought supernatural, and the wise impossible, has been both natural and true. While the scientific men of Great Britain, and several of our journalists, have been denying and ridiculing the reports of these phenomena, the most eminent physicians of Germany have been quietly studying and investigating them, and giving to the world, in their works, the results of their experience. Among the rest, Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, has presented to us in his two books on “Magic,” and on “The Connection of Magnetism with Nature and Religion,” the fruits of his thirty years’ study of this subject—during the course of which he has had repeated opportunities of investigating all the phenomena, and of making himself perfectly familiar with even the most rare and perplexing. To any one who has studied these works, the mysteries of the temples and of the witch-trials are mysteries no longer; and he writes with the professed design, not to make science mystical, but to bring the mysterious within the bounds of science. The phenomena, as he justly says, are as old as the human race. Animal magnetism is no new development, no new discovery. Inseparable from life, although, like many other vital phenomena, so subtle in its influences, that only in abnormal cases it attracts attention, it has exhibited itself more or less in all ages and in all countries. But its value as a medical agent is only now beginning to dawn on the civilized world, while its importance in a higher point of view is yet perceived by but few. Every human being who has ever withdrawn himself from the strife, and the turmoil, and the distraction, of the world without, in order to look within, must have found himself perplexed by a thousand questions with regard to his own being, which he would find no one able to solve. In the study of animal magnetism, he will first obtain some gleams of a light which will show him that he is indeed the child of God! and that, though a dweller on the earth, and fallen, some traces of his divine descent, and of his unbroken connection with a higher order of being, still remain to comfort and encourage him. He will find that there exists in his species the germs of faculties that are never fully unfolded here on earth, and which have no reference to this state of being. They exist in all men, but in most cases are so faintly elicited as not to be observable; and when they do shoot up here and there, they are denied, disowned, misinterpreted, and maligned. It is true that their development is often the symptom and effect of disease, which seems to change the relations of our material and immaterial parts; it is true that some of the phenomena resulting from these faculties are stimulated by disease, as in the case of spectral illusions; and it is true that imposture and folly intrude their unhallowed footsteps into this domain of science, as into that of all others; but there is a deep and holy well of truth to be discovered in this neglected by-path of nature, by those who seek it, from which they may draw the purest consolations for the present, the most ennobling hopes for the future, and the most valuable aid in penetrating through the letter into the spirit of the Scriptures.

I confess it makes me sorrowful when I hear men laughing, scorning, and denying this their birthright; and I can not but grieve to think how closely and heavily their clay must be wrapped about them, and how the external and sensuous life must have prevailed over the internal, when no gleam from within breaks through to show them that these things are true.

CHAPTER III.

WAKING AND SLEEPING; AND HOW THE DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE
SOMETIMES LOOKS ABROAD.

To begin with the most simple—or rather, I should say, the most ordinary—class of phenomena, for we can scarcely call that simple, the mystery of which we have never been able to penetrate—I mean dreaming—everybody’s experience will suffice to satisfy them that their ordinary dreams take place in a state of imperfect sleep, and that this imperfect sleep may be caused by any bodily or mental derangement whatever, or even from an ill-made bed, or too much or too little covering; and it is not difficult to conceive that the strange, confused, and disjointed visions we are subject to on these occasions, may proceed from some parts of the brain being less at rest than the others; so that, assuming phrenology to be fact, one organ is not in a state to correct the impressions of another. Of such vain and insignificant visions, I need scarcely say it is not my intention to treat; but, at the same time, I must observe, that when we have admitted the above explanation, as far as it goes, we have not, even in regard to them, made much progress toward removing the difficulty. If dreaming resembled thinking, the explanations might be quite satisfactory; but the truth is, that dreaming is not thinking, as we think in our waking state, but is more analogous to thinking in delirium or acute mania, or in that chronic condition which gives rise to sensuous illusions. In our ordinary normal state, conceiving of places or persons does not enable us to see them or hold communion with them, nor do we fancy that we do either. It is true, that I have heard some painters say that, by closing their eyes and concentrating their thoughts on an object, they can bring it more or less vividly before them, and Blake professed actually to see his sitters when they were not present; but whatever interpretations we may put upon this curious faculty, his case was clearly abnormal, and connected with some personal peculiarity, either physical or psychical; and, after making the most of it, it must be admitted that it can enter into no sort of comparison with that we possess in sleep, when, in our most ordinary dreams, untrammelled by time or space, we visit the uttermost ends of the earth, fly in the air, swim in the sea, listen to beautiful music and eloquent orations, behold the most charming as well as the most loathsome objects; and not only see, but converse with our friends, absent or present, dead or alive. Every one, I think, will grant that there is the widest possible difference between conceiving of these things when awake, and dreaming them. When we dream, we do, we see, we say, we hear, &c., &c., that is, we believe at the time we do so; and what more can be said of us when we are awake, than that we believe we are doing, seeing, saying, hearing, &c. It is by external circumstances, and the results of our actions, that we are able to decide whether we have actually done a thing or seen a place, or only dreamt that we have done so; and as I have said above, after some lapse of time we are not always able to distinguish between the two. While dreaming, we frequently ask ourselves whether we are awake or asleep; and nothing is more common than to hear people say, “Well, I think I did, or heard, so and so; but I am not sure whether it was so, or whether I dreamt it.” Thus, therefore, the very lowest order of dreaming, the most disjointed and perplexed, is far removed from the most vivid presentations of our waking thoughts; and it is in this respect, I think, that the explanations of the phenomena hitherto offered by phrenologists, and the metaphysicians of this country, are inadequate and unsatisfactory; while, as regards the analogy between the visions of sleep and delirium, whatever similarity there may be in the effects, we can not suppose the cause to be identical: since, in delirium the images and delusions are the result of excessive action of the brain, which we must conclude to be the very reverse of its condition in sleep. Pinel certainly has hazarded an opinion that sleep is occasioned by an efflux of blood to the head, and consequent compression of the brain—a theory which would have greater weight were sleep more strictly periodical than it is; but which, at present, it seems impossible to reconcile with many established facts.

Some of the German physiologists and psychologists have taken a deeper view of this question of dreaming, from considering it in connection with the phenomena of animal magnetism; and although their theories differ in some respects, they all unite in looking toward that department of nature for instruction. While one section of these inquirers, the Exegetical Society of Stockholm included, calls in the aid of supernatural agency, another, among whom Dr. Joseph Ennemoser, of Berlin, appears to be one of the most eminent, maintains that the explanation of the mystery is to be chiefly sought in the great and universal law of polarity, which extends not only beyond the limits of this earth, but beyond the limits of this system, which must necessarily be in connection with all others; so that there is thus an eternal and never-ceasing inter-action, of which, from the multiplicity and contrariety of the influences, we are insensible, just as we are insensible to the pressure of the atmosphere, from its impinging on us equally on all sides.

Waking and sleeping are the day and night sides of organic life, during which alternations an animal is placed in different relations to the external world, and to these alternations all organisms are subject. The completeness and independence of each individual organism, are in exact ratio to the number and completeness of the organs it develops; and thus the locomotive animal has the advantage of the plant or the zoophyte, while, of the animal kingdom, man is the most complete and independent; and, although still a member of the universal whole, and therefore incapable of isolating himself, yet better able than any other organism to ward off external influences, and comprise his world within himself. But, according to Dr. Ennemoser, one of the consequences of this very completeness is a weak and insignificant development of instinct; and thus the healthy, waking, conscious man, is, of all organisms, the least sensible to the impressions of this universal inter-communication and polarity; although, at the same time, partaking of the nature of the plant and the animal, he is subject, like the first, to all manner of atmospheric, telluric, and periodic influences; and frequently exhibits, like the second, peculiar instinctive appetites and desires, and, in some individual organizations, very marked antipathies and susceptibilities with regard to certain objects and influences, even when not placed in any evident relation with them.

According to this theory, sleep is a retrograde step—a retreating into a lower sphere; in which condition, the sensuous functions being in abeyance, the instincts somewhat resume their sway. “In sleep and in sickness,” he says, “the higher animals and man fall in a physico-organical point of view, from their individual independence, or power of self-sustainment; and their polar relation, that is, their relation to the healthy and waking man, becomes changed from a positive to a negative one; all men, in regard to each other, as well as all nature, being the subjects of this polarity.” It is to be remembered, that this theory of Dr. Ennemoser’s was promulgated before the discoveries of Baron von Reichenback in magnetism were made public, and the susceptibility to magnetic influences in the animal organism, which the experiments of the latter go to establish, is certainly in its favor; but while it pretends to explain the condition of the sleepers, and may possibly be of some service in our investigations into the mystery of dreaming, it leaves us as much in the dark as ever, with respect to the cause of our falling into this negative state; an inquiry in which little progress seems to have been hitherto made.

With respect to dreaming, Dr. Ennemoser rejects the physiological theory, which maintains, that in sleep, magnetic or otherwise, the activity of the brain is transferred to the ganglionic system, and that the former falls into a subordinate relation. “Dreaming,” he says, “is the gradual awakening of activity in the organs of imagination, whereby the presentation of sensuous objects to the spirit, which had been discontinued in profound sleep, is resumed. Dreaming,” he adds, “also arises from the secret activity of the spirit in the innermost sensuous organs of the brain, busying the fancy with subjective sensuous images, the objective conscious day-life giving place to the creative dominion of the poetical genius, to which night becomes day, and universal nature its theatre of action; and thus the super-sensuous or transcendent nature of the spirit becomes more manifest in dreaming than in the waking state. But, in considering these phenomena, man must be viewed in both his psychical and physical relations, and as equally subject to spiritual as to natural operations and influences; since, during the continuance of life, neither soul nor body can act quite independently of the other; for, although it be the immortal spirit which perceives, it is through the instrumentality of the sensuous organs that it does so; for of absolute spirit without body, we can form no conception.”

What is here meant seems to be, that the brain becomes the world to the spirit, before the impressions from the external world do actually come streaming through by means of the external sensuous organs. The inner spiritual light illumines, till the outward physical light overpowers and extinguishes it. But in this state the brain, which is the storehouse of acquired knowledge, is not in a condition to apply its acquisitions effectively; while the intuitive knowledge of the spirit, if the sleep be imperfect, is clouded by its interference.

Other physiologists, however, believe, from the numerous and well-attested cases of the transference of the senses, in disease, to the pit of the stomach, that the activity of the brain in sleep is transferred to the epigastric region. The instances of this phenomenon, as related by Dr. Petetin and others, having been frequently published, I need not here quote. But, as Dr. Passavant observes, it is well known that the functions of the nerves differ in some animals; and that one set can supply the place of another; as in those cases where there is a great susceptibility to light, though no eyes can be discovered.

These physiologists believe, that, even during the most profound sleep, the spirit retains its activity, a proposition which, indeed, we can not doubt; “it wakes, though the senses sleep, retreating into its infinite depths, like the sun at night; living on its spiritual life undisturbed, while the body sinks into a state of vegetative tranquillity. Nor does it follow that the soul is unconscious in sleep because in waking we have frequently lost all memory of its consciousness; since, by the repose of the sensuous organs, the bridge between waking and sleeping is removed, and the recollections of one state are not carried into the other.”

It will occur here to every one, how often in the instant of waking we are not only conscious that we have been dreaming, but are also conscious of the subject of the dream, which we try in vain to grasp, but which eludes us, and is gone for ever the moment we have passed into a state of complete wakefulness.

Now, with respect to this so-called dreaming in profound sleep, it is a thing no one can well doubt who thoroughly believes that his body is a temple built for the dwelling of an immortal spirit; for we can not conceive of spirit sleeping, or needing that restoration which we know to be the condition of earthly organisms. If, therefore, the spirit wakes, may we not suppose that the more it is disentangled from the obstructions of the body the more clear will be its perceptions; and that, therefore, in the profound natural sleep of the sensuous organs we may be in a state of clear-seeing. All who have attended to the subject are aware that the clear seeing of magnetic patients depends on the depth of their sleep; whatever circumstance, internal or external, tends to interrupt this profound repose of the sensuous organs, inevitably obscures their perceptions.

Again, with respect to the not carrying with us the recollections of one state into the other, should not this lead us to suspect that sleeping and waking are two different spheres of existence; partaking of the nature of that double life, of which the records of human physiology have presented us with various instances wherein a patient finds himself utterly divested of all recollection of past events and acquired knowledge, and has to begin life and education anew, till another transition takes place, wherein he recovers what he had lost, while he at the same time loses all he had lately gained, which he only recovers, once more, by another transition, restoring to him his lately-acquired knowledge, but again obliterating his original stock, thus alternately passing from one state to the other, and disclosing a double life—an educated man in one condition, a child learning his alphabet in the next!

Where the transition from one state to another is complete, memory is entirely lost; but there are cases in which the change, being either gradual or modified, the recollections of one life are carried more or less into the other. We know this to be the case with magnetic sleepers, as it is with ordinary dreamers; and most persons have met with instances of the dream of one night being continued in the next. Treviranus mentions the case of a student who regularly began to talk the moment he fell asleep, the subject of his discourse being a dream, which he always took up at the exact point at which he had left it the previous morning. Of this dream he had never the slightest recollection in his waking state. A daughter of Sir George Mackenzie, who died at an early age, was endowed with a remarkable genius for music, and was an accomplished organist. This young lady dreamed, during an illness, that she was at a party, where she had heard a new piece of music, which made so great an impression on her by its novelty and beauty, that, on awaking, she besought her attendants to bring her some paper, that she might write it down before she had forgotten it—an indulgence which, apprehensive of excitement, her medical attendant unfortunately forbade; for, apart from the additional psychological interest that would have been attached to the fact, the effects of compliance, judging from what ensued, would probably have been soothing rather than otherwise. About ten days afterward, she had a second dream, wherein she again found herself at a party, where she descried on the desk of a pianoforte, in a corner of the room, an open book, in which, with astonished delight, she recognised the same piece of music, which she immediately proceeded to play, and then awoke. The piece was not of a short or fugitive character, but in the style of an overture. The question, of course, remains, as to whether she was composing the music in her sleep, or, by an act of clairvoyance, was perceiving some that actually existed. Either is possible, for, although she might have been incapable of composing so elaborate a piece in her waking state, there are many instances on record of persons performing intellectual feats in dreams, to which they were unequal when awake. A very eminent person assured me that he had once composed some lines in his sleep (I think it was a sonnet) which far exceeded any of his waking performances of that description.

Somewhat analogous to this sort of double life is the case of the young girl mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie and others, whose employment was keeping cattle, and who slept for some time, much to her own annoyance, in the room adjoining one occupied by an itinerant musician. The man, who played exceedingly well, being an enthusiast in his art, frequently practised the greater part of the night, performing on his violin very complicated and difficult compositions; while the girl, so far from discovering any pleasure in his performances, complained bitterly of being kept awake by the noise. Some time after this, she fell ill, and was removed to the house of a charitable lady, who undertook the charge of her; and here, by-and-by, the family were amazed by frequently hearing the most exquisite music in the night, which they at length discovered to proceed from the girl. The sounds were those of a violin, and the tuning and other preliminary processes were accurately imitated. She went through long and elaborate pieces, and afterward was heard imitating, in the same way, the sounds of a pianoforte that was in the house. She also talked very cleverly on the subjects of religion and politics, and discussed with great judgment the characters and conduct of persons, public and private. Awake, she knew nothing of these things; but was, on the contrary, stupid, heavy, and had no taste whatever for music. Phrenology would probably interpret this phenomenon by saying that the lower elements of the cerebral spinal axis, as organs of sensation, &c., &c., being asleep, the cluster of the higher organs requisite for the above combinations were not only awake, but rendered more active from the repose of the others: but to me it appears that we here see the inherent faculties of the spirit manifesting themselves, while the body slept. The same faculties must have existed when it was in a waking state, but the impressions and manifestations were then dependent on the activity and perfection of the sensuous organs, which seem to have been of an inferior order; and consequently, no rays of this in-dwelling genius could pierce the coarse integument in which it was lodged.

Similar unexpected faculties have been not unfrequently manifested by the dying, and we may conclude to a certain degree from the same cause, namely, that the incipient death of the body is leaving the spirit more unobstructed. Dr. Steinbech mentions the case of a clergyman, who, being summoned to administer the last sacraments to a dying peasant, found him, to his surprise, praying aloud in Greek and Hebrew, a mystery which could be no otherwise explained than by the circumstance of his having, when a child, frequently heard the then minister of the parish praying in those languages. He had, however, never understood the prayers, nor indeed paid any attention to them; still less had he been aware that they lived in his memory. It would give much additional interest to this story had Dr. Steinbech mentioned how far the man now, while uttering the words, understood their meaning; whether he was aware of what he was saying, or was only repeating the words by rote.

With regard to the extraordinary faculty of memory manifested in these and similar cases, I shall have some observations to make in a subsequent part of this book.

Parallel instances are those of idiots, who, either in a somnambulic state, or immediately previous to death, have spoken as if inspired. At St. Jean de Maurinne, in Savoy, there was a dumb cretin, who, having fallen into a natural state of somnambulism, not only was found to speak with ease, but also to the purpose; a faculty which disappeared, however, whenever he awoke. Dumb persons have likewise been known to speak when at the point of death.

The possibility of suggesting dreams to some sleepers by whispering in the ear, is a well-known fact; but this can doubtless only be practicable where the sensuous organs are partly awake. Then, as with magnetic patients in a state of incomplete sleep, we have only revery and imagination in place of clear-seeing.

The next class of dreams are those which partake of the nature of second sight, or prophecy, and of these there are various kinds; some being plain and literal in their premonitions, others allegorical and obscure; while some also regard the most unimportant, and others the most grave events of our lives. A gentleman engaged in business in the south of Scotland, for example, dreams that on entering his office in the morning, he sees seated on a certain stool a person formerly in his service as clerk, of whom he had neither heard nor thought for some time. He inquires the motive of the visit, and is told that such and such circumstances having brought the stranger to that part of the country, he could not forbear visiting his old quarters, expressing at the same time a wish to spend a few days in his former occupation, &c., &c. The gentleman, being struck with the vividness of the illusion, relates his dream at breakfast, and, to his surprise, on going to his office, there sits the man, and the dialogue that ensues is precisely that of the dream! I have heard of numerous instances of this kind of dream, where no previous expectation nor excitement of mind could be found to account for them, and where the fulfilment was too exact and literal, in all particulars, to admit of their being explained away by the ready resource of “an extraordinary coincidence.” There are also on record, in both this country and others, many perfectly well-authenticated cases of people obtaining prizes in the lottery, through having dreamed of the fortunate numbers. As many numbers, however, may have been dreamed of that were not drawn prizes, we can derive no conclusion from this circumstance.

A very remarkable instance of this kind of dreaming occurred a few years since to Mr. A⁠—— F⁠——, an eminent Scotch advocate, while staying in the neighborhood of Loch Fyne, who dreamed one night that he saw a number of people in the street following a man to the scaffold. He discovered the features of the criminal in the cart distinctly; and, for some reason or other, which he could not account for, felt an extraordinary interest in his fate—insomuch that he joined the throng, and accompanied him to the place that was to terminate his earthly career. This interest was the more unaccountable, that the man had an exceedingly unprepossessing countenance, but it was nevertheless so vivid as to induce the dreamer to ascend the scaffold, and address him, with a view to enable him to escape the impending catastrophe. Suddenly, however, while he was talking to him, the whole scene dissolved away, and the sleeper awoke. Being a good deal struck with the lifelike reality of the vision, and the impression made on his mind by the features of this man, he related the circumstance to his friends at breakfast, adding that he should know him anywhere, if he saw him. A few jests being made on the subject, the thing was forgotten.

On the afternoon of the same day, the advocate was informed that two men wanted to speak to him, and, on going into the hall, he was struck with amazement at perceiving that one of them was the hero of his dream!

“We are accused of a murder,” said they, “and we wish to consult you. Three of us went out, last night, in a boat; an accident has happened; our comrade is drowned, and they want to make us accountable for him.” The advocate then put some interrogations to them, and the result produced in his mind by their answers was a conviction of their guilt. Probably the recollection of his dream rendered the effects of this conviction more palpable; for one addressing the other, said in Gaelic, “We have come to the wrong man; he is against us.”

“There is a higher power than I against you,” returned the gentleman; “and the only advice I can give you is, if you are guilty, fly immediately.” Upon this, they went away; and the next thing he heard was, that they were taken into custody on suspicion of the murder.

The account of the affair was, that, as they said, the three had gone out together on the preceding evening, and that in the morning the body of one of them had been found on the shore, with a cut across his forehead. The father and friend of the victim had waited on the banks of the lake till the boat came in, and then demanded their companion; of whom, however, they professed themselves unable to give any account. Upon this, the old man led them to his cottage for the purpose of showing them the body of his son. One entered, and, at the sight of it, burst into a passion of tears; the other refused to do so, saying his business called him immediately home, and went sulkily away. This last was the man seen in the dream.

After a fortnight’s incarceration, the former of these was liberated; and he then declared to the advocate his intention of bringing an action of damages for false imprisonment. He was advised not to do it. “Leave well alone,” said the lawyer; “and if you’ll take my advice, make off while you can.” The man, however, refused to fly: he declared that he really did not know what had occasioned the death of his comrade. The latter had been at one end of the boat, and he at the other; when he looked round, he was gone; but whether he had fallen overboard, and cut his head as he fell, or whether he had been struck and pushed into the water, he did not know. The advocate became finally satisfied of this man’s innocence; but the authorities, thinking it absurd to try one and not the other, again laid hands on him: and it fell to Mr. A⁠—— F⁠—— to be the defender of both. The difficulty was, not to separate their cases in his pleading; for, however morally convinced of the different ground on which they stood, his duty, professionally, was to obtain the acquittal of both, in which he finally succeeded, as regarded the charge of murder. They were, therefore, sentenced to two years’ imprisonment; and, so far as the dream is concerned, here ends the story. There remains, however, a curious sequel to it.

A few years afterward, the same gentleman being in a boat on Loch Fyne, in company with Sir T⁠—— D⁠—— L⁠——, happened to be mentioning these curious circumstances, when one of the boatmen said that he “knew well about those two men; and that a very strange thing had occurred in regard to one of them.” This one, on inquiry, proved to be the subject of the dream; and the strange thing was this: On being liberated, he had quitted that part of the country, and in process of time had gone to Greenock, and thence embarked in a vessel for Cork. But the vessel seemed fated never to reach its destination; one misfortune happened after another, till at length the sailors said: “This won’t do; there must be a murderer on board with us!” As is usual, when such a persuasion exists, they drew lots three times, and each time it fell on that man! He was consequently put on shore, and the vessel went on its way without him. What had become of him afterward was not known.

A friend of mine, being in London, dreamed that she saw her little boy playing on the terrace of her house in Northumberland; that he fell and hurt his arm, and she saw him lying apparently dead. The dream recurred two or three times on the same night, and she awoke her husband, saying she “feared something must have happened to Henry.” In due course of post, a letter arrived from the governess, saying that she was sorry to have to communicate that, while playing on the terrace that morning, Master Henry had fallen over a heap of stones, and broken his arm; adding that he had fainted after the accident, and had lain for some time insensible. The lady to whom this dream occurred is not aware having ever manifested this faculty before or since.

Mrs. W⁠—— dreamed that she saw people ascending by a ladder to the chamber of her step-son John; wakes, and says she is afraid he is dead, and that there was something odd in her dream about a watch and a candle. In the morning a messenger is sent to inquire for the gentleman, and they find people ascending to his chamber-window by a ladder, the door of the room being locked. They discover him dead on the floor, with his watch in his hand, and the candle between his feet. The same lady dreamed that she saw a friend in great agony, and that she heard him say they were tearing his flesh from his bones. He was some time afterward seized with inflammation, lay as she had seen him, and made use of those exact words.

A friend of mine dreamed lately that somebody said her nephew must not be bled, as it would be dangerous. The young man was quite well, and there had been no design of bleeding him; but on the following morning he had a tooth drawn, and an effusion of blood ensued, which lasted some days, and caused a good deal of uneasiness.

A farmer, in Worcestershire, dreamed that his little boy, of twelve years old, had fallen from the wagon and was killed. The dream recurred three times in one night; but, unwilling to yield to superstitious fears, he allowed the child to accompany the wagoner to Kidderminster fair. The driver was very fond of the boy, and he felt assured would take care of him; but, having occasion to go a little out of the road to leave a parcel, the man bade the child walk on with the wagon, and he would meet him at a certain spot. On arriving there, the horses were coming quietly forward, but the boy was not with them; and on retracing the road, he was found dead, having apparently fallen from the shafts, and been crushed by the wheels.

A gentleman, who resided near one of the Scottish lakes, dreamed that he saw a number of persons surrounding a body, which had just been drawn out of the water. On approaching the spot, he perceives that it is himself, and the assistants are his own friends and retainers. Alarmed at the lifelike reality of the vision, he resolved to elude the threatened destiny by never venturing on the lake again. On one occasion, however, it became quite indispensable that he should do so; and, as the day was quite calm, he yielded to the necessity, on condition that he should be put ashore at once on the opposite side, while the rest of the party proceeded to their destinations, where he would meet them. This was accordingly done: the boat skimmed gayly over the smooth waters, and arrived safely at the rendezvous, the gentlemen laughing at the superstition of their companion, while he stood smiling on the bank to receive them. But, alas! the fates were inexorable: the little promontory that supported him had been undermined by the water; it gave way beneath his feet, and life was extinct before he could be rescued. This circumstance was related to me by a friend of the family.

Mr. S⁠—— was the son of an Irish bishop, who set somewhat more value on the things of this world than became his function. He had always told his son that there was but one thing he could not forgive, and that was, a bad marriage—meaning, by a bad marriage, a poor one. As cautions of this sort do not, by any means, prevent young people falling in love, Mr. S⁠—— fixed his affections on Lady O⁠——, a fair young widow, without any fortune; and, aware that it would be useless to apply for his father’s consent, he married her without asking it. They were consequently exceedingly poor; and, indeed, nearly all they had to live on was a small sinecure of forty pounds per annum, which Dean Swift procured for him. While in this situation, Mr. S⁠—— dreamed one night that he was in the cathedral in which he had formerly been accustomed to attend service; that he saw a stranger, habited as a bishop, occupying his father’s throne; and that, on applying to the verger for an explanation, the man said that the bishop was dead, and that he had expired just as he was adding a codicil to his will in his son’s favor. The impression made by the dream was so strong, that Mr. S⁠—— felt that he should have no repose till he had obtained news from home; and as the most speedy way of doing so was to go there himself, he started on horseback, much against the advice of his wife, who attached no importance whatever to the circumstance. He had scarcely accomplished half his journey, when he met a courier, bearing the intelligence of his father’s death; and when he reached home, he found that there was a codicil attached to the will, of the greatest importance to his own future prospects; but the old gentleman had expired, with the pen in his hand, just as he was about to sign it!

In this unhappy position, reduced to hopeless indigence, the friends of the young man proposed that he should present himself at the vice-regal palace, on the next levee day, in hopes that some interest might be excited in his favor; to which, with reluctance, he consented. As he was ascending the stairs, he was met by a gentleman whose dress indicated that he belonged to the church.

“Good Heavens!” said he, to the friend who accompanied him, “who is that?”

“That is Mr. ——, of so and so.”

“Then he will be bishop of L⁠——!” returned Mr. S⁠——; “for that is the man I saw occupying my father’s throne.”

“Impossible!” replied the other; “he has no interest whatever, and has no more chance of being a bishop than I have.”

“You will see,” replied Mr. S⁠——; “I am certain he will.”

They had made their obeisance above, and were returning, when there was a great cry without, and everybody rushed to the doors and windows to inquire what had happened. The horses attached to the carriage of a young nobleman had become restiff, and were endangering the life of their master, when Mr. —— rushed forward, and, at the peril of his own, seized their heads, and afforded Lord C⁠—— time to descend, before they broke through all restraint, and dashed away. Through the interest of this nobleman and his friends, to whom Mr. —— had been previously quite unknown, he obtained the see of L⁠——. These circumstances were related to me by a member of the family.

It would be tedious to relate all the instances of this sort of dreaming which have come to my knowledge, but were they even much more rare than they are, and were there none of a graver and more mysterious kind, it might certainly occasion some surprise that they should have excited so little attention. When stories of this sort are narrated, they are listened to with wonder for the moment, and then forgotten, and few people reflect on the deep significance of the facts, or the important consequences to us involved in the question, of how, with our limited faculties, which can not foretell the events of the next moment, we should suddenly become prophets and seers.

The following dream, as it regards the fate of a very interesting person, and is, I believe, very little known, I will relate, though the story is of somewhat an old date:—Major André, the circumstances of whose lamented death are too well known to make it necessary for me to detail them here, was a friend of Miss Seward’s, and, previously to his embarkation for America, he made a journey into Derbyshire, to pay her a visit, and it was arranged that they should ride over to see the wonders of the Peak, and introduce André to Newton, her minstrel, as she called him, and to Mr. Cunningham, the curate, who was also a poet.

While these two gentlemen were awaiting the arrival of their guests, of whose intentions they had been apprised, Mr. Cunningham mentioned to Newton, that on the preceding night, he had had a very extraordinary dream, which he could not get out of his head. He had fancied himself in a forest; the place was strange to him; and, while looking about, he perceived a horseman approaching at great speed, who had scarcely reached the spot where the dreamer stood, when three men rushed out of the thicket, and, seizing his bridle, hurried him away, after closely searching his person. The countenance of the stranger being very interesting, the sympathy felt by the sleeper for his apparent misfortune awoke him; but he presently fell asleep again, and dreamed that he was standing near a great city, among thousands of people, and that he saw the same person he had seen seized in the wood brought out and suspended to a gallows. When André and Miss Seward arrived, he was horror-struck to perceive that his new acquaintance was the antitype of the man in the dream.

Mr. C⁠——, a friend of mine, told me the other day, that he had dreamed he had gone to see a lady of his acquaintance, and that she had presented him with a purse. In the morning he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, adding that he wondered what should have made him dream of a person he had not been in any way led to think of; and, above all, that she should give him a purse. On that same day, a letter arrived from that lady to Mrs. C⁠——, containing a purse, of which she begged her acceptance. Here was the imperfect foreshadowing of the fact, probably from unsound sleep.

Another friend lately dreamed, one Thursday night, that he saw an acquaintance of his thrown from his horse; and that he was lying on the ground with the blood streaming from his face, which was much cut. He mentioned his dream in the morning, and being an entire disbeliever in such phenomena, he could not account for the impression made on his mind. This was so strong, that on Saturday, he could not forbear calling at his friend’s house; who, he was told, was in bed, having been thrown from his horse on the previous day, and much injured about the face.

Relations of this description having been more or less familiar to the world in all times and places, and the recurrence of the phenomena too frequent to admit of their reality being disputed, various theories were promulgated to account for them; and indeed, there scarcely seems to be a philosopher or historian among the Greeks and Romans who does not make some allusion to this ill-understood department of nature; while, among the eastern nations, the faith in such mysterious revelations remains even yet undiminished. Spirits, good and evil, or the divinities of the heathen mythology, were generally called in to remove the difficulty; though some philosophers, rejecting this supernatural interference, sought the explanation in merely physical causes.

In the druidical rites of the northern nations, women bore a considerable part: there were priestesses, who gave forth oracles and prophecies, much after the manner of the Pythonesses of the Grecian temples, and no doubt drawing their inspiration from the same sources; namely, from the influences of magnetism, and from narcotics. When the pure rites of Christianity seperseded the heathen forms of worship, tradition kept alive the memory of these vaticinations, together with some of the arcana of the druidical groves; and hence, in the middle ages, arose the race of so-called witches and sorcerers, who were partly impostors, and partly self-deluded. Nobody thought of seeking the explanation of the facts they witnessed in natural causes; what had formerly been attributed to the influence of the gods, was now attributed to the influence of the devil; and a league with Satan was the universal solvent of all difficulties.

Persecution followed, of course; and men, women, and children, were offered up to the demon of superstition, till the candid and rational part of mankind, taking fright at the holocaust, began to put in their protest, and lead out a reaction, which, like all reactions, ran right into the opposite extreme. From believing everything, they ceased to believe anything; and, after swallowing unhesitatingly the most monstrous absurdities, they relieved themselves of the whole difficulty, by denying the plainest facts; while what it was found impossible to deny, was referred to imagination—that most abused word, which explained nothing, but left the matter as obscure as it was before. Man’s spiritual nature was forgotten; and what the senses could not apprehend, nor the understanding account for, was pronounced to be impossible. Thank God! we have lived through that age, and in spite of the struggles of the materialistic school, we are fast advancing to a better. The traditions of the saints who suffered the most appalling tortures, and slept or smiled the while, can scarcely be rejected now, when we are daily hearing of people undergoing frightful operations, either in a state of insensibility, or while they believe themselves revelling in delight; nor can the psychological intimations which these facts offer, be much longer overlooked. One revelation must lead to another; and the wise men of the world will, ere long, be obliged to give in their adherence to Shakspere’s much quoted axiom, and confess that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy.”

CHAPTER IV.

ALLEGORICAL DREAMS, PRESENTIMENT, ETC.

It has been the opinion of many philosophers, both ancient and modern, that in the original state of man, as he came forth from the hands of his Creator, that knowledge which is now acquired by pains and labor was intuitive. His material body was given him for the purpose of placing him in relation with the material world, and his sensuous organs for the perception of material objects, but his soul was a mirror of the universe, in which everything was reflected, and, probably, is so still, but that the spirit is no longer in a condition to perceive it. Degraded in his nature, and distracted by the multiplicity of the objects and interests that surround him, man has lost his faculty of spiritual seeing; but in sleep, when the body is in a state of passivity, and external objects are excluded from us by the shutting up of the senses through which we perceive them, the spirit, to a certain degree freed from its impediments, may enjoy somewhat of its original privilege. “The soul, which is designed as the mirror of a superior spiritual order” (to which it belongs), still receives in dreams, some rays from above, and enjoys a foretaste of its future condition; and, whatever interpretation may be put upon the history of the Fall, few will doubt that, before it, man must have stood in a much more intimate relation to his Creator than he has done since. If we admit this, and that, for the above-hinted reasons, the soul in sleep may be able to exercise somewhat of its original endowment, the possibility of what is called prophetic dreaming may be better understood.

“Seeing in dreams,” says Ennemoser, “is a self-illumining of things, places, and times;” for relations of time and space form no obstruction to the dreamer: things, near and far, are alike seen in the mirror of the soul, according to the connection in which they stand to each other; and, as the future is but an unfolding of the present, as the present is of the past, one being necessarily involved in the other, it is not more difficult to the untrammelled spirit to see what is to happen, than what has already happened. Under what peculiar circumstances it is that the body and soul fall into this particular relative condition, we do not know, but that certain families and constitutions are more prone to these conditions than others, all experience goes to establish. According to the theory of Dr. Ennemoser, we should conclude that they are more susceptible to magnetic influences, and that the body falls into a more complete state of negative polarity.

In the histories of the Old Testament we constantly find instances of prophetic dreaming, and the voice of God was chiefly heard by the prophets in sleep; seeming to establish that man is in that state more susceptible of spiritual communion, although the being thus made the special organ of the Divine will, is altogether a different thing from the mere disfranchisement of the embodied spirit in ordinary cases of clear seeing in sleep. Profane history, also, furnishes us with various instances of prophetic dreaming, which it is unnecessary for me to refer to here. But there is one thing very worthy of remark, namely, that the allegorical character of many of the dreams recorded in the Old Testament, occasionally pervades those of the present day. I have heard of several of this nature, and Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de la Roche, was so subject to them, that he fancied he had acquired the art of interpreting the symbols. This characteristic of dreaming is in strict conformity with the language of the Old Testament, and of the most ancient nations. Poets and prophets, heathen and Christian, alike express themselves symbolically, and, if we believe that this language prevailed in the early ages of the world, before the external and intellectual life had predominated over the instinctive and emotional, we must conclude it to be the natural language of man, who must, therefore, have been gifted with a conformable faculty of comprehending these hieroglyphics; and hence it arose that the interpreting of dreams became a legitimate art. Long after these instinctive faculties were lost, or rather obscured, by the turmoil and distractions of sensuous life, the memories and traditions of them remained, and hence the superstructure of jugglery and imposture that ensued, of which the gipsies form a signal example, in whom, however, there can be no doubt that some occasional gleams of this original endowment may still be found, as is the case, though more rarely, in individuals of all races and conditions. The whole of nature is one large book of symbols, which, because we have lost the key to it, we can not decipher. “To the first man,” says Hamann, “whatever his ear heard, his eye saw, or his hand touched, was a living word; with this word in his heart and in his mouth, the formation of language was easy. Man saw things in their essence and properties, and named them accordingly.”

There can be no doubt that the heathen forms of worship and systems of religion were but the external symbols of some deep meanings, and not the idle fables that they have been too frequently considered; and it is absurd to suppose that the theology which satisfied so many great minds had no better foundation than a child’s fairy tale.

A maid-servant, who resided many years in a distinguished family in Edinburgh, was repeatedly warned of the approaching death of certain members of that family, by dreaming that one of the walls of the house had fallen. Shortly before the head of the family sickened and died, she said she had dreamed that the main wall had fallen.

A singular circumstance which occurred in this same family, from a member of which I heard it, is mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie. On this occasion the dream was not only prophetic, but the symbol was actually translated into fact.

One of the sons being indisposed with a sore throat, a sister dreamed that a watch, of considerable value, which she had borrowed from a friend, had stopped; that she had awakened another sister and mentioned the circumstance, who answered that “something much worse had happened, for Charles’s breath had stopped.” She then awoke, in extreme alarm, and mentioned the dream to her sister, who, to tranquillize her mind, arose and went to the brother’s room, where she found him asleep and the watch going. The next night the same dream recurred, and the brother was again found asleep and the watch going. On the following morning, however, this lady was writing a note in the drawing-room, with the watch beside her, when, on taking it up, she perceived it had stopped; and she was just on the point of calling her sister to mention the circumstance, when she heard a scream from her brother’s room, and the sister rushed in with the tidings that he had just expired. The malady had not been thought serious; but a sudden fit of suffocation had unexpectedly proved fatal.

This case, which is established beyond all controversy, is extremely curious in many points of view; the acting out of the symbol, especially. Symbolical events of this description have been often related, and as often laughed at. It is easy to laugh at what we do not understand; and it gives us the advantage of making the timid narrator ashamed of his fact, so that if he do not wholly suppress it, he at least insures himself by laughing, too, the next time he relates it. It is said that Goethe’s clock stopped the moment he died; and I have heard repeated instances of this strange kind of synchronism, or magnetism, if it be by magnetism that we are to account for the mystery. One was told me very lately by a gentleman to whom the circumstances occurred.

On the 16th of August, 1769, Frederick II., of Prussia, is said to have dreamed that a star fell from heaven and occasioned such an extraordinary glare that he could with great difficulty find his way through it. He mentioned the dream to his attendants, and it was afterward observed that it was on that day Napoleon was born.

A lady, not long since, related to me the following circumstance: Her mother, who was at the time residing in Edinburgh, in a house one side of which looked into a wynd, while the door was in the High street, dreamed that, it being Sunday morning, she had heard a sound which attracted her to the window; and, while looking out, had dropped a ring from her finger into the wynd below; that she had, thereupon, gone down in her night-clothes to seek it, but when she reached the spot it was not to be found. Returning, extremely vexed at her loss, as she re-entered her own door she met a respectable looking young man, carrying some loaves of bread. On expressing her astonishment at finding a stranger there at so unseasonable an hour, he answered by expressing his at seeing her in such a situation. She said she had dropped her ring, and had been round the corner to seek it; whereupon, to her delighted surprise, he presented her with her lost treasure. Some months afterward, being at a party, she recognized the young man seen in her dream, and learned that he was a baker. He took no particular notice of her on that occasion; and, I think, two years elapsed before she met him again. This second meeting, however, led to an acquaintance, which terminated in marriage.

Here the ring and the bread are curiously emblematic of the marriage, and the occupation of the future husband.

Miss L⁠——, residing at Dalkeith, dreamed that her brother, who was ill, called her to his bedside and gave her a letter, which he desired her to carry to their aunt, Mrs. H⁠——, with the request that she would “deliver it to John.” (John was another brother, who had died previously, and Mrs. H⁠—— was at the time ill.) He added that “he himself was going there also, but that Mrs. H⁠—— would be there before him.” Accordingly, Miss L⁠—— went, in her dream, with the letter to Mrs. H⁠——, whom she found dressed in white, and looking quite radiant and happy. She took the letter, saying she was going there directly, and would deliver it.

On the following morning Miss L⁠—— learned that her aunt had died in the night. The brother died some little time afterward.

A gentleman who had been a short time visiting Edinburgh, was troubled with a cough, which, though it occasioned him no alarm, he resolved to go home to nurse. On the first night of his arrival he dreamed that one half of the house was blown away. His bailiff, who resided at a distance, dreamed the same dream on the same night. The gentleman died within a few weeks.

“This symbolical language, which the Deity appears to have used” (witness Peter’s dream, Acts ii., and others) “in all his revelations to man, is in the highest degree, what poetry is in a lower, and the language of dreams, in the lowest, namely, the original natural language of man; and we may fairly ask whether this language, which here plays an inferior part, be not, possibly, the proper language of a higher sphere, while we, who vainly think ourselves awake, are, in reality, buried in a deep, deep sleep, in which, like dreamers who imperfectly hear the voices of those around them, we occasionally apprehend, though obscurely, a few words of this divine tongue.” (Vide Schubert.)

This subject of sleeping and waking is a very curious one, and might give rise to strange questionings. In the case of those patients abovementioned, who seem to have two different spheres of existence, who shall say which is the waking one, or whether either of them be so? The speculations of Mr. Dove on this subject merited more attention, I think, than they met with when he lectured in Edinburgh. He maintained that, long before he had paid any attention to magnetism, he had arrived at the conclusion that there are as many states or conditions of mind beyond sleep as there are on this side of it; passing through the different stages of dreaming, revery, contemplation, &c., up to perfect vigilance. However this be, in this world of appearance, where we see nothing as it is, and where, both as regards our moral and physical relations, we live in a state of continual delusion, it is impossible for us to pronounce on this question. It is a common remark, that some people seem to live in a dream, and never to be quite awake; and the most cursory observer can not fail to have been struck with examples of persons in this condition, especially in the aged.

With respect to this allegorical language, Ennemoser observes, that, “since no dreamer learns it of another, and still less from those who are awake, it must be natural to all men.” How different too, is its comprehensiveness and rapidity, to our ordinary language! We are accustomed, and with justice, to wonder at the admirable mechanism by which, without fatigue or exertion, we communicate with our fellow-beings; but how slow and ineffectual is human speech compared to this spiritual picture-language, where a whole history is understood at a glance! and scenes that seem to occupy days and weeks, are acted out in ten minutes. It is remarkable that this hieroglyphic language appears to be the same among all people; and that the dream-interpreters of all countries construe the signs alike. Thus, the dreaming of deep water denotes trouble, and pearls are a sign of tears.

I have heard of a lady who, whenever a misfortune was impending, dreamed that she saw a large fish. One night she dreamed that this fish had bitten two of her little boy’s fingers. Immediately afterward a schoolfellow of the child’s injured those two very fingers by striking him with a hatchet; and I have met with several persons who have learned, by experience, to consider one particular dream as the certain prognostic of misfortune.

A lady who had left the West Indies when six years old, came one night, fourteen years afterward, to her sister’s bedside, and said, “I know uncle is dead. I have dreamed that I saw a number of slaves in the large store-room at Barbadoes, with long brooms, sweeping down immense cobwebs. I complained to my aunt, and she covered her face and said, ‘Yes, he is no sooner gone than they disobey him.’ ” It was afterward ascertained that Mr. P⁠—— had died on that night, and that he had never permitted the cobwebs in this room to be swept away, of which, however, the lady assures me she knew nothing; nor could she or her friends conceive what was meant by the symbol of the cobwebs, till they received the explanation subsequently from a member of the family.

The following very curious allegorical dream I give, not in the words of the dreamer, but in those of her son, who bears a name destined, I trust, to a long immortality:—

“Wooer’s Abbey-Cottage, Dunfermline-in-the-Woods, }

“Monday morning, 31st May, 1847. }

“Dear Mrs. Crowe: That dream of my mother’s was as follows: She stood in a long, dark, empty gallery: on her one side was my father, and on the other my eldest sister Amelia; then myself, and the rest of the family, according to their ages. At the foot of the hall stood my youngest sister Alexes, and above her my sister Catherine—a creature, by-the-way, in person and mind, more like an angel of heaven than an inhabitant of earth. We all stood silent and motionless. At last it entered—the unimagined something, that, casting its grim shadow before, had enveloped all the trivialities of the preceding dream in the stifling atmosphere of terror. It entered, stealthily descending the three steps that led from the entrance down into the chamber of horror: and my mother felt it was Death! He was dwarfish, bent, and shrivelled. He carried on his shoulder a heavy axe; and had come, she thought, to destroy ‘all her little ones at one fell swoop.’ On the entrance of the shape, my sister Alexes leaped out of the rank, interposing herself between him and my mother. He raised his axe and aimed a blow at Catherine—a blow which, to her horror, my mother could not intercept, though she had snatched up a three-legged stool, the sole furniture of the apartment, for that purpose. She could not, she felt, fling the stool at the figure without destroying Alexes, who kept shooting out and in between her and the ghastly thing. She tried in vain to scream; she besought my father, in agony, to avert the impending stroke; but he did not hear, or did not heed her, and stood motionless, as in a trance. Down came the axe, and poor Catherine fell in her blood, cloven to ‘the white halse bane.’ Again the axe was lifted, by the inexorable shadow, over the head of my brother, who stood next in the line. Alexes had somewhere disappeared behind the ghastly visitant; and, with a scream, my mother flung the footstool at his head. He vanished, and she awoke.

“This dream left on my mother’s mind a fearful apprehension of impending misfortune, ‘which would not pass away.’ It was murder she feared; and her suspicions were not allayed by the discovery that a man (some time before discarded by my father for bad conduct, and with whom she had, somehow, associated the Death of her dream) had been lurking about the place, and sleeping in an adjoining outhouse on the night it occurred, and for some nights previous and subsequent to it. Her terror increased. Sleep forsook her; and every night, when the house was still, she arose and stole, sometimes with a candle, sometimes in the dark, from room to room, listening, in a sort of waking nightmare, for the breathing of the assassin, who, she imagined, was lurking in some one of them. This could not last. She reasoned with herself; but her terror became intolerable, and she related her dream to my father, who, of course, called her a fool for her pains, whatever might be his real opinion of the matter.

“Three months had elapsed, when we children were all of us seized with scarlet fever. My sister Catherine died almost immediately—sacrificed, as my mother in her misery thought, to her (my mother’s) over-anxiety for Alexes, whose danger seemed more imminent. The dream-prophecy was in part fulfilled. I also was at death’s door—given up by the doctors, but not by my mother: she was confident of my recovery; but for my brother, who was scarcely considered in danger at all, but on whose head she had seen the visionary axe impending, her fears were great; for she could not recollect whether the blow had or had not descended when the spectre vanished. My brother recovered, but relapsed, and barely escaped with life; but Alexes did not. For a year and ten months the poor child lingered, and almost every night I had to sing her asleep—often, I remember, through bitter tears, for I knew she was dying, and I loved her the more as she wasted away. I held her little hand as she died; I followed her to the grave—the last thing that I have loved on earth. And the dream was fulfilled.

“Truly and sincerely yours,

J. Noel Paton.”

The dreaming of coffins and funerals, when a death is impending, must be considered as examples of this allegorical language. Instances of this kind are extremely numerous. Not unfrequently the dreamer, as in cases of second-sight, sees either the body in the coffin, so as to be conscious of who is to die, or else is made aware of it from seeing the funeral-procession at a certain house, or from some other significant circumstance. This faculty, which has been supposed to belong peculiarly to the highlanders of Scotland, appears to be fully as well known in Wales and on the continent, especially in Germany.

The language of dreams, however, is not always symbolical. Occasionally, the scene, that is transacting at a distance, or that is to be transacted at some future period, is literally presented to the sleeper, as things appear to be presented in many cases of second-sight, and also in clairvoyance; and, since we suppose him (that is, the sleeper) to be in a temporarily magnetic state, we must conclude that the degree of perspicuity, or translucency of the vision, depends on the degree of that state. Nevertheless, there are considerable difficulties attending this theory. A great proportion of the prophetic dreams we hear of are connected with the death of some friend or relative. Some, it is true, regard unimportant matters, as visits, and so forth; but this is generally, though not exclusively, the case only with persons who have a constitutional tendency to this kind of dreaming, and with whom it is frequent; but it is not uncommon for those who have not discovered any such tendency, to be made aware of a death: and the number of dreams of this description I meet with is very considerable. Now, it is difficult to conceive what the condition is that causes this perception of an approaching death; or why, supposing, as we have suggested above, that, when the senses sleep, the untrammelled spirit sees, the memory of this revelation, if I may so call it, so much more frequently survives than any other, unless, indeed, it be the force of the shock sustained—which shock, it is to be remarked, always wakes the sleeper; and this may be the reason that, if he fall asleep again, the dream is almost invariably repeated.

I could fill pages with dreams of this description which have come to my knowledge, or been recorded by others.

Mr. H⁠——, a gentleman with whom I am acquainted—a man engaged in active business, and apparently as little likely as any one I ever knew to be troubled with a faculty of this sort—dreamed that he saw a certain friend of his dead. The dream was so like reality, that, although he had no reason whatever to suppose his friend ill, he could not forbear sending in the morning to inquire for him. The answer returned was, that Mr. A⁠—— was out, and was quite well. The impression, however, was so vivid, that, although he had nearly three miles to send, Mr. H⁠—— felt that he could not start for Glasgow, whither business called him, without making another inquiry. This time his friend was at home, and answered for himself, that he was very well, and that somebody must have been hoaxing H⁠——, and making him believe otherwise. Mr. H⁠—— set out on his journey, wondering at his own anxiety, but unable to conquer it. He was absent but a few days (I think three); and the first news he heard on his return was, that his friend had been seized with an attack of inflammation, and was dead.

A German professor lately related to a friend of mine, that, being some distance from home, he dreamed that his father was dying, and was calling for him. The dream being repeated, he was so far impressed as to alter his plans, and return home, where he arrived in time to receive his parent’s last breath. He was informed that the dying man had been calling upon his name repeatedly, in deep anguish at his absence.

A parallel case to this is that of Mr. R⁠—— E⁠—— S⁠——, an accountant in Edinburgh, and a shrewd man of business, who relates the following circumstance as occurring to himself. He is a native of Dalkeith, and was residing there, when, being about fifteen years of age, he left home on a Saturday, to spend a few days with a friend at Prestonpans. On the Sunday night he dreamed that his mother was extremely ill, and started out of his sleep with an impression that he must go to her immediately. He even got out of bed with the intention of doing so, but, reflecting that he had left her quite well, and that it was only a dream, he returned to bed, and again fell asleep. But the dream returned, and, unable longer to control his anxiety, he arose, dressed himself in the dark, quitted the house, leaping the railings that surrounded it, and made the best of his way to Dalkeith. On reaching home, which he did before daylight, he tapped at the kitchen-window, and, on gaining admittance, was informed that on the Saturday evening, after he had departed, his mother had been seized with an attack of British cholera, and was lying above, extremely ill. She had been lamenting his absence extremely, and had scarcely ceased crying, “Oh, Ralph, Ralph! what a grief that you are away!” At nine o’clock he was admitted to her room; but she was no longer in a condition to recognise him, and she died within a day or two.

Instances of this sort are numerous, but it would be tedious to narrate them, especially as there is little room for variety in the details. I shall therefore content myself with giving one or two specimens of each class, confining my examples to such as have been communicated to myself, except where any case of particular interest leads me to deviate from this plan. The frequency of such phenomena may be imagined, when I mention that the instances I shall give, with few exceptions, have been collected with little trouble, and without seeking beyond my own small circle of acquaintance.

In the family of the above-named gentleman (Mr. R⁠—— E⁠—— S⁠——), there probably existed a faculty of presentiment; for, in the year 1810, his elder brother being assistant-surgeon on board the “Gorgon,” war-brig, his father dreamed that he was promoted to the “Sparrowhawk,” a ship he had then never heard of—neither had the family received any intelligence of the young man for several months. He told his dream, and was well laughed at for his pains; but in a few weeks a letter arrived announcing the promotion.

When Lord Burghersh was giving theatrical parties at Florence, a lady (Mrs. M⁠——, whose presence was very important) excused herself one evening, being in great alarm from having dreamed in the night that her sister, in England, was dead, which proved to be the fact.

Mr. W⁠——, a young man at Glasgow college, not long since dreamed that his aunt in Russia was dead. He noted the date of his dream on the window-shutter of his chamber. In a short time the news of the lady’s death arrived. The dates, however, did not accord; but, on mentioning the circumstance to a friend, he was reminded that the adherence of the Russians to the old style reconciled the difference.

A man of business, in Glasgow, lately dreamed that he saw a coffin, on which was inscribed the name of a friend, with the date of his death. Some time afterward he was summoned to attend the funeral of that person, who, at the time of the dream, was in good health, and he was struck with surprise on seeing the plate of the coffin bearing the very date he had seen in his dream.

A French gentleman, Monsieur de V⁠——, dreamed, some years since, that he saw a tomb, on which he read very distinctly, the following date—23d June, 184⁠—; there were, also, some initials, but so much effaced that he could not make them out. He mentioned the circumstance to his wife; and for some time, they could not help dreading the recurrence of the ominous month; but, as year after year passed, and nothing happened, they had ceased to think of it, when at last the symbol was explained. On the 23d of June, 1846, their only daughter died at the age of seventeen.

Thus far the instances I have related seem to resolve themselves into cases of simple clairvoyance, or second sight in sleep, although, in using these words, I am very far from meaning to imply that I explain the thing, or unveil its mystery. The theory above alluded to, seems as yet, the only one applicable to the facts, namely, that the senses, being placed in a negative and passive state, the universal sense of the immortal spirit within, which sees, and hears, and knows, or rather, in one word, perceives, without organs, becomes more or less free to work unclogged. That the soul is a mirror in which the spirit sees all things reflected, is a modification of this theory; but I confess I find myself unable to attach any idea to this latter form of expression. Another view, which I have heard suggested by an eminent person, is, that if it be true, as maintained by Dr. Wigan, and some other physiologists, that our brains are double, it is possible that a polarity may exist between the two sides, by means of which the negative side may, under certain circumstances, become a mirror to the positive. It seems difficult to reconcile this notion with the fact, that these perceptions occur most frequently when the brain is asleep. How far the sleep is perfect and general, however, we can never know; and of course, when the powers of speech and locomotion continue to be exercised, we are aware that it is only partial, in a more or less degree. In the case of magnetic sleepers, observation shows us, that the auditory nerves are aroused by being addressed, and fall asleep again as soon as they are left undisturbed. In most cases of natural sleep, the same process, if the voice were heard at all, would disperse sleep altogether; and it must be remembered that, as Dr. Holland says, sleep is a fluctuating condition, varying from one moment to another, and this allowance must be made when considering magnetic sleep also.

It is by this theory of the duality of the brain, which seems to have many arguments in its favor, and the alternate sleeping and waking of the two sides, that Dr. Wigan seeks to account for the state of double or alternate consciousness above alluded to; and also, for that strange sensation which most people have experienced, of having witnessed a scene, or heard a conversation, at some indefinite period before, or even in some earlier state of existence. He thinks that one half of the brain being in a more active condition than the other, it takes cognizance of the scene first; and that thus the perceptions of the second, when they take place, appear to be a repetition of some former experiences. I confess this theory, as regards this latter phenomenon, is to me eminently unsatisfactory, and it is especially defective in not accounting for one of the most curious particulars connected with it, namely, that on these occasions people not only seem to recognise the circumstances as having been experienced before; but they have, very frequently, an actual foreknowledge of what will be next said or done.

Now, the explanation of this mystery, I incline to think, may possibly lie in the hypothesis I have suggested; namely, that in profound, and what appears to us generally to have been dreamless sleep, we are clear-seers. The map of coming events lies open before us, the spirit surveys it; but with the awaking of the sensuous organs, this dream-life, with its aerial excursions, passes away, and we are translated into our other sphere of existence. But, occasionally, some flash of recollection, some ray of light from this visionary world, in which we have been living, breaks in upon our external objective existence, and we recognise the locality, the voice, the very words, as being but a reacting of some foregone scenes of a drama.

The faculty of presentiment, of which everybody must have heard instances, seems to have some affinity to the phenomenon last referred to. I am acquainted with a lady, in whom this faculty is in some degree developed, who has evinced it by a consciousness of the moment when a death was taking place in her family, or among her connections, although she does not know who it is that has departed. I have heard of several cases of people hurrying home from a presentiment of fire; and Mr. M⁠—— of Calderwood was once, when absent from home, seized with such an anxiety about his family, that without being able in any way to account for it, he felt himself impelled to fly to them and remove them from the house they were inhabiting; one wing of which fell down immediately afterward. No notion of such a misfortune had ever before occurred to him, nor was there any reason whatever to expect it; the accident originating from some defect in the foundations.

A circumstance, exactly similar to this, is related by Stilling, of Professor Böhm, teacher of mathematics at Marburg; who being one evening in company, was suddenly seized with a conviction that he ought to go home. As however, he was very comfortably taking his tea, and had nothing to do at home, he resisted the admonition; but it returned with such force that at length he was obliged to yield. On reaching his house, he found everything as he had left it; but he now felt himself urged to remove his bed from the corner in which it stood to another; but as it had always stood there, he resisted this impulsion also. However, the resistance was vain, absurd as it seemed, he felt he must do it; so he summoned the maid, and with her aid, drew the bed to the other side of the room; after which he felt quite at ease and returned to spend the rest of the evening with his friends. At ten o’clock the party broke up, and he retired home and went to bed and to sleep. In the middle of the night, he was awakened by a loud crash, and on looking out, he saw that a large beam had fallen, bringing part of the ceiling with it, and was lying exactly on the spot his bed had occupied.

A young servant-girl in this neighborhood, who had been several years in an excellent situation, where she was much esteemed, was suddenly seized with a presentiment that she was wanted at home; and, in spite of all representations, she resigned her place, and set out on her journey thither; where, when she arrived, she found her parents extremely ill, one of them mortally, and in the greatest need of her services. No intelligence of their illness had reached her, nor could she herself in any way account for the impulse. I have heard of numerous well-authenticated cases of people escaping drowning from being seized with an unaccountable presentiment of evil when there were no external signs whatever to justify the apprehension. The story of Cazotte, as related by La Harpe, is a very remarkable instance of this sort of faculty; and seems to indicate a power like that possessed by Zschokke, who relates, in his autobiography, that frequently while conversing with a stranger, the whole circumstances of that person’s previous life were revealed to him, even comprising details of places and persons. In the case of Cazotte, it was the future that was laid open to him, and he foretold, to a company of eminent persons, in the year 1788, the fate which awaited each individual, himself included, in consequence of the revolution then commencing. As this story is already in print, I forbear to relate it.

One of the most remarkable cases of presentiment I know, is, that which occurred, not very long since, on board one of her majesty’s ships, when lying off Portsmouth. The officers being one day at the mess-table, young Lieutenant P⁠—— suddenly laid down his knife and fork, pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. He then rose from the table, covering his face with his hands, and retired from the room. The president of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent one of the young men to inquire what was the matter. At first Mr. P⁠—— was unwilling to speak, but on being pressed, he confessed that he had been seized by a sudden and irresistible impression that a brother he had then in India was dead. “He died,” said he, “on the 12th of August, at six o’clock; I am perfectly certain of it!” No arguments could overthrow this conviction, which, in due course of post, was verified to the letter. The young man had died at Cawnpore, at the precise period mentioned.

When any exhibition of this sort of faculty occurs in animals, which is by no means unfrequent, it is termed instinct; and we look upon it, as what it probably is, only another and more rare development of that intuitive knowledge which enables them to seek their food, and perform the other functions necessary for the maintenance of their existence and the continuance of their race. Now, it is remarkable, that the life of an animal is a sort of dream-life; their ganglionic system is more developed than that of man, and the cerebral less; and since it is, doubtless, from the greater development of the ganglionic system in women that they exhibit more frequent instances of such abnormal phenomena as I am treating of, than men, we may be, perhaps, justified in considering the faculty of presentiment in a human being as a suddenly-awakened instinct; just as in an animal it is an intensified instinct.

Everybody has either witnessed or heard of instances of this sort of presentiment, in dogs especially. For the authenticity of the following anecdote I can vouch, the traditions being very carefully preserved in the family concerned, from whom I have it. In the last century, Mr. P⁠——, a member of this family, who had involved himself in some of the stormy affairs of this northern part of the island, was one day surprised by seeing a favorite dog, that was lying at his feet, start suddenly up and seize him by the knee, which he pulled—not with violence, but in a manner that indicated a wish that his master should follow him to the door. The gentleman resisted the invitation for some time, till at length, the perseverance of the animal rousing his curiosity, he yielded, and was thus conducted by the dog into the most sequestered part of a neighboring thicket, where, however, he could see nothing to account for his dumb friend’s proceeding, who now lay himself down, quite satisfied, and seemed to wish his master to follow his example, which, determined to pursue the adventure and find out, if possible, what was meant, he did. A considerable time now elapsed before the dog would consent to his master’s going home; but at length he arose and led the way thither, when the first news Mr. P⁠—— heard was, that a party of soldiers had been there in quest of him; and he was shown the marks of their spikes, which had been thrust through the bed-clothes in their search. He fled, and ultimately escaped, his life being thus preserved by his dog.

Some years ago, at Plymouth, I had a brown spaniel that regularly, with great delight, accompanied my son and his nurse in their morning’s walk. One day she came to complain to me that Tiger would not go out with them. Nobody could conceive the reason of so unusual a caprice; and, unfortunately, we did not yield to it, but forced him to go. In less than a quarter of an hour he was brought back, so torn to pieces, by a savage dog that had just come ashore from a foreign vessel, that it was found necessary to shoot him immediately.

CHAPTER V.

WARNINGS.

This comparison between the power of presentiment in a human being and the instincts of an animal, may be offensive to some people; but it must be admitted, that, as far as we can see, the manifestation is the same, whatever be the cause. Now, the body of an animal must be informed by an immaterial principle—let us call it soul or spirit, or anything else; for it is evident that their actions are not the mere result of organization; and all I mean to imply is, that this faculty of foreseeing must be inherent in intelligent spirit, let it be lodged in what form of flesh it may; while, with regard to what instinct is, we are, in the meanwhile, in extreme ignorance, Instinct being a word which, like Imagination, everybody uses, and nobody understands.

Ennemoser and Schubert believe, that the instinct by which animals seek their food, consists in polarity, but I have met with only two modern theories which pretend to explain the phenomena of presentiment; the one is, that the person is in a temporarily magnetic state, and that the presentiment is a kind of clairvoyance. That the faculty, like that of prophetic dreaming, is constitutional, and chiefly manifested in certain families, is well established; and the very unimportant events, such as visits, and so forth, on which it frequently exercises itself, forbid us to seek an explanation in a higher source. It seems, also, to be quite independent of the will of the subject, as it was in the case of Zschokke, who found himself thus let into the secrets of persons in whom he felt no manner of interest, while, where the knowledge might have been of use to him, he could not command it. The theory of one half of the brain in a negative state, serving as a mirror to the other half, if admitted at all, may answer as well, or better, for these waking presentiments, than for clear-seeing in dreams. But, for my own part, I incline very much to the views of that school of philosophers who adopt the first and more spiritual theory, which seems to me to offer fewer difficulties, while, as regards our present nature, and future hopes, it is certainly more satisfactory. Once admitted that the body is but the temporary dwelling of an immaterial spirit, the machine through which, and by which, in its normal states, the spirit alone can manifest itself, I can not see any great difficulty in conceiving that, in certain conditions of that body, their relations may be modified, and that the spirit may perceive, by its own inherent quality, without the aid of its material vehicle; and, as this condition of the body may arise from causes purely physical, we see at once why the revelations frequently regard such unimportant events.

Plutarch, in his dialogue between Lamprius and Ammonius, observes, that if the demons, or protecting spirits, that watch over mankind, are disembodied souls, we ought not to doubt that those spirits, even when in the flesh, possessed the faculties they now enjoy, since we have no reason to suppose that any new ones are conferred at the period of dissolution; for these faculties must be inherent, although temporarily obscured, and weak and ineffective in their manifestations. As it is not when the sun breaks from behind the clouds that he first begins to shine, so it is not when the soul issues from the body, as from a cloud that envelops it, that it first attains the power of looking into the future.

But the events foreseen are not always unimportant, nor is the mode of the communication always of the same nature. I have mentioned above some instances wherein danger was avoided, and there are many of the same kind recorded in various works; and it is the number of instances of this description, corroborated by the universal agreement of all somnambulists of a higher order, which has induced a considerable section of the German psychologists to adopt the doctrine of guardian spirits—a doctrine which has prevailed, more or less, in all ages, and has been considered by many theologians to be supported by the Bible. There is in this country, and I believe in France, also, though with more exceptions, such an extreme aversion to admit the possibility of anything like what is called supernatural agency, that the mere avowal of such a persuasion is enough to discredit one’s understanding with a considerable part of the world, not excepting those who profess to believe in the Scriptures. Yet, even apart from this latter authority, I can not see anything repugnant to reason in such a belief. As far as we see of nature, there is a continued series from the lowest to the highest; and what right have we to conclude that we are the last link of the chain? Why may there not be a gamut of beings? That such should be the case, is certainly in accordance with all that we see; and that we do not see them, affords, as I have said above, not a shadow of argument against their existence; man, immersed in business and pleasure, living only his sensuous life, is too apt to forget how limited those senses are, how merely designed for a temporary purpose, and how much may exist of which they can take no cognizance.

The possibility admitted, the chief arguments against the probability of such a guardianship, are the interference it implies with the free-will of man, on the one hand, and the rarity of this interference, on the other. With respect to the first matter of free-will, it is a subject of acknowledged difficulty, and beyond the scope of my work. Nobody can honestly look back upon his past life without feeling perplexed by the question, of how far he was, or was not, able at the moment to resist certain impulsions, which caused him to commit wrong or imprudent actions; and it must, I fear, ever remain a quæstio vexata, how far our virtues and vices depend upon our organization—an organization whose constitution is beyond our own power, in the first instance, although we may certainly improve or deteriorate it; but which we must admit, at the same time, to be, in its present deteriorated form, the ill result of the world’s corruption, and the inherited penalty of the vices of our predecessors, whereby the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

There is, as the Scriptures say, but one way to salvation, though there are many to perdition—that is, though there are many wrongs, there is only one right; for truth is one, and our true liberty consists in being free to follow it; for we can not imagine that anybody seeks his own perdition, and nobody, I conceive, loves vice for its own sake, as others love virtue, that is, because it is vice: so that, when they follow its dictates, we must conclude that they are not free, but in bondage, whose ever bond-slave they be, whether of an evil spirit, or of their own organization; and I think every human being, who looks into himself, will feel that he is in effect then only free when he is obeying the dictates of virtue; and that the language of Scripture, which speaks of sin as a bondage, is not only metaphorically but literally true.

The warning a person of an impending danger or error implies no constraint; the subject of the warning is free to take the hint or not, as he pleases; we receive many cautions, both from other people and from our own consciences, which we refuse to benefit by.

With regard to the second objection, it seems to have greater weight; for although the instances of presentiment are very numerous, taken apart, they are certainly, as far as we know, still but exceptional cases. But here we must remember that an influence of this sort might be very continuously, though somewhat remotely, exercised in favor of an individual, without the occurrence of any instance of so striking a nature as to render the interference manifest; and certain it is that some people—I have met with several, and very sensible persons too—have all their lives an intuitive persuasion of such a guardianship existing in relation to themselves. That in our normal states it was not intended we should hold sensible communion with the invisible world, seems evident; but nature abounds in exceptions; and there may be conditions regarding both parties, the incorporated and the unincorporated spirit, which may at times bring them into a more intimate relation. No one who believes that consciousness is to survive the death of the body, can doubt that the released spirit will then hold communion with its congeners; it being the fleshly tabernacles we inhabit which alone disables us from doing so at present. But since the constitutions of bodies vary exceedingly, not only in different individuals, but in the same individuals at different times, may we not conceive the possibility of there existing conditions which, by diminishing the obstructions, render this communion practicable within certain limits? For there certainly are recorded and authentic instances of presentiments and warnings, that with difficulty admit of any other explanation; and that these admonitions are more frequently received in the state of sleep than of vigilance, rather furnishes an additional argument in favor of the last hypothesis; for if there be any foundation for the theories above suggested, it is then that, the sensuous functions being in abeyance and the external life thereby shut out from us, the spirit would be most susceptible to the operations of spirit, whether of our deceased friends or of appointed ministers, if such there be. Jung Stelling is of opinion that we must decide from the aim and object of the revelation, whether it be a mere development of the faculty of presentiment, or a case of spiritual intervention; but this would surely be a very erroneous mode of judging, since the presentiment that foresees a visit may foresee a danger, and show us how to avoid it, as in the following instance:—

A few years ago, Dr. W⁠——, now residing at Glasgow, dreamed that he received a summons to attend a patient at a place some miles from where he was living; that he started on horseback; and that, as he was crossing a moor, he saw a bull making furiously at him, whose horns he only escaped by taking refuge on a spot inaccessible to the animal, where he waited a long time, till some people, observing his situation, came to his assistance and released him. While at breakfast on the following morning, the summons came; and, smiling at the odd coincidence, he started on horseback. He was quite ignorant of the road he had to go; but by-and-by he arrived at the moor, which he recognised, and presently the bull appeared, coming full tilt toward him. But his dream had shown him the place of refuge, for which he instantly made; and there he spent three or four hours, besieged by the animal, till the country people set him free. Dr. W⁠—— declares that, but for the dream, he should not have known in what direction to run for safety.

A butcher named Bone, residing at Holytown, dreamed a few years since that he was stopped at a particular spot on his way to market, whither he was going on the following day to purchase cattle, by two men in blue clothes, who cut his throat. He told the dream to his wife, who laughed at him; but, as it was repeated two or three times and she saw he was really alarmed, she advised him to join somebody who was going the same road. He accordingly listened till he heard a cart passing his door, and then went out and joined the man, telling him the reason for so doing. When they came to the spot, there actually stood the two men in blue clothes, who, seeing he was not alone, took to their heels and ran.

Now, although the dream was here probably the means of saving Bone’s life, there is no reason to suppose that this is a case of what is called supernatural intervention. The phenomenon would be sufficiently accounted for by the admission of the hypothesis I have suggested, namely, that he was aware of the impending danger in his sleep, and had been able, from some cause unknown to us, to convey the recollection into his waking state.

I know instances in which, for several mornings previous to the occurrence of a calamity, persons have awakened with a painful sense of misfortune, for which they could not account, and which was dispersed as soon as they had time to reflect that they had no cause for uneasiness. This is the only kind of presentiment I ever experienced myself; but it has occurred to me twice, in a very marked and unmistakable manner. As soon as the intellectual life, the life of the brain, and the external world, broke in, the instinctive life receded, and the intuitive knowledge was obscured. Or, according to Dr. Ennemoser’s theory, the polar relations changed, and the nerves were busied with conveying sensuous impressions to the brain, their sensibility or positive state now being transferred from the internal to the external periphery. It is by the contrary change that Dr. Ennemoser seeks to explain the insensibility to pain of mesmerized patients.

A circumstance of a similar kind to the above occurred in a well-known family in Scotland, the Rutherfords of E⁠——. A lady dreamed that her aunt, who resided at some distance, was murdered by a black servant. Impressed with the liveliness of the vision, she could not resist going to the house of her relation, where the man she had dreamed of (whom I think she had never before seen) opened the door to her. Upon this, she induced a gentleman to watch in the adjoining room during the night; and toward morning, hearing a foot upon the stairs, he opened the door and discovered the black servant carrying up a coal-scuttle full of coals, for the purpose, as he said, of lighting his mistress’s fire. As this motive did not seem very probable, the coals were examined, and a knife found hidden among them, with which, he afterward confessed, he intended to have murdered his mistress, provided she made any resistance to a design he had formed of robbing her of a large sum of money which he was aware she had that day received.

The following case has been quoted in several medical works, at least in works written by learned doctors, and on that account I should not mention it here, but for the purpose of remarking on the extraordinary facility with which, while they do not question the fact, they dispose of the mystery:—

Mr. D⁠——, of Cumberland, when a youth, came to Edinburgh, for the purpose of attending college, and was placed under the care of his uncle and aunt, Major and Mrs. Griffiths, who then resided in the castle. When the fine weather came, the young man was in the habit of making frequent excursions with others of his own age and pursuits; and one afternoon he mentioned that they had formed a fishing-party, and had bespoken a boat for the ensuing day. No objections were made to this plan; but in the middle of the night, Mrs. Griffiths screamed out, “The boat is sinking!—oh, save them!” Her husband said he supposed she had been thinking of the fishing-party, but she declared she had never thought about it at all, and soon fell asleep again. But, ere long, she awoke a second time, crying out that she “saw the boat sinking!”—“It must have been the remains of the impression made by the other dream,” she suggested to her husband, “for I have no uneasiness whatever about the fishing-party.” But on going to sleep once more, her husband was again disturbed by her cries: “They are gone!” she said, “the boat has sunk!” She now really became alarmed, and, without waiting for morning, she threw on her dressing-gown, and went to Mr. D⁠——, who was still in bed, and whom with much difficulty she persuaded to relinquish his proposed excursion. He consequently sent his servant to Leith with an excuse, and the party embarked without him. The day was extremely fine when they put to sea, but some hours afterward a storm arose, in which the boat foundered—nor did any one of the number survive to tell the tale!

“This dream is easily accounted for,” say the learned gentlemen above alluded to, “from the dread all women have of the water, and the danger that attends boating on the firth of Forth!” Now, I deny that all women have a dread of the water, and there is not the slightest reason for concluding that Mrs. Griffiths had. At all events, she affirms that she felt no uneasiness at all about the party, and one might take leave to think that her testimony upon that subject is of more value than that of persons who never had any acquaintance with her, and who were not so much as born at the time the circumstance occurred, which was in the year 1731. Besides, if Mrs. Griffiths’s dread arose simply from “the dread all women have of the water,” and that its subsequent verification was a mere coincidence, since women constantly risk their persons for voyages and boating excursions, such dreams should be extremely frequent—the fact of there being any accident impending or not, having, according to this theory, no relation whatever to the phenomenon. And as for the danger that attends boating on the firth of Forth, we must naturally suppose that, had it been considered so imminent, Major Griffiths would have at least endeavored to dissuade a youth that was placed under his protection from risking his life so imprudently. It would be equally reasonable to explain away Dr. W⁠——’s dream, by saying that all gentlemen who have to ride across commons are in great dread of encountering a bull—commons in general being infested by that animal!

Miss D⁠——, a friend of mine, was some time since invited to join a pic-nic excursion into the country. Two nights before the day fixed for the expedition, she dreamed that the carriage she was to go in was overturned down a precipice. Impressed with her dream, she declined the excursion, confessing her reason, and advising the rest of the party to relinquish their project. They laughed at her, and persisted in their scheme. When, subsequently, she went to inquire how they had spent the day, she found the ladies confined to their beds from injuries received, the carriage having been overturned down a precipice. Still, this was only a coincidence!

Another specimen of the haste with which people are willing to dispose of what they do not understand, is afforded by a case that occurred not many years since in the north of Scotland, where a murder having been committed, a man came forward, saying that he had dreamed that the pack of the murdered pedlar was hidden in a certain spot; where, on a search being made, it was actually found. They at first concluded he was himself the assassin, but the real criminal was afterward discovered; and it being asserted (though I have been told erroneously) that the two men had passed some time together, since the murder, in a state of intoxication, it was decided that the crime and the place of concealment had been communicated to the pretended dreamer—and all who thought otherwise were laughed at; “for why,” say the rationalists, “should not Providence have so ordered the dream as to have prevented the murder altogether?”

Who can answer that question, and whither would such a discussion lead us? Moreover, if this faculty of presentiment be a natural one, though only imperfectly and capriciously developed, there may have been no design in the matter: it is an accident, just in the same sense as an illness is an accident; that is, not without cause, but without a cause that we can penetrate. If, on the other hand, we have recourse to the intervention of spiritual beings, it may be answered that we are entirely ignorant of the conditions under which any such communication is possible; and that we can not therefore come to any conclusions as to why so much is done, and no more.

But there is another circumstance to be observed in considering the case, which is, that the dreamer is said to have passed some days in a state of intoxication. Now, even supposing this had been true, it is well known that the excitement of the brain caused by intoxication has occasionally produced a very remarkable exaltation of certain faculties. It is by means of either intoxicating draughts or vapors that the soothsayers of Lapland and Siberia place themselves in a condition to vaticinate; and we have every reason to believe that drugs, producing similar effects, were resorted to by the thaumaturgists of old, and by the witches of later days, of which I shall have more to say hereafter. But, as a case in point, I may here allude to the phenomena exhibited in a late instance of the application of ether, by Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, to a lady who was at the moment under circumstances not usually found very agreeable. She said that she was amusing herself delightfully by playing over a set of quadrilles which she had known in her youth, but had long forgotten them; but she now perfectly remembered them, and had played them over several times. Here was an instance of the exaltation of a faculty from intoxication, similar to that of the woman who, in her delirium, spoke a language which she had only heard in her childhood, and of which, in her normal state, she had no recollection.

That the inefficiency of the communication, or presentiment, or whatever it may be, is no argument against the fact of such dreams occurring, I can safely assert, from cases which have come under my own knowledge. A professional gentleman, whose name would be a warrant for the truth of whatever he relates, told me the following circumstance regarding himself. He was, not very long since, at the seaside with his family, and, among the rest, he had with him one of his sons, a boy about twelve years of age, who was in the habit of bathing daily, his father accompanying him to the water-side. This had continued during the whole of their visit, and no idea of danger or accident had ever occurred to anybody. On the day preceding the one appointed for their departure, Mr. H⁠——, the gentleman in question, felt himself after breakfast surprised by an unusual drowsiness, which, having vainly struggled to overcome, he at length fell asleep in his chair, and dreamed that he was attending his son to the bath as usual, when he suddenly saw the boy drowning, and that he himself had rushed into the water, dressed as he was, and brought him ashore. Though he was quite conscious of the dream when he awoke, he attached no importance to it; he considered it merely a dream—no more; and when, some hours afterward, the boy came into the room, and said, “Now, papa, it’s time to go—this will be my last bath”—his morning’s vision did not even recur to him. They walked down to the sea, as usual, and the boy went into the water, while the father stood composedly watching him from the beach, when suddenly the child lost his footing, a wave had caught him, and the danger of his being carried away was so imminent, that, without even waiting to take off his greatcoat, boots, or hat, Mr. H⁠—— rushed into the water, and was only just in time to save him.

Here is a case of undoubted authenticity, which I take to be an instance of clear-seeing, or second-sight, in sleep. The spirit, with its intuitive faculty, saw what was impending; the sleeper remembered his dream, but the intellect did not accept the warning; and, whether that warning was merely a subjective process—the clear-seeing of the spirit—or whether it was effected by any external agency, the free-will of the person concerned was not interfered with.

I quote the ensuing similar case from the “Frankfort Journal,” June 25, 1837: “A singular circumstance is said to be connected with the late attempt on the life of the archbishop of Autun. The two nights preceding the attack, the prelate dreamed that he saw a man who was making repeated efforts to take away his life, and he awoke in extreme terror and agitation from the exertions he had made to escape the danger. The features and appearance of the man were so clearly imprinted on his memory, that he recognised him the moment his eye fell upon him, which happened as he was coming out of church. The bishop hid his face, and called his attendants, but the man had fired before he could make known his apprehensions. Facts of this description are far from uncommon. It appears that the assassin had entertained designs against the lives of the bishops of Dijon, Burgos, and Nevers.”

The following case, which occurred a few years since in the north of England, and which I have from the best authority, is remarkable from the inexorable fatality which brought about the fulfilment of the dream: Mrs. K⁠——, a lady of family and fortune in Yorkshire, said to her son, one morning on descending to breakfast: “Henry, what are you going to do to-day?”

“I am going to hunt,” replied the young man.

“I am very glad of it,” she answered. “I should not like you to go shooting, for I dreamed last night that you did so, and were shot.” The son answered, gayly, that he would take care not to be shot, and the hunting party rode away; but, in the middle of the day, they returned, not having found any sport. Mr. B⁠——, a visiter in the house, then proposed that they should go out with their guns and try to find some woodcocks. “I will go with you,” returned the young man, “but I must not shoot, to-day, myself; for my mother dreamed last night I was shot; and, although it is but a dream, she would be uneasy.”

They went, Mr. B⁠—— with his gun, and Mr. K⁠—— without. But shortly afterward the beloved son was brought home dead: a charge from the gun of his companion had struck him in the eye, entered his brain, and killed him on the spot. Mr. B⁠——, the unfortunate cause of this accident and also the narrator of it, died but a few weeks since.

It is well known that the murder of Mr. Percival, by Bellingham, was seen in sleep by a gentleman at York, who actually went to London in consequence of his dream, which was several times repeated. He arrived too late to prevent the calamity; neither would he have been believed, had he arrived earlier.

In the year 1461, a merchant was travelling toward Rome by Sienna, when he dreamed that his throat was cut. He communicated his dream to the innkeeper, who did not like it, and advised him to pray and confess. He did so, and then rode forth, and was presently attacked by the priest he had confessed to, who had thus learned his apprehensions. He killed the merchant, but was betrayed, and disappointed of his gains, by the horse taking fright and running back to the inn with the money-bags.

I have related this story, though not a new one, on account of its singular resemblance to the following, which I take from a newspaper paragraph, but which I find mentioned as a fact in a continental publication:—

“Singular Verification of a Dream.—A letter from Hamburgh contains the following curious story relative to the verification of a dream. It appears that a locksmith’s apprentice, one morning lately, informed his master (Claude Soller) that on the previous night he dreamed that he had been assassinated on the road to Bergsdorff, a little town at about two hours’ distance from Hamburgh. The master laughed at the young man’s credulity, and, to prove that he himself had little faith in dreams, insisted upon sending him to Bergsdorff with one hundred and forty rix dollars, which he owed to his brother-in-law, who resided in the town. The apprentice, after in vain imploring his master to change his intention, was compelled to set out at about 11 o’clock. On arriving at the village of Billwaerder, about half-way between Hamburgh and Bergsdorff, he recollected his dream with terror; but perceiving the baillie of the village at a little distance, talking to some of his workmen, he accosted him, and acquainted him with his singular dream, at the same time requesting that, as he had money about his person, one of his workmen might be allowed to accompany him for protection across a small wood which lay in his way. The baillie smiled, and, in obedience to his orders, one of his men set out with the young apprentice. The next day, the corpse of the latter was conveyed by some peasants to the baillie, along with a reaping-hook which had been found by his side, and with which the throat of the murdered youth had been cut. The baillie immediately recognised the instrument as one which he had on the previous day given to the workman who had served as the apprentice’s guide, for the purpose of pruning some willows. The workman was apprehended, and, on being confronted with the body of his victim, made a full confession of his crime, adding that the recital of the dream had alone prompted him to commit the horrible act. The assassin, who is thirty-five years of age, is a native of Billwaerder, and, previously to the perpetration of the murder, had always borne an irreproachable character.”

The life of the great Harvey was saved by the governor of Dover refusing to allow him to embark for the continent with his friends. The vessel was lost, with all on board; and the governor confessed to him, that he had detained him in consequence of an injunction he had received in a dream to do so.

There is a very curious circumstance related by Mr. Ward, in his “Illustrations of Human Life,” regarding the late Sir Evan Nepean, which I believe is perfectly authentic. I have at least been assured, by persons well acquainted with him, that he himself testified to its truth.

Being, at the time, secretary to the admiralty, he found himself one night unable to sleep, and urged by an undefinable feeling that he must rise, though it was then only two o’clock. He accordingly did so, and went into the park, and from that to the home office, which he entered by a private door, of which he had the key. He had no object in doing this; and, to pass the time, he took up a newspaper that was lying on the table, and there read a paragraph to the effect that a reprieve had been despatched to York, for the men condemned for coining.

The question occurred to him, was it indeed despatched? He examined the books and found it was not; and it was only by the most energetic proceedings that the thing was carried through, and reached York in time to save the men.

Is not this like the agency of a protecting spirit, urging Sir Evan to this discovery, in order that these men might be spared, or that those concerned might escape the remorse they would have suffered for their criminal neglect?

It is a remarkable fact, that somnambules of the highest order believe themselves attended by a protecting spirit. To those who do not believe, because they have never witnessed, the phenomena of somnambulism, or who look upon the disclosures of persons in that state as the mere raving of hallucination, this authority will necessarily have no weight; but even to such persons the universal coincidence must be considered worthy of observation, though it be regarded only as a symptom of disease. I believe I have remarked elsewhere, that many persons, who have not the least tendency to somnambulism or any proximate malady, have all their lives an intuitive feeling of such a guardianship; and, not to mention Socrates and the ancients, there are, besides, numerous recorded cases in modern times, in which persons, not somnambulic, have declared themselves to have seen and held communication with their spiritual protector.

The case of the girl called Ludwiger, who, in her infancy, had lost her speech and the use of her limbs, and who was earnestly committed by her mother, when dying, to the care of her elder sisters, is known to many. These young women piously fulfilled their engagement till the wedding-day of one of them caused them to forget their charge. On recollecting it, at length, they hastened home, and found the girl, to their amazement, sitting up in her bed, and she told them that her mother had been there and given her food. She never spoke again, and soon after died. This circumstance occurred at Dessau, not many years since, and is, according to Schubert, a perfectly-established fact in that neighborhood. The girl at no other period of her life exhibited any similar phenomena, nor had she ever displayed any tendency to spectral illusions.

The wife of a respectable citizen, named Arnold, at Heilbronn, held constant communications with her protecting spirit, who warned her of impending dangers, approaching visiters, and so forth. He was only once visible to her, and it was in the form of an old man; but his presence was felt by others as well as herself, and they were sensible that the air was stirred, as by a breath.

Jung Stilling publishes a similar account, which was bequeathed to him by a very worthy and pious minister of the church. The subject of the guardianship was his own wife, and the spirit first appeared to her after her marriage, in the year 1799, as a child, attired in a white robe, while she was busy in her bed-chamber. She stretched out her hand to take hold of the figure, but it disappeared. It frequently visited her afterward, and in answer to her inquiries it said, “I died in my childhood!” It came to her at all hours, whether alone or in company, and not only at home, but elsewhere, and even when travelling, assisting her when in danger; it sometimes floated in the air, spake to her in its own language, which somehow, she says, she understood, and could speak, too; and it was once seen by another person. He bade her call him Immanuel. She earnestly begged him to show himself to her husband, but he alleged that it would make him ill, and cause his death. On asking him wherefore, he answered, “Few persons are able to see such things.”

Her two children, one six years old, and the other younger, saw this figure as well as herself.

Schubert, in his “Geschichte der Seele,” relates that the ecclesiastical councillor Schwartz, of Heidelberg, when about twelve years of age, and at a time that he was learning the Greek language, but knew very little about it, dreamed that his grandmother, a very pious woman, to whom he had been much attached, appeared to him, and unfolded a parchment inscribed with Greek characters which foretold the fortunes of his future life. He read it off with as much facility as if it had been in German, but being dissatisfied with some particulars of the prediction, he begged they might be changed. His grandmother answered him in Greek, whereupon he awoke, remembering the dream, but, in spite of all the efforts to arrest them, he was unable to recall the particulars the parchment had contained. The answer of his grandmother, however, he was able to grasp before it had fled his memory, and he wrote down the words; but the meaning of them he could not discover without the assistance of his grammar and lexicon. Being interpreted, they proved to be these: “As it is prophesied to me, so I prophesy to thee!” He had written the words in a volume of Gessner’s works, being the first thing he laid his hand on; and he often philosophized on them in later days, when they chanced to meet his eye. How, he says, should he have been able to read and produce that in his sleep, which, in his waking state, he would have been quite incapable of? “Even long after, when I left school,” he adds, “I could scarcely have put together such a sentence; and it is extremely remarkable that the feminine form was observed in conformity with the sex of the speaker.” The words were these: αῦτα Χρησμ῾ωδηθεισα Χρησμωδὲω σοι.

Grotius relates, that when Mr. de Saumaise was councillor of the parliament at Dijon, a person, who knew not a word of Greek, brought him a paper on which was written some words in that language, but not in the character. He said that a voice had uttered them to him in the night, and that he had written them down, imitating the sound as well as he could. Mons de Saumaise made out that the signification of the words was, “Begone! do you not see that death impends?” Without comprehending what danger was predicted, the person obeyed the mandate and departed. On that night the house that he had been lodging in fell to the ground.

The difficulty in these two cases is equally great, apply to it whatever explanation we may; for even if the admonitions proceeded from some friendly guardian, as we might be inclined to conclude, it is not easy to conceive why they should have been communicated in a language the persons did not understand.

After the death of Dante, it was discovered that the thirteenth canto of the “Paradiso” was missing; great search was made for it, but in vain; and to the regret of everybody concerned, it was at length concluded that it had either never been written, or had been destroyed. The quest was therefore given up, and some months had elapsed, when Pietro Allighieri, his son, dreamed that his father had appeared to him and told him that if he removed a certain panel near the window of the room in which he had been accustomed to write, the thirteenth canto would be found. Pietro told his dream, and was laughed at, of course; however, as the canto did not turn up, it was thought as well to examine the spot indicated in the dream. The panel was removed, and there lay the missing canto behind it; much mildewed, but, fortunately, still legible.

If it be true that the dead do return sometimes to solve our perplexities, here was not an unworthy occasion for the exercise of such a power. We can imagine the spirit of the great poet still clinging to the memory of his august work, immortal as himself—the record of those high thoughts which can never die.

There are numerous curious accounts extant of persons being awakened by the calling of a voice which announced some impending danger to them. Three boys are sleeping in the wing of a castle, and the eldest is awakened by what appears to him to be the voice of his father calling him by name. He rises and hastens to his parent’s chamber, situated in another part of the building, where he finds his father asleep, who, on being awakened, assures him that he had not called him, and the boy returns to bed. But he is scarcely asleep, before the circumstance recurs, and he goes again to his father with the same result. A third time he falls asleep, and a third time he is aroused by the voice, too distinctly heard for him to doubt his senses; and now, alarmed at he knows not what, he rises and takes his brothers with him to his father’s chamber; and while they are discussing the singularity of the circumstance, a crash is heard, and that wing of the castle in which the boys slept falls to the ground. This incident excited so much attention in Germany that it was recorded in a ballad.

It is related by Amyraldus, that Monsieur Calignan, chancellor of Navarre, dreamed three successive times in one night, at Berne, that a voice called to him and bade him quit the place, as the plague would soon break out in that town; that, in consequence, he removed his family, and the result justified his flight.

A German physician relates, that a patient of his told him, that he dreamed repeatedly, one night, that a voice bade him go to his hop-garden, as there were thieves there. He resisted the injunction some time, till at length he was told that if he delayed any longer he would lose all his produce. Thus urged, he went at last, and arrived just in time to see the thieves, loaded with sacks, making away from the opposite side of the hop-ground.

A Madame Von Militz found herself under the necessity of parting with a property which had long been in her family. When the bargain was concluded, and she was preparing to remove, she solicited permission of the new proprietor to carry away with her some little relic as a memento of former days—a request which he uncivilly denied. On one of the nights that preceded her departure from the home of her ancestors, she dreamed that a voice spoke to her, and bade her go to the cellar and open a certain part of the wall, where she would find something that nobody would dispute with her. Impressed with her dream, she sent for a bricklayer, who, after long seeking, discovered a place which appeared less solid than the rest. A hole was made, and in a niche was found a goblet, which contained something that looked like a pot pourri. On shaking out the contents, there lay at the bottom a small ring, on which was engraven the name Anna Von Militz.

A friend of mine, Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, has some coins that were found exactly in the same manner. The child of a Mr. Christison, in whose house his father was lodging, in the year 1781, dreamed that there was a treasure hid in the cellar. Her father had no faith in the dream; but Mr. Sharpe had the curiosity to have the place dug up, and a copper pot was found, full of coins.

A very singular circumstance was related to me by Mr. J⁠——, as having occurred not long since to himself. A tonic had been prescribed to him by his physician, for some slight derangement of the system, and as there was no good chemist in the village he inhabited, he was in the habit of walking to a town about five miles off, to get the bottle filled as occasion required. One night, that he had been to M⁠—— for this purpose, and had obtained his last supply, for he was now recovered, and about to discontinue the medicine, a voice seemed to warn him that some great danger was impending, his life was in jeopardy; then he heard, but not with his outward ear, a beautiful prayer. “It was not myself that prayed,” he said, “the prayer was far beyond anything I am capable of composing—it spoke of me in the third person, always as he; and supplicated that for the sake of my widowed mother this calamity might be averted. My father had been dead some months. I was sensible of all this, yet I can not say whether I was asleep or awake. When I rose in the morning, the whole was present to my mind, although I had slept soundly in the interval; I felt, however, as if there was some mitigation of the calamity, though what the danger was with which I was threatened, I had no notion. When I was dressed, I prepared to take my medicine, but on lifting the bottle, I fancied that the color was not the same as usual. I looked again, and hesitated, and finally, instead of taking two tablespoonfuls, which was my accustomed dose, I took but one. Fortunate it was that I did so; the apothecary had made a mistake; the drug was poison; I was seized with a violent vomiting, and other alarming symptoms, from which I was with difficulty recovered. Had I taken the two spoonfuls, I should, probably, not have survived to tell the tale.”

The manner in which I happened to obtain these particulars is not uninteresting. I was spending the evening with Mr. Wordsworth, at Ridal, when he mentioned to me that a stranger, who had called on him that morning, had quoted two lines from his poem of “Laodamia,” which, he said, to him had a peculiar interest. They were these:—

“The invisible world with thee hath sympathized;

Be thy affections raised and solemnized.”

“I do not know what he alludes to,” said Mr. Wordsworth; “but he gave me to understand that these lines had a deep meaning for him, and that he had himself been the subject of such a sympathy.”

Upon this, I sought the stranger, whose address the poet gave me, and thus learned the above particulars from himself. His very natural persuasion was, that the interceding spirit was his father. He described the prayer as one of earnest anguish.

One of the most remarkable instances of warning that has come to my knowledge, is that of Mr. M⁠——, of Kingsborough. This gentleman, being on a voyage to America, dreamed, one night, that a little old man came into his cabin and said, “Get up! Your life is in danger!” Upon which, Mr. M⁠—— awoke; but considering it to be only a dream, he soon composed himself to sleep again. The dream, however, if such it were, recurred, and the old man urged him still more strongly to get up directly; but he still persuaded himself it was only a dream; and after listening a few minutes, and hearing nothing to alarm him, he turned round and addressed himself once more to sleep. But now the old man appeared again, and angrily bade him rise instantly, and take his gun and ammunition with him, for he had not a moment to lose. The injunction was now so distinct that Mr. M⁠—— felt he could no longer resist it; so he hastily dressed himself, took his gun, and ascended to the deck, where he had scarcely arrived, when the ship struck on a rock, which he and several others contrived to reach. The place, however, was uninhabited, and but for his gun, they would never have been able to provide themselves with food till a vessel arrived to their relief.

Now these can scarcely be looked upon as instances of clear-seeing, or of second-sight in sleep, which, in Denmark, is called first-seeing, I believe; for in neither case did the sleeper perceive the danger, much less the nature of it. If, therefore, we refuse to attribute them to some external protecting influence, they resolve themselves into cases of vague presentiment; but it must then be admitted that the mode of the manifestation is very extraordinary; so extraordinary, indeed, that we fall into fully as great a difficulty as that offered by the supposition of a guardian spirit.

An American clergyman told me that an old woman, with whom he was acquainted, who had two sons, heard a voice say to her in the night, “John’s dead!” This was her eldest son. Shortly afterward, the news of his death arriving, she said to the person who communicated the intelligence to her, “If John’s dead, then I know that David is dead, too, for the same voice has since told me so;” and the event proved that the information, whence ever it came, was correct.

Not many years since, Captain S⁠—— was passing a night at the Manse of Strachur, in Argyleshire, then occupied by a relation of his own; shortly after he retired, the bed-curtains were opened, and somebody looked in upon him. Supposing it to be some inmate of the house, who was not aware that the bed was occupied, he took no notice of the circumstance, till it being two or three times repeated, he at length said, “What do you want? Why do you disturb me in this manner?”

“I come,” replied a voice, “to tell you, that this day twelvemonth you will be with your father!”

After this, Captain S⁠—— was no more disturbed. In the morning, he related the circumstance to his host, though, being an entire disbeliever in all such phenomena, without attaching any importance to the warning.

In the natural course of events, and quite irrespective of this visitation, on that day twelvemonth he was again at the Manse of Strachur, on his way to the north, for which purpose it was necessary that he should cross the ferry to Craigie. The day was, however, so exceedingly stormy, that his friend begged him not to go; but he pleaded his business, adding that he was determined not to be withheld from his intention by the ghost, and, although the minister delayed his departure, by engaging him in a game of backgammon, he at length started up, declaring he could stay no longer. They, therefore, proceeded to the water, but they found the boat moored to the side of the lake, and the boatman assured them that it would be impossible to cross. Captain S⁠——, however, insisted, and, as the old man was firm in his refusal, he became somewhat irritated, and laid his cane lightly across his shoulders.

“It ill becomes you, sir,” said the ferryman, “to strike an old man like me; but, since you will have your way, you must; I can not go with you, but my son will; but you will never reach the other side; he will be drowned, and you too.”

The boat was then set afloat, and Captain S⁠——, together with his horse and servant, and the ferryman’s son, embarked in it.

The distance was not great, but the storm was tremendous; and, after having with great difficulty got half way across the lake, it was found impossible to proceed. The danger of tacking was, of course, considerable; but, since they could not advance, there was no alternative but to turn back, and it was resolved to attempt it. The manœuvre, however, failed; the boat capsized, and they were all precipitated into the water.

“You keep hold of the horse—I can swim,” said Captain S⁠—— to his servant, when he saw what was about to happen.

Being an excellent swimmer, and the distance from the shore inconsiderable, he hoped to save himself, but he had on a heavy top-coat, with boots and spurs. The coat he contrived to take off in the water, and then struck out with confidence; but, alas! the coat had got entangled with one of the spurs, and, as he swam, it clung to him, getting heavier and heavier as it became saturated with water, ever dragging him beneath the stream. He, however, reached the shore, where his anxious friend still stood watching the event; and, as the latter bent over him, he was just able to make a gesture with his hand, which seemed to say, “You see, it was to be!” and then expired.

The boatman was also drowned; but, by the aid of the horse, the servant escaped.

As I do not wish to startle my readers, nor draw too suddenly on their faith, I have commenced with this class of phenomena, which it must be admitted are sufficiently strange, and, if true, must also be admitted to be well worthy of attention. No doubt these cases, and still more those to which I shall next proceed, give a painful shock to the received notions of polished and educated society in general—especially in this country, where the analytical or scientifical psychology of the eighteenth century has almost superseded the study of synthetic or philosophical psychology. It has become a custom to look at all the phenomena regarding man in a purely physiological point of view; for although it is admitted that he has a mind, and although there is such a science as metaphysics, the existence of what we call mind is never considered but as connected with the body. We know that body can exist without mind; for, not to speak of certain living conditions, the body subsists without mind when the spirit has fled; albeit, without the living principle it can subsist but for a short period, except under particular circumstances; but we seem to have forgotten that mind, though dependent upon body as long as the connection between them continues, can yet subsist without it. There have indeed been philosophers, purely materialistic, who have denied this, but they are not many; and not only the whole Christian world, but all who believe in a future state, must perforce admit it; for even those who hold that most unsatisfactory doctrine that there will be neither memory nor consciousness till a second incorporation takes place, will not deny that the mind, however in a state of abeyance and unable to manifest itself, must still subsist as an inherent property of man’s immortal part. Even if, as some philosophers believe, the spirit, when freed from the body by death, returns to the Deity and is reabsorbed in the being of God, not to become again a separate entity until reincorporated, still what we call mind can not be disunited from it. And when once we have begun to conceive of mind, and consequently of perception, as separated from and independent of bodily organs, it will not be very difficult to apprehend that those bodily organs must circumscribe and limit the view of the spiritual in-dweller, which must otherwise be necessarily perceptive of spirit like itself, though perhaps unperceptive of material objects and obstructions.

“It is perfectly evident to me,” said Socrates, in his last moments, “that, to see clearly, we must detach ourselves from the body, and perceive by the soul alone. Not while we live, but when we die, will that wisdom which we desire and love be first revealed to us; it must be then, or never, that we shall attain to true understanding and knowledge, since by means of the body we never can. But if, during life, we would make the nearest approaches possible to its possession, it must be by divorcing ourselves as much as in us lies from the flesh and its nature.” In their spiritual views and apprehension of the nature of man, how these old heathens shame us!

The Scriptures teach us that God chose to reveal himself to his people chiefly in dreams, and we are entitled to conclude that the reason of this was, that the spirit was then more free to the reception of spiritual influences and impressions; and the class of dreams to which I next proceed seem to be best explained by this hypothesis. It is also to be remarked that the awe or fear which pervades a mortal at the mere conception of being brought into relation with a spirit, has no place in sleep, whether natural or magnetic. There is no fear then, no surprise; we seem to meet on an equality—is it not that we meet spirit to spirit? Is it not that our spirit being then released from the trammels—the dark chamber of the flesh—it does enjoy a temporary equality? Is not that true, that some German psychologist has said—“The magnetic man is a spirit!”

There are numerous instances to be met with of persons receiving information in their sleep, which either is, or seems to be, communicated by their departed friends. The approach of danger, the period of the sleeper’s death, or of that of some persons beloved, has been frequently made known in this form of dream.

Dr. Binns quotes, from Cardanus, the case of Johannes Maria Maurosenus, a Venetian senator, who, while governor of Dalmatia, saw in a dream one of his brothers, to whom he was much attached: the brother embraced him and bade him farewell, because he was going into the other world. Maurosenus having followed him a long way weeping, awoke in tears, and expressed much anxiety respecting this brother. Shortly afterward he received tidings from Venice that this Domatus, of whom he had dreamed, had died on the night and at the hour of the dream, of a pestilential fever, which had carried him off in three days.

On the night of the 21st of June, in the year 1813, a lady, residing in the north of England, dreamed that her brother, who was then with his regiment in Spain, appeared to her, saying, “Mary, I die this day at Vittoria!”

Vittoria was a town which, previous to the famous battle, was not generally known even by name in this country, and this dreamer, among others, had never heard of it; but, on rising, she eagerly resorted to a gazetteer for the purpose of ascertaining if such a place existed. On finding that it was so, she immediately ordered her horses, and drove to the house of a sister, some eight or nine miles off, and her first words on entering the room were, “Have you heard anything of John?”—“No,” replied the second sister, “but I know he is dead! He appeared to me last night, in a dream, and told me that he was killed at Vittoria. I have been looking into the gazetteer and the atlas, and I find there is such a place, and I am sure that he is dead!” And so it proved: the young man died that day at Vittoria, and, I believe, on the field of battle. If so, it is worthy of observation that the communication was not made till the sisters slept.

A similar case to this is that of Miss D⁠——, of G⁠——, who one night dreamed that she was walking about the washing-greens, when a figure approached, which she recognised as that of a beloved brother who was at that time with the British army in America. It gradually faded away into a kind of anatomy, holding up its hands, through which the light could be perceived, and asking for clothes to dress a body for the grave. The dream recurred more than once in the same night, and, apprehending some misfortune, Miss D⁠—— noted down the date of the occurrence. In due course of post, the news arrived that this brother had been killed at the battle of Bunker’s hill. Miss D⁠——, who died only within the last few years, though unwilling to speak of the circumstance, never refused to testify to it as a fact.

Here, supposing this to be a real apparition, we see an instance of that desire for decent obsequies so constantly attributed by the ancients to the souls of the dead.

When the German poet Collin died at Vienna, a person named Hartmann, who was his friend, found himself very much distressed by the loss of a hundred and twenty florins, which he had paid for the poet, under a promise of reimbursement. As this sum formed a large portion of his whole possessions, the circumstance was occasioning him considerable anxiety, when he dreamed one night that his deceased friend appeared to him, and bade him immediately set two florins on No. 11, on the first calling of the little lottery, or loto, then about to be drawn. He was bade to confine his venture to two florins, neither less nor more; and to communicate this information to nobody. Hartmann availed himself of the hint, and obtained a prize of a hundred and thirty florins.

Since we look upon lotteries, in this country, as an immoral species of gambling, it may be raised as an objection to this dream, that such intelligence was an unworthy mission for a spirit, supposing the communication to have been actually made by Collin. But, in the first place, we have only to do with facts, and not with their propriety or impropriety, according to our notions; and, by-and-by, I shall endeavor to show that such discrepancies possibly arise from the very erroneous notions commonly entertained of the state of those who have disappeared from the terrestrial life.

Simonides the poet, arriving at the seashore with the intention of embarking on board a vessel on the ensuing day, found an unburied body, which he immediately desired should be decently interred. On the same night, this deceased person appeared to him, and bade him by no means go to sea, as he had proposed. Simonides obeyed the injunction, and beheld the vessel founder, as he stood on the shore. He raised a monument on the spot to the memory of his preserver, which is said still to exist, on which are engraven some lines, to the effect that it was dedicated by Simonides, the poet of Cheos, in gratitude to the dead who had preserved him from death.

A much-esteemed secretary died a few years since, in the house of Mr. R⁠—— von N⁠——. About eight weeks afterward, Mr. R⁠—— himself being ill, his daughter dreamed that the house-bell rang, and that, on looking out, she perceived the secretary at the door. Having admitted him, and inquired what he was come for, he answered, “To fetch somebody.” Upon which, alarmed for her father, she exclaimed, “I hope not my father!” He shook his head solemnly, in a manner that implied it was not the old man he had come for, and turned away toward a guest-chamber, at that time vacant, and there disappeared at the door. The father recovered, and the lady left home for a few days, on a visit. On her return, she found her brother had arrived in the interval to pay a visit to his parents, and was lying sick in that room, where he died.

I will here mention a curious circumstance regarding Mr. H⁠——, the gentleman alluded to in a former page, who, being at the seaside, saw, in a dream, the danger that awaited his son when he went to bathe. This gentleman has frequently, on waking, felt a consciousness that he had been conversing with certain persons of his acquaintance—and, indeed, with some of whom he knew little—and has afterward, not without a feeling of awe, learned that these persons had died during the hours of his sleep.

Do not such circumstances entitle us to entertain the idea that I have suggested above, namely, that in sleep the spirit is free to see, and to know, and to communicate with spirit, although the memory of this knowledge is rarely carried into the waking state?

The story of the two Arcadians, who travelled together to Megara, though reprinted in other works, I can not omit here. One of these established himself, on the night of their arrival, at the house of a friend, while the other sought shelter in a public lodging-house for strangers. During the night, the latter appeared to the former, in a dream, and besought him to come to his assistance, as his villanous host was about to take his life, and only the most speedy aid could save him. The dreamer started from his sleep, and his first movement was to obey the summons, but, reflecting that it was only a dream, he presently lay down, and composed himself again to rest. But now his friend appeared before him a second time, disfigured by blood and wounds, conjuring him, since he had not listened to his first entreaties, that he would, at least, avenge his death. His host, he said, had murdered him, and was, at that moment, depositing his body in a dung-cart, for the purpose of conveying it out of the town. The dreamer was thoroughly alarmed, arose, and hastened to the gates of the city, where he found, waiting to pass out, exactly such a vehicle as his friend had described. A search being instituted, the body was found underneath the manure; and the host was consequently seized, and delivered over to the chastisement of the law.

“Who shall venture to assert,” says Dr. Ennemoser, “that this communing with the dead in sleep is merely a subjective phenomenon, and that the presence of these apparitions is a pure illusion?”

A circumstance fully as remarkable as any recorded, occurred at Odessa, in the year 1842. An old blind man, named Michel, had for many years been accustomed to get his living by seating himself every morning on a beam in one of the timber-yards, with a wooden bowl at his feet, into which the passengers cast their alms. This long-continued practice had made him well known to the inhabitants, and, as he was believed to have been formerly a soldier, his blindness was attributed to the numerous wounds he had received in battle. For his own part, he spoke little, and never contradicted this opinion.

One night, Michel, by some accident, fell in with a little girl of ten years old, named Powleska, who was friendless, and on the verge of perishing with cold and hunger. The old man took her home, and adopted her; and, from that time, instead of sitting in the timber-yards, he went about the streets in her company, asking alms at the doors of the houses. The child called him father, and they were extremely happy together. But when they had pursued this mode of life for about five years, a misfortune befell them. A theft having been committed in a house which they had visited in the morning, Powleska was suspected and arrested, and the blind man was left once more alone. But, instead of resuming his former habits, he now disappeared altogether; and this circumstance causing the suspicion to extend to him, the girl was brought before the magistrate to be interrogated with regard to his probable place of concealment.

“Do you know where Michel is?” said the magistrate.

“He is dead!” replied she, shedding a torrent of tears.

As the girl had been shut up for three days, without any means of obtaining information from without, this answer, together with her unfeigned distress, naturally excited considerable surprise.

“Who told you he was dead?” they inquired.

“Nobody!”

“Then how can you know it?”

“I saw him killed!”

“But you have not been out of the prison?”

“But I saw it, nevertheless!”

“But how was that possible? Explain what you mean!”

“I can not. All I can say is, that I saw him killed.”

“When was he killed, and how?”

“It was the night I was arrested.”

“That can not be: he was alive when you were seized!”

“Yes, he was; he was killed an hour after that. They stabbed him with a knife.”

“Where were you then?”

“I can’t tell; but I saw it.”

The confidence with which the girl asserted what seemed to her hearers impossible and absurd, disposed them to imagine that she was either really insane, or pretending to be so. So, leaving Michel aside, they proceeded to interrogate her about the robbery, asking her if she was guilty.

“Oh, no!” she answered.

“Then how came the property to be found about you?”

“I don’t know: I saw nothing but the murder.”

“But there are no grounds for supposing Michel is dead: his body has not been found.”

“It is in the aqueduct.”

“And do you know who slew him?”

“Yes—it is a woman. Michel was walking very slowly, after I was taken from him. A woman came behind him with a large kitchen-knife; but he heard her, and turned round: and then the woman flung a piece of gray stuff over his head, and struck him repeatedly with the knife; the gray stuff was much stained with the blood. Michel fell at the eighth blow, and the woman dragged the body to the aqueduct and let it fall in without ever lifting the stuff which stuck to his face.”

As it was easy to verify these latter assertions, they despatched people to the spot; and there the body was found, with the piece of stuff over his head, exactly as she described. But when they asked her how she knew all this, she could only answer, “I don’t know.”

“But you know who killed him?”

“Not exactly: it is the same woman that put out his eyes; but, perhaps, he will tell me her name to-night; and if he does, I will tell it to you.”

“Whom do you mean by he?”

“Why, Michel, to be sure!”

During the whole of the following night, without allowing her to suspect their intention, they watched her; and it was observed that she never lay down, but sat upon the bed in a sort of lethargic slumber. Her body was quite motionless, except at intervals, when this repose was interrupted by violent nervous shocks, which pervaded her whole frame. On the ensuing day, the moment she was brought before the judge, she declared that she was now able to tell them the name of the assassin.

“But stay,” said the magistrate: “did Michel never tell you, when he was alive, how he lost his sight?”

“No—but the morning before I was arrested, he promised me to do so; and that was the cause of his death.”

“How could that be?”

“Last night, Michel came to me, and he pointed to the man hidden behind the scaffolding on which he and I had been sitting. He showed me the man listening to us, when he said, ‘I’ll tell you all about that to-night;’ and then the man——”

“Do you know the name of this man?”

“It is Luck. He went afterward to a broad street that leads down to the harbor, and he entered the third house on the right——”

“What is the name of the street?”

“I don’t know: but the house is one story lower than the adjoining ones. Luck told Catherine what he had heard, and she proposed to him to assassinate Michel; but he refused, saying, ‘It was bad enough to have burnt out his eyes fifteen years before, while he was asleep at your door, and to have kidnapped him into the country.’ Then I went in to ask charity, and Catherine put a piece of plate into my pocket, that I might be arrested; then she hid herself behind the aqueduct to wait for Michel, and she killed him.”

“But, since you say all this, why did you keep the plate—why didn’t you give information?”

“But I didn’t see it then. Michel showed it me last night.”