"THE TRUTH ABOUT GHOSTS."

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3270, 24 December 1881, Page 4

"THE TRUTH ABOUT GHOSTS."

Under this rather startling title the Daily Telegraph newspaper has been for some time courting correspondence re the supernatural. The causes thereof are threefold : first, alleged apparition reported from the Midlands} and secondly, as it is the silly season, editors are not sorry to have their columns filled free gratis for nothing by the general public, who are contributing at the rate of something like two columns a day. First, let me say that the story from the Midlands was to the effect that the figure of a woman, who some yearß ago disappeared unaccountably, had been seen frequenting a certain spot near to which she lived ; and so excited were the population of the district, that subscriptions were raised to open out an old shaft, which, having been filled in since the disappearance of the woman, was supposed to be the possible scene of foul play. However, not a trace has been discovered of any remains, though the excitement in the neighborhood as tbe workmen neared the bottom of the excavation was intense. It is reported, however, that the woman in question left behind her at the railway station boxes which have never since been claimed, besides money in the Bavings bank. However, a mystory hangs round the whole affair which has only been added to by a letter, said to be from the heroine of the story, who writes from a distant part that she is now married and doing well. However all this maybe, the discussion in the aforesaid newspaper, and which has been extended to other quarters, turns rather on a scientific aspect of the question, for it is now suggested that there may exist in nature a force yet unknown to man, whereby one mind can at a distance influence another, and especially at the supreme moment of death. This theory can be borne out to a certain degree by the proceedings, sufficiently familiar to all, of an accomplished mesmerist. It is true that the operator cannot work at a distance ; but whilst the patient is unconscions lie or she can be made to do anything willed by the mesmerist, and hence it would seem that some subtlo influence, analogous or perhaps correlative with electricity in nature, may be constantly at work between persons of certain temperaments, and this may be perhaps most highly intensified in the agony of death and when the thoughts of the dying person are centred on some dearly loved relative or friend, and then it may bo that they havo power to influence the mind in such a way as to reproduce on the retina the image of the sufferer dying perhaps thousands of miles away. For my own part, I am convinced that the

stories sufficiently well authenticated of the appearance of distant friends to those elsewhere are too numerous to be gainsaid, and that though, a certain percentage are clue to purely natural causes and could be easily accounted for, yet, that a residuum remains which are only understandable on a supernatural explanation, or by some such theory as that above referred to. _ There is, however, one crucial point which would rather tend to upset the explanation based on the psychical theory, and it is this. That several well authenticated cases have occurred when the apparation, so called, has been distinctly seen, not only by the individual to whom the deceased was known or related, but by those other persons who happened to be present on the occasion, and to whom the deceased was not in any way known. If seen by only one person, the phenomenon may easily be purely subjective, but if by many ifc is almost certain that it must be objective, and herein, as I said, is the crucial point of tho whole argument, as between believers and non-believers in the supernatural. Of this latter class of stories is the wellknown one in which the apparition of Lieutenant Wynyard appeared distinctly to an intimate friend when sitting in a tent with his brother officers. All saw the phenomenon, though the friend was the only one who recognised it: but some years after one of these gentlemen, -when walking in London with a friend who knew the Wynyards, suddenly exclaimed, 'There is the man who appeared to us in the tent!" " You are wrong," replied his friend, " but it is another brother who is exactly like the one dead." This in itself was a most singular circumstance, as it indicated, first, how vivid must have been the scene to have been so impressed on the mind of the officer; and secondly, how strong must have been the likeness" for a stranger to recognise and mistake the living relative. The first class of phenomena which, as I have said, may be explicable by psychical causes, is well illustrated by a story told by the famous Lord Brougham in his autobiography, and is to the effect that, in early life, he enjoyed the friendship of a young man with whom he often discoursed on the subject of the immortality of the soul, and it was mutually agreed between them that whoever died first should, if possible, appear to the other to warn and convince him of the future life. Circumstances, however, separated the friends, and they soon entirely lost sight of each other. Many years elapsed, when one day Lord, then Mr Brougham, was having a warm bath, when suddenly, though his mind was far from the remotest thought of his lost friend, he saw him suddenly standing at the side of the bath. In a moment the whole of the past rushed to his mind ; he scrambled from the bath and fell senseless to the floor. Nothing at the time transpired to explain the mystery, but Lord Brougham detailed the whole Btory in his journal, noting hour and date. This was, I believe, in 1798. In his memoir the -journal is exactly transcribed, and a note dated in 1862 is added that, some years after, he was able to trace the career of his quondam friend, when he discovered that at the very day and hour, allowing for difference of longtitude, he had actually died in China. Now this is only one of many such, and I only give it as emanating from such a distinguished source, and not for a moment to be classed with those tales of horror which find favor with the notoriously weak-minded and credulous. It, would seem as if these phenomenas had really something in them beyond the power of man adequately to explain, and though I should never be surprised if they received explanation on purely scientific grounds, yet I am not of opinion that they ever will. Boast as we will, we are as ignorant of the origin of all these things, or of the destiny of man, as were the Chaldean sages who disputed with Job upon thd Plains of _Uz thousands of years ago. Even Christ's teaching sheds'but little light on the great hereafter, but it may be that these violations of Nature's law may be permitted occasionally, if only as a rebuke to the philosophy of the day, which I note with regret is growing more materialistic than ever, denying the future state and casting over every one the black shadow of possible annihilation. Against this we would utter the protest of ancient Hamlet, " There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy."