We shall have something to say later as to the methods of investigation which commend themselves to the Psychical Research Society. Let us again turn to vol. x. of the Pro'ceedings,' almost the whole of which is taken up with the discussion of apparitions, hallucinations, and thought-transferences, or telepathy.' That some people honestly believe they have seen ghosts no sane man ever doubted. And what is usually understood by the word 'ghost' is, of course, the spirit of a deceased person, which becomes perceptible by one or other of the senses of him who perceives it. The eyes or the ears of the living man are the usual organs by which the presence of the ghostly visitant is detected. Sometimes, though more rarely, it is the sense of touch, and sometimes all three senses are called into play together. It would be 'unscientific' to exclude the remaining organs of sense from the capacity on fitting occasions of testifying to the spiritual presence. If dogs 'see ghosts,' which their occasional behaviour renders probable, it is in all likelihood through the nose that the impression is most vividly presented to the canine mind. Yet even amongst men, whose organs of scent are so far inferior to those of many animals, an apparition has been known which disappeared with a curious per'fume and a most melodious twang.'

The word 'telepathy' was invented by the Psychical Research Society. As a matter of fact, the question is still open whether the Society has not also invented the thing. There is a large mass of evidence in its favour, but surely there must be something wanting in its quality, since open and intelligent minds are by no means generally convinced by it. The word is intended to express the (scientifically speaking) novel conclusion that thoughts and feelings in one mind. are sometimes caused by the influence of another mind, conveyed otherwise than through the ordinary channels of sense. In other words, it is asserted that there is some unknown channel or machinery through which one mind communicates with another mind at a distance. It is to establish this thesis that Mr. Frank Podmore has published, with the approval of the Society, his book on 'Apparitions and Thought Reading,' a volume which is mainly (with certain additions and expansions) a reduction into smaller compass of the huge work by Messrs. Gurney and Myers called Phantasms of the Living.'

As becomes its philosophical character, the Psychical Re

* Professor Sidgwick, S.P.R. vol. x. p. 26.

search Society is great at definition and classification. We make acquaintance with illusions and hallucinations and pseudohallucinations; with 'hailucinations proper' and 'veridical 'hallucinations.' A 'sensory hallucination' is distinguished from ordinary sense perceptions by the characteristic that ⚫ the hallucinatory percept* lacks, but can only by distinct ' reflection be recognised as lacking, the objective basis that 'it suggests.' As if, for instance, a man in England thinks he sees a friend, and is only satisfied that it is not really his friend by the reflection that that friend is at the time in India. Dreams are distinguished from sensory hal'lucinations' by the fact that the percipient is in the former case asleep, and in the latter awake. A very wide distinction no doubt, yet where our knowledge of the state of the percipient' depends entirely upon his own testimony as to his own wakefulness, there will often be ground for reasonable doubt as to whether the percept' should be included in the one class or in the other. Honest men have been known to declare that they have been wide. awake at a time when their companions have had sufficient evidence to the contrary.

A third distinction is of a more subtle kind. In hallucinations proper the phantasm appears to stand side by side with real objects, and to appear as real as they. In the pseudo-hallucination the phantasm is in appearance hardly sufficiently external' for it to be accepted as an hallucination proper, and thus pseudo-hallucinations are 'defined as having all the characteristics of hallucinations, except that of 'complete externalisation.' They seem to the percipient himself to be seen rather with the mind's eye than with his own visual organs, or heard with the mind's ear rather than with his actual organs of hearing. Again, matters are sometimes complicated by an apparition of mixed character, for

it occasionally happens that a visual hallucination is associated with an auditory pseudo-hallucination; a completely externalised apparition seeming to communicate something in words, which the percipient apprehends, but without seeming to hear them.' (Proceedings, vol. x. p. 88.)

The distinction between illusions and hallucinations is expounded with great care, and several instances of the former are given. Having read these, we think it will be sufficient for our readers to understand that an illusion is an hallucination

The thing perceived,

YOL. CLXXXI. NO. CCCLXXI,

H

which has been then and there found out. Imperfect vision. is a frequent cause of illusion.' Indeed, Professor Sidgwick's committee are acquainted with a short-sighted friend who has several times mistaken a projecting corner of a 'rough stone wall for a lady with flounced skirts.'

In the year 1889, at the request of the Psychical Research Society, and of the International Congress of Experimental Psychology held at Paris, Professor Sidgwick and a small committee undertook a statistical inquiry into the spontaneous hallucinations of the sane. The members constituting this committee were Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, Mr. Frank Podmore, and Miss Alice Johnson. No one can of course for an instant doubt the conscientious spirit in which they undertook the business. They have laboured with extraordinary assiduity, and have now presented their report, which, with its appendices, numbers some 400 pages, forming, with the addresses of Mr. Balfour and Professor Lodge, vol. x. of theProceedings of the Psychical Research Society.'

6

From its Census of Hallucinations' the committee determined to exclude experimental hallucinations voluntarily called into existence. Thus phenomena such as those accompanying crystal-gazing, spiritualistic séances, and the like were excluded, and so, of course, were phenomena coming under the head of illusions.' So far, therefore, as this report is concerned with the truth of telepathy, it must in fairness be borne in mind that no account whatever is taken in it of the vast mass of experimental evidence of thoughttransference which has been elsewhere collected. Let the committee speak for itself:

'The evidence of the report consists largely, though not solely, of accounts of apparitions of human beings, who are afterwards ascertained to have been dying-or passing through some crisis other than death-elsewhere, at or about the time at which the apparition is seen; the seer of the apparition not having at the time any knowledge of this fact, other than what is conveyed by the apparition itself. We speak of these phenomena as "coincidental" or "veridical" hallucinations; . . . for, so far as they suggest that the person in question is dying or passing through some other crisis at the time, they represent real facts otherwise unknown to the percipient.'

With a view to obtaining statistics the committee availed itself of the assistance of 410 collectors, who were instructed to put to all sorts of people' the Census ' question,' viz. :- Have you ever, when believing yourself 'to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing,

or being touched by, a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you 'could discover, was not due to any external physical 'cause ?'

Of these collectors, 223 were women and 187 men, and with about a quarter of them members of the committee were personally acquainted. About one-third of the collectors were members of the Psychical Research Society, and all of them gave their services gratuitously. Mr. W. T. Stead, through the instrumentality of the Review of Reviews,' kindly provided some forty collectors who obtained about 1,000 answers. To any one who answered 'Yes' to the Census question, a further series of printed questions was put in order to bring out the nature of the apparition, with as many details as possible.

We will now extract from the tables contained in the report the principal results arrived at.

The inquiry began in April 1889, and ended in May 1892, and in that time the Census question had been answered by no fewer than 17,000 persons, of whom 8,372 were men and 8,628 were women, all of them over the age of 21. They belonged to various nationalities, and are grouped under the heads of English-speaking, Russians, Brazilians, and other nations.' Of the whole 17,000, 1,684 answered Yes' to the Census question; 15,316 answered 'No.' Of the 1,684, 435 were unable to give any particulars at all, or could only give them at second hand. Including these unsatisfactory persons amongst the percipients, the returns show that, amongst women, percipients may be reckoned at 12 per cent., amongst men at 7.8 per cent. It may or may not surprise our readers to learn that when similar percentages are taken with a view to comparing the capacity for seeing apparitions in the different nationalities, whilst the superiority everywhere of the female sex is strongly marked, the English lag far behind the Russian, and the Russian is still further behind the Brazilian. we have seen, out of 100 Englishmen, only about 7 have ever seen a vision; whereas amongst Brazilian women it is found that nearly 30 per cent. can say 'Yes' to the Census question'! But even the ladies of Brazil are left behind by their sisters elsewhere, and it must be to the members of the Psychical Research Society 'a sore temptation to belong to other nations' when they learn that under the latter heading 34.5 per cent. of the female sex can testify to a personal interview with a ghost.

The committee has hardly done full justice to its own researches in the passage from their report already quoted, where it is remarked that the evidence included in the Census largely consists of accounts of apparitions of persons who were dying at the time, or passing through some other great crisis. So it does; but there are also a very large number of apparitions of those who were not dying, but who were absolutely dead when the apparition was seen. We give Table V. of the Census of Hallucinations :

Under the heading in bed' in the second column are included a few hallucinations occurring when the percipient has awakened after sleeping in his chair or sofa.

We must give our readers an account of a few of those apparitions which the committee apparently considers to be of principal importance, and accordingly sets out at length in its report.

1. The night after his mother's death a young man aged 19 had been praying that he might see her, and about midnight she appeared to him as a head and shoulders 'with wings.' She kissed him, but did not speak, and then