hallucinations of the sane and healthy was in its infancy. Much, indeed,
had been written about hallucinations, but these were mainly the chronic
false perceptions of maniacs, of drunkards, and of persons in bad
health such as Nicolai and Mrs. A. The hallucinations of persons of
genius--Jeanne d'Arc, Luther, Socrates, Pascal, were by some attributed
to lunacy in these famous people. Scarcely any writers before Mr. Galton
had recognised the occurrence of hallucinations once in a life, perhaps,
among healthy, sober, and mentally sound people. If these were known to
occur, they were dismissed as dreams of an unconscious sleep. This is
still practically the hypothesis of Dr. Parish, as we shall see later.
But in the last twenty years the infrequent hallucinations of the sane
have been recognised by Mr. Galton, and discussed by Professor James,
Mr. Gurney, Dr. Parish, and many other writers.

Two results have followed. First, 'ghosts' are shown to be, when not
illusions caused by mistaking one object for another, then hallucinations.
As these most frequently represent a living person who is not present, by
parity of reason the appearance of a dead person is on the same level, is
not a space-filling 'ghost,' but merely an hallucination. Such an
appearance can, _prima facie_, suggest no reasonable inference as to the
continued existence of the dead. On the other hand, the new studies have
raised the perhaps insoluble question, 'Do not hallucinations of the sane,
representing the living, coincide more frequently than mere luck can
account for, with the death or other crisis of the person apparently
seen?' If this could be proved, then there would seem to be a causal
_nexus_, a relation of cause and effect between the hallucination and the
coincident crisis. That connection would be provisionally explained by
some not understood action of the mind or brain of the person in the
crisis, on that of the person who has the hallucination. This is no new
idea; only the name, Telepathy, is modern. Of course, if all this were