seen, is the owner believed to be dying? Are the things bound to be
'connected in fact'?

As is well known, the Society for Psychical Research has attempted a
little census, for the purpose of discovering whether hallucinations
representing persons at a distance coincided, within twelve hours, with
their deaths, in a larger ratio than the laws of chance allow as possible.
If it be so, the Maori might have some ground for his theory that such
hallucinations betoken a decease. I do not believe that any such census
can enable us to reach an affirmative conclusion which science will
accept. In spite of all precautions taken, all warnings before, and
'allowances' made later, collectors of evidence will 'select' affirmative
cases already known, or (which is equally fatal) will be suspected of
doing so. Again, illusions of memory, increasing the closeness of the
coincidence, will come in--or it will be easy to say that they came in.
'Allowances' for them will not be accepted.

Once more, 17,000 cases, though a larger number than is usual in
biological inquiries, are decidedly not enough for a popular argument on
probabilities; a million, it will be said, would not be too many.
Finally, granting honesty, accurate memory, and non-selection (none of
which will be granted by opponents), it is easy to say that odd things
_must_ occur, and that the large proportion of affirmative answers as to
coincidental hallucinations is just a specimen of these odd things.

Other objections are put forward by teachers of popular science who have
not examined--or, having examined, misreport--the results of the Census in
detail. I may give an example of their method.

Mr. Edward Clodd is the author of several handbooks of science--'The Story