instances? What do you know of "Mrs. A.," whom you still persistently
cite as an example of morbid recurrent hallucinations? Name the German
servant girl who, in a fever, talked several learned languages, which she
had heard her former master, a scholar, declaim! Where did she live? Who
vouches for her, who heard her, who understood her? There is, you know, no
evidence at all; the anecdote is told by Coleridge: the phenomena are said
by him to have been observed "in a Roman Catholic town in Germany, a year
or two before my arrival at Göttingen.... Many eminent physiologists and
psychologists visited the town." Why do you not name a few out of the
distinguished crowd?'[8] This anecdote, a rumour of a rumour of a
Protestant explanation of a Catholic marvel, was told by Coleridge at
least twenty years after the possible date. The psychologists copy it,[9]
one after the other, as a flock of sheep jump where their leader has
jumped. An example by way of anecdote may be permitted.

According to the current anthropological theory, the idea of soul or
spirit was suggested to early men by their experiences in dreams. They
seemed, in sleep, to visit remote places; therefore, they argued,
something within them was capable of leaving the body and wandering about.

This something was the soul or spirit. Now it is obvious that this opinion
of early men would be confirmed if they ever chanced to acquire, in
dreams, knowledge of places which they had never visited, and of facts as
to which, in their waking state, they could have no information. This
experience, indeed, would suggest problems even To Mr. Herbert Spencer, if
it occurred to him.

Conversing on this topic with a friend of acknowledged philosophical
eminence, I illustrated my meaning by a story of a dream. It was reported
to me by the dreamer, with whom I am well acquainted, was of very recent