society. To the multitude, the indubitable fact, that so many millions
of spirits exist around and even amongst us, seems sufficient to support
the belief that they are, in certain instances at least, by some means
or other, able to communicate with the world of humanity. The more
numerous part of mankind cannot form in their mind the idea of the
spirit of the deceased existing, without possessing or having the power
to assume the appearance which their acquaintance bore during his life,
and do not push their researches beyond this point.

Enthusiastic feelings of an impressive and solemn nature occur both in
private and public life, which seem to add ocular testimony to an
intercourse betwixt earth and the world beyond it. For example, the son
who has been lately deprived of his father feels a sudden crisis
approach, in which he is anxious to have recourse to his sagacious
advice--or a bereaved husband earnestly desires again to behold the form
of which the grave has deprived him for ever--or, to use a darker yet
very common instance, the wretched man who has dipped his hand in his
fellow-creature's blood, is haunted by the apprehension that the phantom
of the slain stands by the bedside of his murderer. In all or any of
these cases, who shall doubt that imagination, favoured by
circumstances, has power to summon up to the organ of sight, spectres
which only exist in the mind of those by whom their apparition seems to
be witnessed?

If we add, that such a vision may take place in the course of one of
those lively dreams in which the patient, except in respect to the
single subject of one strong impression, is, or seems, sensible of the
real particulars of the scene around him, a state of slumber which often
occurs; if he is so far conscious, for example, as to know that he is
lying on his own bed, and surrounded by his own familiar furniture at