of the future in connection with the most diverse and
insignificant events. It cares but little for the human value of
the occurrence and puts the vision of a number in a lottery in
the same plane as the most dramatic death. The roads by which it
reaches us are also unexpected and varied. Often, as in the
examples quoted, it comes to us in a dream. Sometimes, it is an
auditory or visual hallucination which seizes upon us while
awake; sometimes, an indefinable but clear and irresistible
presentiment, a shapeless but powerful obsession, an absurd but
imperative certainty which rises from the depths of our inner
darkness, where perhaps lies hidden the final answer to every
riddle.

One might illustrate each of these manifestations with numerous
examples. I will mention only a few, selected not among the most
striking or the most attractive, but among those which have been
most strictly tested and investigated.[1] A young peasant from
the neighbourhood of Ghent, two months before the drawing for the
conscription, announces to all and sundry that he will draw
number 90 from the urn. On entering the presence of the
district-commissioner in charge, he asks if number 90 is still
in. The answer is yes.

[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 545.


"Well then, I shall have it!"

And, to the general amazement, he does draw number 90.