herself through a mere instinct without knowing why she does so,
while in man a definite perception is awakened of the fact that he is
about to die. Not only do people have presentiments concerning their
own death, but there are many instances on record in which they have
become aware of that of those near and dear to them, the dying person
having appeared in a dream to friend or wife or husband. Stories to
this effect prevail among all nations, and unquestionably contain
much truth. Closely connected with this is the power of second
sight, which existed formerly in Scotland, and still does so in the
Danish islands. This power enables certain people without any
ecstasy, but simply through their keener perception, to foresee
coming events, or to tell what is going on in foreign countries on
matters in which they are deeply interested, such as deaths, battles,
conflagrations (Swedenborg foretold the burning of Stockholm), the
arrival or the doings of friends who are at a distance. With many
persons this clairvoyance is confined to a knowledge of the death of
their acquaintances or fellow-townspeople. There have been a great
many instances of such death-prophetesses, and, what is most
important, some cases have been verified in courts of law. I may
say, in passing, that this power of second sight is found in persons
who are in ecstatic states, in the spontaneous or artificially
induced somnambulism of the higher kinds of waking dreams, as well as
in lucid moments before death. These prophetic glimpses, by which
the clairvoyance of the unconscious reveals itself to consciousness,
{126} are commonly obscure because in the brain they must assume a
form perceptible by the senses, whereas the unconscious idea can have
nothing to do with any form of sensual impression: it is for this
reason that humours, dreams, and the hallucinations of sick persons
can so easily have a false signification attached to them. The
chances of error and self-deception that arise from this source, the