APPARITIONS. The belief that the spirits of the departed are occasionally presented to the sight of the living, has existed in all ages and countries, and usually declines only when a people have advanced considerably in the knowledge of physical conditions and laws. Not that A. then cease to be reported—for this is far from being the case—but that the more intelligent part of the community are then usually able to explain away the alleged occurrence in some way satisfactory to themselves, not involving the admis sion of a possible projection of a spirit upon the living sense. ' Nothing is more certain than that there are conditions of the body when spectral appearances, such as occur to us in uneasy dreams, become sensible to the waking vision. One of these conditions is that of the patient under the disease of delirium tremens, who not only hears ideal enemies plotting against his life in adjacent rooms or behind hedges, but thinks he sees them preparing to do him mischief, and has been known to jump overboard of a vessel into the sea, in order to escape the apprehended danger. In such excitements it is, though arising from different causes, that an intending murderer thinks lie hears the prince of fallen angels tempting him on to crime, or sees before him a " dagger of the mind" wherewith to end the life of his victim. There are also instances of spectral illusions traceable to a simply disordered state of the digestive organs. 31. Nicolai, an eminent bookseller in Berlin, fell, in the early part of the year 1791, into a depression of spirits, and in that condition neglected a course of periodical bleeding which he had been accustomed to observe. The consequence was his becoming liable for some months to seeing trains of phantasmata or spectral figures, which moved and acted before him, nay, even spoke to, and addressed him. He was fortunately able, not merely to coolly observe the phenomena, but to describe them in an ample paper which he presented to the philo sophical society of Berlin. •This case may be said to have formed the basis of a theory of A.. advanced by Dr. Ferrier, Dr. Hibbert, and others, amounting merely to this, that they are all to be accounted for by peculiar conditions of the organism of the individual sensible of them.
There is certainly a large class of cases which fall readily under this explanation; but, if we are to accept the whole that have been, on more or less good authority, reported, it must be admitted that a theory of a more comprehensive nature is still required in order to satisfy the duly cautious inquirer.
Let us take, for instance, an apparition story which Dr. Hibbert owns to be one of the hest authenticated on record. It was tlms written down in 16C2 by the bishop of Gloucester, from the recital of the young lady's father: " Sir Charles Lee, by his first lady, bad only one daughter, of which she died in childbirth; and when she was dead, her sister, the Lady Everard, desired to have the education of the child; and she was'by her very well educated, till she was marriageable, and a match was concluded for her with Sir William Perkins, but was then prevented in an extraordinary manner. Upon a Thursday night, she thinking she saw a light in her chamber after she was in bed, knocked for her maid, who presently came to her, and she asked why she left a candle burning in her chamber. The maid said she left none, and there was none but what she had brought with her at that time. Then she said it was the fire; but that., her maid told her, was quite out; and she said she believed it was only a dream; whereupon she said it might he so, and composed herself again to sleep. But about two of the clock she was
awakened again, and saw the apparition of a little woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her mother, that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that day she should be with her. Whereupon she knocked again for her maid, called for her clothes, and when she was dressed,went into her closet, and came not out again till nine, and then brought out with her a letter, sealed, to her father: brought it to her aunt, the holy Everard, told her what had happened, and desired that as soon as she was dead, it might be sent to him. The lady thought she was suddenly fallen mad, and thereupon sent suddenly away to Chelmsford for a physician and surgeon, who both came immediately; but the physician could discern no indication of what the lady imagined, or of any indisposition of her body; notwithstanding the lady would needs have her let blood, which was done accordingly. And when the young woman bad patiently let them do what they would with her, she desired that the chaplain might be called to read prayers; and when prayers were ended. she took her guitar and psalm book, and sat down .11poit a chair without arms. and played and sung so melodiously and admirably, that her music master, who was then there, admired at IL And near the stroke of twelve, she rose and sate herself down in a great chair with arms, and pres ently fetching a strong breathing or two, immediately expired, and was so suddenly cold, as was much wondered at by the physician and surgeon. She died at Waltham in Essex, three miles from Chelmsford, and the letter was sent to Sir Charles at his house in Warwickshire, but he was so afflicted with the death of his daughter, that lie came not till she was buried; but when he came, he caused her to be taken up, and to be buried with her mother at Edmonton, as she desired in her letter." Dr. Hibbert, in treating of this case, concludes that the young lady was consumptive and about to die, and in this diseased frame of body became the subject of an illusion; but these are assumptions directly contrary to what the record bears, and there is, after all, the singular circumstance to be accounted for, that the young lady's death occurred exactly at the time predicted. To a similar purport is the case of the wife of Dr. Donne, related by Izaak Walton. Donne left his wife pregnant in London, and went with Sir Robert Drury to Paris. Two days after arriving there, lie stated to Drury that lie had had a vision of his wife walking through his room, with her hair hanging over her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. 'So impressed were they by the incident that they immediately sent a messenger to London to inquire regarding Mrs. Donne's health. The intelligence brought by the man was, that she had been brought to bed of a dead child at the hour her husband thought he had seen her in Paris. In this case, too, if the requisite disordered state of Dr. Doune were granted, the coincidence of the distant event in its particulars, and in point of time, would remain unaccounted for by Dr. Hibbert's theory.
That there is an abundance of such cases reported, will not be disputed. In what direction speculation regarding them is to move, if the insufficiency of Dr. Hibbert's theory be acknowledged, will probably depend on the general tendency of the movements of science. If psychological study were more in repute, and the phenomena of dreaming in particular were diligently examined, there might be a hope of a satisfac tory theory of what are called A. ere the world was many years older.