ARE ALL DREAMS UNTRUSTWORTHY? 209 openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction." Shall we limit this to the men of any particular age? By what warrant? By a similar license, can we not explain away any text whatever? that, for instance, with which Elihu closes his eloquent remonstrance:— "God respecteth not any that are wise of heart." Many will be found disregarding, in practice, the implied warning against presumptuous self-sufficiency, but few bold enough to allege that, though the observation applied to the self-wise in the times of Job, it is antiquated and inapplicable, in these latter days, to ourselves. If we would not be found thus bold in casuistry,—if, in connection with the phenomena here briefly and imperfectly examined, we accept and take home in our own case the lesson embodied in Elihu's words, we may be induced to conclude that it behooves us to devote more time and attention to an important and neglected subject than men have hitherto bestowed upon it, before authoritatively pronouncing, as to all modern dreams. whatever, that they are the mere purposeless wanderings of a vagrant imagination; that they never exhibit an intelligence which exceeds that of the waking sense; that never, under any circumstances, do they disclose the distant or foreshadow the future; that never, in any case, do they warn or avert: in a word, that all visions of the night, without exception, are utterly inconsequent, fantastic, and unreliable. * Abercrombie concludes his chapter on Dreaming as follows:-" The slight outline which has now been given of dreaming may serve to show that the subject is not only curious, but important. It appears to be worthy of careful investigation; and there is much reason to believe that an extensive collection of authentic facts, carefully analyzed, would unfold principles of very great interest in reference to the philosophy of the mental powers."—"Intellectual Powers," p. 224. BOOK III. DISTURBANCES POPULARLY TERMED HAUNTINGS. CHAPTER I. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PHENOMENA. "For this is not a matter of to-day Or yesterday, but hath been from all time; SOPHOCLES. THAT extraordinary and influential movement, com monly denominated spiritual, which has overrun these United States, and has spread hence, to a greater or less extent, over every country of Europe, had its origin in a phenomenon, or alleged phenomenon, of the character which has usually been termed a haunted house. In a work like the present, then, it is fitting that this class of phenomena, slighted and derided by modern Sadducism though they be, should have place as worthy of serious examination. And in prosecuting such an examination, by citing the best-attested examples, the fair question is not, whether in these each minute particular is critically exact; for what history, ancient or modern, would endure such a test?-but whether, in a general way, the narratives bear the impress of truth; whether there be sufficient evidence to indicate that they are based on a substantial reality. In such an inquiry, let us take with us two considerations: remembering, on the one hand, NO PROOF OF GAUDY SUPERNATURALISM. 211 that, when the passions of wonder and fear are strongly excited, men's imaginations are prone to exaggerate; and, on the other, that, as elsewhere set forth,* there are no collective hallucinations. The fair question is, then, whether, even if this haunting of houses be often a mere popular superstition, there be yet no actual truth, no genuine phenomena, underlying it. In winnowing, from out a large apocryphal mass, the comparatively few stories of this class which come down to us in authentic form, vouched for by respectable cotemporary authority, sustained by specifications of time and place and person, backed sometimes by judicial oaths, one is forcibly struck by the observation that, in thus making the selection, we find thrown out all stories of the ghostly school of horror, all skeleton specters with the worms creeping in and out, all demons with orthodox horns and tail, all midnight lights burning blue, with other similar embellishments; and there remain a comparatively sober and prosaic set of wonders, inexplicable, indeed, by any known physical agency, but shorn of that gaudy supernaturalism in which Anne Radcliffe delighted, and which Horace Walpole scorned not to employ. In its place, however, we find an element which by some may be considered quite as startling and improbable. I allude to the mischievous, boisterous, and freakish aspect which these disturbances occasionally assume. So accustomed are we to regard all spiritual visitations, if such there be, as not serious and important only, but of a solemn and reverential character, that our natural or acquired repugnance to admit the reality of any phenomena not explicable by mundane agency is greatly See next chapter, where the distinction is made between illusion and hallucination; the one based on a reality, the other a mere disease of the senses. 212 REMARKABLE PHASE. increased when we discover in them mere whim and triviality. It is very certain that, if disturbances of the character alluded to be the work of disembodied spirits, it appears to be of spirits of a comparatively inferior order; as imps, we might say, of frolic and misrule; not wicked, it would seem, or, if wicked, restrained from inflicting serious injury, but, as it were, tricksy elves, sprites full of pranks and levities, a sort of Pucks," esprits espiègles," as the French phrase it; or as the Germans, framing an epithet expressly for this supposed class of spirits, have expressed it, poltergeister. If it may be plausibly argued that we cannot reasonably imagine spirits revisiting the scenes of their former existence with no higher aim, for no nobler purpose, than these narratives disclose, it must be conceded also, for the very same reason, that men were not likely to invent stories of such a character with no actual foundation whereupon to build. Imagination, once at work, would not restrict itself to knockings, and scrapings, and jerking furniture about, and teasing children, and similar petty annoyances. It would conjure up something more impressive and mysterious. But my business here is with facts, not theories; with what we find, not with what, according to our present notions, we might expect to find. How much is there în nature, which, if we sat down beforehand to conjecture probabilities, would directly belie our anticipations! And in making choice of facts, or what purport to be so, I shall not go back further than two centuries.* Those who are disposed to amuse themselves (for, in truth, it amounts to little more than amusement) may find in various ancient writers narratives of haunted houses, apparently as well attested as any other portion of the history of the time. Pliny the Younger has one (Plin. Junior, Epist. ad Suram. lib. vii. cap. 27) which he relates as having occurred to the philosopher Athenodorus. The skeptical Lucian (in Philo-pseud. p. 840) relates another of a man named Arignotes. In later days, Antonio ANCIENT HAUNTED HOUSES. 213 Until printing became a common art, and books were freely read beyond the limits of a learned and restricted circle, a narrative of questionable events could not obtain that extended circulation which would expose it to general criticism, afford fair chance for refutation, and thus give to future ages some guarantee against the frequent errors of an ex-parte statement. Torquemada (in his "Flores Curiosas," Salamanca, 1570) has the story of a certain Vasquez de Ayola. In all these three cases a specter is alleged to have disappeared on a spot where, on digging, a skeleton was found. Alexander ab Alexandro, a learned Neapolitan lawyer of the fifteenth century, states, as a fact of common notoriety, that in Rome there are a number of houses so much out of repute as being haunted that no one will venture to inhabit them; and he adds, that, desiring to test the truth of what was said in regard to one of these houses, he, along with a friend named Tuba and others, spent a night there, when they were terrified by the appearance of a phantom and by the most frightful noises and disturbances. -Alexander ab Alexandro, lib. v. cap. 23. A hundred similar cases might be adduced, especially from the writings of the ancient fathers, as St. Augustin, St. Germain, St. Gregory, and others. But no reliable inference can be drawn from these vague old stories, except the universal prevalence, in all ages, of the same idea. |