170, 214, 238, and 695.
3rd. According to their calculations, there ought not to have been among their 300,000 persons any having had two hallucinations fortuitously. Such cases must, if their calculations are correct, be in some way abnormal, and ought to be thrown out. Now the percipient of Case 184 seems to have hallucinations nearly every day. The percipient of Case 175 has had them frequently without any coincidence. In Cases 173 and 298 the percipients had had other hallucinations without significance.
4th. The general frequency of hallucinations, upon which the whole argument depends, was ascertained by asking of certain persons whether or not they had had any visual hallucinations, within the last twelve years, “while in good health, free from anxiety, and wide awake.” It is, therefore, an indispensible requisite to the validity of the argument from probabilities, that no account should be taken of coincidences where the percipient was not in good health. This happened in Cases 28, 174, 201, 202, 236, and 702.
5th. For the same reason, cases should be excluded where the percipient was not clearly free from anxiety. But they certainly were anxious in Cases 27, 28, 172, 174, 184, 231, and 240; and were probably so in Cases 182, 195, and 695.
6th. For the same reason, all cases should be excluded where the percipient would not certainly have been confident of having been wide awake, even if no coincidence had occurred. Now the percipient of Case 175 says, “I cannot yet answer to my satisfaction whether I was awake or asleep.” One of the witnesses to Case 195 calls it a “vivid dream.” In Case 702, the percipient is doubtful whether it was anything more than a dream. It is difficult to admit any case where the percipient was in bed, which happened in Nos. 26, 170, 172, 173, 174, 182, 184, 199, and 697. This objection applies with increased force to cases where the percipient was taking an afternoon nap, which happened in Nos. 28 and 201.
7th. All cases should be excluded in which the person who died was not clearly recognized in the apparition. This applies with great force to No. 170, where the apparition was distinctly recognized as the percipient’s own mother, who did not die, though a person who resembled her did. It also applies to Case 201, where the percipient says she “could not say who it was.” Also, to Case 236, where the percipient’s original statement was that she saw “a dark figure”; although after having been shown the testimony of a second witness, who testifies that it “resembled her [the percipient’s] brother,” she assents to this statement. In Case 249 the supposed ghost only showed his hat and the top of his head. In Case 697, the percipient does not seem to have recognized the apparition until after the news of the death had reached her.
8th. It is absolutely essential to the force of the argument, that the death should have occurred within twelve hours before or after the time of the apparition; and it is not sufficient that the evidence should satisfy a mind that already admits the existence of ghosts, but the proof must be strong enough to establish the fact, even if we assume that it is due only to hazard. This is a point which the authors totally fail to appreciate. They have admitted among their thirty-one cases no less than thirteen which might well enough be set down as falling probably within the twelve-hour limit, once we have admitted any special antecedent likelihood of such an occurrence; but which beg the question entirely, when, the evidence of the coincidence being but slight, they are used to prove the existence of such a likelihood. In Case 26, for example, on the morning after the apparition, the percipient says he searched the newspapers,—and that day was Saturday. His words are, “The next day, I mentioned to some of my friends how strange it was. So thoroughly convinced was I, that I searched the local papers that day, Saturday.” The authors interpret this as meaning that he told his friends one day, and searched the papers the day after that, which is directly contrary to his statement, and unlikely in itself. Their only warrant for this is, that he says the vision occurred on Friday at 2 A.M. But it is certainly more natural to suppose that he inadvertently used this expression meaning the night of Friday at 2 A.M. This is the more likely of the two suppositions; but the case ought not to be included, unless it can be shown beyond all reasonable doubt, and irrespective of considerations drawn from the time of the death, that the vision occurred on the night of Thursday. In Case 170, the death was not heard of for months. “Time passed, and all was forgotten.” Under these circumstances, as no written note was taken of the time of the apparition, the coincidence is plainly doubtful. I shall discuss Cases 182 and 197, which violate this rule, under another head. In Cases 195, 201, 202, 214, 231, 237, and 355, the date is wholly uncertain. In Case 199, the vision occurred, if at all, on Saturday; the death on Wednesday. In Case 702, the date given for the apparition differs from that of the death by one day; but this is only a blunder, for it is admitted that the date was changed, after ascertaining the day of death, by four days.
9th. Cases ought to be excluded in which it is possible that a real person was seen. In Case 202, the percipient, who “had been ordered by the doctor to take absolute rest, and not read at all, and do no work whatever,” and who is excessively near-sighted, when she was out driving, in the neighborhood of London, met a carriage, containing, as she thought, the person who died (although this person’s head was turned away) together with another who did not die. It surely seems a little unnecessary to suppose that this was anything more than a case of mistaken identity. In Case 249, a man, looking out of his window on Christmas day, saw, on the other side of a brick wall, the hat and the top of the head of what he took to be one of his neighbors coming to see him. He turned round to remark upon it to the persons in the room; and his first surprise came when there was no knock at the door (we may assume after the lapse of more than a minute). Then, looking out of the window, he did not see anything at all. It appears quite unnecessary to suppose any hallucination here, unless possibly some slight aberration of the senses connected with the festivities of the season. I should suggest, as possible, that some boy had stolen the old man’s hat, and was perpetrating some Christmas joke, which he was ashamed to confess when it turned out that the person impersonated was at that moment dying. When so simple a hypothesis is admissible, it cannot be said that the appearance of something that was not there has been positively established. There are several other cases which might easily be explained by supposing that a real person was seen.
10th. Every case should be excluded which can be explained on the supposition of trickery. In Case 350, one evening three maidservants in the kitchen saw a face outside the window. They could see all around it, so that there was no body attached to it; and while they were looking at it, it turned slowly through a considerable angle, about a vertical axis. Now, the lady of the house is so exceedingly superstitious that she gravely testifies that her dog howls whenever there is a death in the village; and it is more than likely that the maids take after the mistress in this respect. The dog was howling at the moment that the face appeared,—so that this circumstance may have helped them to identify the face with that of a woman who was at that moment expiring under the surgeon’s knife, in an operation for cancer. Although the mistress thinks that they were unaware of the operation, yet, as the cook shortly afterward married the widower, it is not impossible that the servants were better informed than the mistress thought, and that they were, in fact, talking about the woman and her danger (and perhaps even dared to hint at another wedding) when they were confounded by this dreadful sight. One of the three servants testifies that it looked like the “face of a skeleton”; while the other two identify it with that of the woman who died. Meantime, it appears that there were certain young men who had a way of tapping at that window in the evening, and looking in and smiling at the girls, and who had not been treated with quite the politeness to which they probably thought themselves entitled. What, then, can possibly be more natural, than to suppose that these young men had contrived, in some way, to let down a skull by a string from above, perhaps from the roof, to frighten the girls and punish them for their rudeness? Clearly, this cannot be admitted as a proved case of seeing something that was not there.
11th. No case should be admitted upon the unsupported and unverified statement of a superstitious, ignorant, and credulous person. And a common sailor or skipper may be assumed to be such a person. This throws out Cases 300 and 355.
12th. Cases should be excluded in which there is any room to suspect that the percipient was intoxicated. This applies to Nos. 29 and 249; and no doubt to others.
13th.