air. My hand went through the phantom; but
even this did not disperse her apparent corporeal
presence. I felt my pulse. I was in a raging
fever. I drew out a lancet from my pocket, let
myself blood, and as it flowed from my arm,
Betty, till then an obstinate ghost, bent on not
going to bed, was laid in the red sea of the
washhand-bason, which I placed to catch the
sanguine stream, and with her departed the
danger I had run of having a violent illness.

Everybody has not the knowledge and
presence of mind of Dr. L. The apparent
externity both of sounds and sights, where even
but slight bodily ailment can be detected, is, on
some occasions surprising, and might well alarm
even a moderately instructed mind. And if,
unfortunately, religion, or rather want of religion,
should give a fanatic tincture to hypochondriacism,
the wretched feelings of the seemingly
haunted man will reach their acme. Every one
knows of Luther's wrestlings with the Devil,
and there exist, I doubt not, many humble
Luthers in modern life, Voices, too, out of the
air are apt to torment the hypochondriac.
Cowper, and Mrs. Unwin who caught the
contagion from Cowper, listened for audible
communications from the spirit-world; and
heard strange things from demon-regions.

To such self-wrought impressions as these an
accurate observer is disposed to add others
which cannot be self-wrought. Not taking a
one-sided view of the question, he allows duality
in the production of certain phenomena. He
does not say, where man palpably acts on man,
that the whole thing is automatic; neither does
he imagine, where two phenomena are found in
conjunction many times, that they can be explained
by mere coincidence. I refer to such
cases as are abundantly to be found described
and stated with undeniable evidence in a multiplicity
of works; cases where apparitions of a distant
friend are beheld by persons at the moment of
the death of that friend. The number of such
authenticated cases, and the great possibility of
their recurrence, is a strong argument with me
in favour of a certain mysterious influence of
human creature on human creature, which I will
call thought-impressing.

Here, then, I take the two principles in
combination, namely:

1st. Whatever is perceived by us, however
seemingly external, exists to us only in our own
consciousness.

2nd. Man has on man an influence, emanating
from mind, and from peculiar states of cerebral
excitement; an influence which may, occasionally,
touch the springs of consciousness
within another's brain.

These two theorems being allowed, are at
least valuably adequate to the emergencies of
human superstition. The man who knows and
says, "I bear about my own world of wonder in
my own brain," is proof against appearances.
What shall demonstrate to him the externity of
visions, or of "airy tongues that syllable men's
names" ever so audibly about him? He knows
that they can be but the phantasmagoria, or the
delusive echoes of the inner chamber. Not only
the knowledge that all that kingdom is within him,
but every article of his faith, shields him from any
notion of spiritual haunting. Has he not looked
on order, and through order, up to God? In a
flesh-and-blood world, does he expect to meet
with anything so incongruous as visible or
audible spirits? Then, he believes that God is
Order as well as Power, and would not permit
one world to burst upon another, in order to
perplex and alarm His children, already timid
in their ignorance.

Yet, if judicious, he will not deny what he
has no means of disproving: namely, that though
of rare occurrence, there may be impressions on
the nerves of sense caused by the MENTAL
ACTION of his fellow-beings.

To prepare my readers' mind for the extreme
case of an apparent vision of a friend just as he
is dying, I throw together a few familiar instances
of common thought-impressing.

Letters from friends arrive soon after we have
had those friends strangely present to our
thoughts. Again, the old proverb of, "Talk of
the devil and he'll appear," is too constantly
verified by the apparition of our friends at the
wrong moment (when, perhaps, we are mauling
them as only dear friends maul one another), to
be referred to the doctrine of coincidence. And
observe; this phenomenon happens oftenest
where we expected our friend least, nay, sometimes,
when the inopportune friend is supposed
to be a thousand miles away.

Again; it happens often that, as we walk in
the streets, we suddenly think we see a well-known
face and figure, and we are about to bow
undoubtingly. But no, the stare of surprise in
the person we half salute shows us we were mistaken.
We look more narrowly, and we perceive
it is not our friend; nay, as we approach nearer,
we begin to wonder how we could have taken the
stranger for him. They are so unlike. But, lo,
on proceeding onward a few hundred yards, we
do really encounter our man in propriâ personâ.
Why should he have an avant-courier—a double
so à propos and so pertinent to the occasion? I
hazard the solution that the mental atmosphere of
our friend had impressed us previous to his personal
appearance.

But the domain in which thought-impressing
may be best studied is each man's own home.
Persons who live together, acquire mysterious
likenesses, not only of voice but of face. The
resemblance of married people to each other
(which began by unlikeness) is proverbial. A
sympathetic atmosphere envelops families, and
amongst every domestic circle, if the attention
be once drawn to the subject, a great deal of
human influence, and transmission of silent
thought, will be everywhere perceived.

I pass to the consideration of that species of
impression on the sensorium of another which is
produced by the extremely excited action of a
dying friend's brain: a phenomenon which,
though rare, has for proof the concurrent testimony
of numbers of mankind. In such a case
the thought-impressing sometimes rises to the