inquiry. There is no ingress here, sigh
the former. If there be a road, let us find it, say
the latter.

The key to every scientific mystery is not hung
up outside the door. It is found in unlikely
corners. It has to be scrubbed, fitted, tested,
till, freed from the rust of disbelief, it suddenly
slips into the corresponding socket, and a vast
new sphere lies enfranchised before the student's
delighted eyes.

Seeing what have been the realised issues of
modern inquiry, it is sometimes amazing to
notice through what an atmosphere of coy
hesitation a new and reasonable theory has
frequently to force its way, more especially if it
partake of that character to which the much-
dreaded charge of " superstitious credulity"
may by possibility attach. And yet it should
not surprise us. Few have the courage to defy
ridicule, to despise the despisers, and hold on
their steady course of investigation and experiment,
comforted—if that be necessary—by the
recollection that derision, while it has rooted up
some worthless weeds, has been equally directed
against flowers of knowledge the most sacred
and precious to the heart of man.

It follows that ridicule is not the best of
weapons. It should not be used (as is
generally the case) where nobler arms have failed,
but when they have, on the contrary, vindicated
their power, and there remain only the embers
of a noisome life for the " dagger of mercy" to
extinguish. Recent days supply us with an
example of this. No amount of ridicule
prevailed—per se—to stifle "spiritualism." Its
doctrines, though revolting to rational instincts,
were, from their peculiar character, unusually
difficult of disproof. Our " dagger of mercy,"
by itself, proved powerless to kill. It was to
its own innate worthlessness and inconsequence
that spiritualism owed its fall.

However, the dual result before alluded to
has ensued. The wide dissemination of
spiritualistic doctrines provoked an amount of
contradiction, in which there displayed itself an
element of dogmatism so strong and so exacting
as to stimulate even those who stood aloof
from the original debate to somewhat closer
inquiry into a branch of study hitherto not
sufficiently pursued. It was perfectly possible
to reject the follies and the frauds of " media,"
and yet examine the psychological bases on
which these favoured individuals pretended to
establish their power. It will not, therefore,
be supposed that, in directing attention to what
may be possible, the writer has any purpose of
availing himself, for the propagation of a
moribund absurdity, of pages so often and so
honourably devoted to its exposure.

We come to the point at issue. Can the
spirits of the departed reveal themselves, under
any conceivable conditions, to the outward
senses? To collate the mighty mass of testimony
adducible in favour of such a possibility,
would occupy an average lifetime; and then,
where is the Solomon who shall decide? It is
a question of veracity—of impression. Ghosts
give no certificate, leave no mark, save on the
mind and memory of the seer, and this mysterious
countersign is lost to all but him. We
are cast back, for confirmation that will wholly
satisfy our reason, upon the consideration of
the question that heads this paper—"Is it
possible?" Is it possible that pure spirit can
communicate with spirit still incorporate, and that
through the channels which are characteristic
of this present state of being? If the freed can
reach the captive spirit only through the latter's
material eye or ear, it would seem to infer the
necessity of a corresponding material presence
or tongue. If spirit could act on spirit
irrespective of the fleshly bar, the revelation might
be as distinct as if every outward sense had
been accessory to it. Yet in no instance, that
can be regarded as authentic, has it occurred
that a mere mental impression has been the
means of imparting those circumstantial details
which give to what are called ghost stories such
solemn tone and dread reality.

From hence arises a question which, in a
paper intended to be suggestive, not argumentative,
shall be dismissed in a few lines. Is it
not possible that, in that convulsive moment
which separates soul and body, there may be
evolved a transient condition of being, which,
neither body nor spirit—semi-material—
possesses some of the attributes of both? It may
be regarded as the veil of the disembodied
spirit—a fluid vaporous essence, invisible in its
normal state—but, for the brief space of its
new condition, exercising some of the properties
of matter.

If it be objected that this fluid substance, in
a form so subtle, can in no wise act on matter—
cannot influence eye or ear—how is it that, from
the most subtle fluids—electricity, for example
—are obtained the most powerful agents? or
why do mere changes of light exercise chemical
action upon ponderable substances?

Granting the possibility of the existence of
such a transition state, the supernatural features
would be referable to the circumstance that the
spirit, as the surviving and superior essence,
accomplishing what was impracticable while it
was wholly clad in clay, might annihilate time
and space, and, in the image and reflex of the
form from which it has hardly departed, be
itself the bearer of the tidings of dissolution.
Who can say but that these mysterious visitations,
instead of being, as some allege, the
suspension or supercession of natural laws, may
prove to be rather the complete fulfilment of
one of the most beautiful and interesting of the
marvellous code?

Let us see how far the theory thus hastily
sketched out is applicable to known examples.

If we commence with an instance so familiar
to many readers as the famous "Lyttelton
ghost," it is because that singular narrative
supplies us with a double apparition—because,
though related in many a mutilated form, it has
never, to the writer's knowledge, been given
entire—and because his—the writer's — mother,
when a girl, heard it from the lips of an actor