a belief
was attached to his words, that after his death all his dogs,
including the spaniel in question, were shot, apparently in order to
render impossible any such action upon his part. The policy of the
measure adopted was short-sighted. If the Major had thoroughly
succeeded in animating the body of the living spaniel, the physical
resources at his disposal would have been too limited to have enabled
him to give much trouble. As it is, a series of witnesses attest
apparitions of this spaniel, and of at least one other dog, which may
naturally be regarded as much more disturbing.

The second point is possibly the same as the last, but it appears to
be more probably based upon the belief held by Major S----, in common
with a large number of those who have made a serious study of
apparitions--and certainly a large number of the members of the
S.P.R.--that such apparitions are really hallucinations or false
impressions upon the senses, created, so far as originated by any
external cause, by other minds either in the body or out of the body,
which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of
the term, and really acting through some means at present very
imperfectly known. Such an opinion of course reserves the question of
the possible action of unseen forces upon what is commonly called
matter involved in 'spirit'-photography, materialisation, levitation,
the passage of matter through matter, and other forms of _apport_,
although such a distinction, if logically carried out, becomes
somewhat tenuous in face of the generally accepted fact that all
mental processes are accompanied by physical processes in the brain.
In the following pages will be found instances of the phenomenon of
the apparent removal of bed-clothing, which raise a question as to the
propriety of regarding as exhaustive an explanation based solely upon
the hypothesis of subjective hallucination which otherwise would
appear to be generally applicable. It would stand to reason that if
such an intelligence can produce an hallucination of the appearance of
the human figure, it would be at least equally easy for it to produce
an hallucination of the appearance of a beast. A belief to this effect
seems to be the explanation of the fact mentioned in a letter to _The
Times_ of June 10, 1897, by Dr. Menzies, who refers to Major S---- as
"an old and dear friend." He writes, "I have no doubt that he created
much scandal by saying to his gardener