ving otherwise a character for
honesty, should be accepted with the same faith and the same distrust
with which all evidence is to be viewed; with neither more nor less than
in other cases. Nothing should be received in scientific inquiry which
it is not compulsory on our understanding to believe. It is not a whit
more difficult in these than in other cases to obtain inductive
certainty. Nature is not here peculiarly coy or averse from being
interrogated.

Philosophers occasionally regret the limited number of their senses, and
think a world of knowledge would flow from their possessing but one
more. Now, persons of highly-wrought nervous systems have what is
equivalent to a new sense, in their augmentation of natural sensibility.
But philosophers will not accept this equivalent. They must have the
boon from nature their own way, or not at all.

To turn elsewhere.--We may now look into a broader seam of illusive
power--one which lies entirely within ourselves, and needs no objective
influence to bring its ghost-producing fertility into play. Let me
exemplify it in operation.

A young gentleman, who has recently left Oxford, told me, that he was
one evening at a supper-party in college, when they were joined by a
common friend on his return from hunting. They expected him, but were
struck with his appearance. He was pale and agitated. On questioning
him, they learned the cause. During the latter part of his ride home, he
had been accompanied by a horseman, who kept exact pace with him, the
rider and horse being facsimiles of himself and the steed he rode, even
to the copy of a newfangled bit he sported that day for the first time.
The apparition vanished on his entering the town. He had, in fact, seen
his double or fetch, and it had shaken his nerves pretty considerably.
His friends advised him to consult the college tutor, who failed not to
give him some good advice, and hoped the warning would not be thrown
away. My informant, who thought the whole matter very serious, and was
disposed to believe the unearthly visit to have been no idle one, added,
that it _had_ made the ghost-seer, for the time at all events, a wiser
and better man.

In more ignorant times, the appearance of one's fetch was held to be of
very alarming import, and to menace either death or serious personal
harm. Now, it is known to be one of the commonest forms in which
_sensorial illusions_ shape themselves. And these are matters of
every-day occ