things have
yet to be revealed, on subjects of a delicate and subtle texture. It
behooves us in the present day, therefore, to learn how we may keep our
tempers free from prejudice, and not discredit statements simply because
they are new and strange, nor, on the other hand, accept them hastily
without sufficient proof.

On questionable points, which are decided by research and weight of
evidence, it would be well if it were widely understood that it is by no
means requisite for every man to form an Aye or Nay opinion. Let those
who have no leisure for a fair inquiry play a neutral part. There are
hundreds of subjects which we have never examined, nor ever could or can
examine, upon which we are all, nevertheless, expressing every day
stubborn opinions. We all have to acquire some measure of the
philosophic mind, and be content to retain a large army of thoughts,
equipped each thought with its crooked bayonet, a note of interrogation.
In reasoning, also, when we do reason, we have to remember fairly that
"not proven" does not always mean untrue. And in accepting matters of
testimony, we must rigidly preserve in view the fact, that, except upon
gross subjects of sense, very few of us are qualified by training as
observers. In drawing delicate conclusions from the complex and most
dimly comprehended operations of the human frame observed in men and
women, the sources of fallacy are very numerous. To detect and
acknowledge these, to get rid of them experimentally, is very difficult,
even to the most candid and enlightened mind.

I have no faith in ghosts, according to the old sense of the word, and I
could grope with comfort through any amount of dark old rooms, or
midnight aisles, or over churchyards, between sunset and cock-crow. I
can face a spectre. Being at one time troubled with illusions, I have
myself crushed a hobgoblin by sitting on its lap. Nevertheless, I do
believe that the great mass of "ghost stories," of which the world is
full, has not been built entirely upon the inventions of the ignorant
and superstitious. In plain words, while I, of course, throw aside a
million of idle fictions, or exaggerated facts, I do believe in
ghosts--or, rather, spectres--only I do not believe them to be
supernatural.

That, in certain states of the body, many of us in our waking hours
picture as vividly as we habitually do in dreams, and seem to see or
hear in fair reality that which is in our minds, is an old fact, and
re