ave parted with their light and heat to feed the
sun, as was once suggested. I should not wonder if I were too late, and the
thing had been actually maintained. My list does not contain the twentieth
part of the possible whole.

The mention of coincidences suggests an everlasting source of explanations,
applicable to all that is extraordinary. The great paradox of coincidence
is that of Leibnitz, known as the _pre-established harmony_, or _law of
coincidences_, by which, separately and independently, the body receives
impressions, and the mind proceeds as if it had perceived them from
without. Every sensation, and the consequent state of the soul, are
independent things coincident in time by the pre-established law. The
philosopher could not otherwise _account for_ the connection of mind and
matter; and he never goes by so vulgar a rule as _Whatever is, is_; to him
that which is not clear as to how, is not at all. Philosophers in general,
who tolerate each other's theories much better than Christians do each
other's failings, seldom revive Leibnitz's fantasy: they seem to act upon
the maxim quoted by Father Eustace[91] from the {47} Decretals, _Facinora
ostendi dum puniuntur, flagitia autem abscondi debent_.[92]

The great _ghost-paradox_, and its theory of _coincidences_, will rise to
the surface in the mind of every one. But the use of the word _coincidence_
is here at variance with its common meaning. When A is constantly
happening, and also B, the occurrence of A and B at the same moment is the
mere coincidence which may be casualty. But the case before us is that A is
constantly happening, while B, when it does happen, almost always happens
with A, and very rarely without it. That is to say, such is the phenomenon
asserted: and all who rationally refer it to casualty, affirm that B is
happening very often as well as A, but that it is not thought worthy of
being recorded except when A is simultaneous. Of course A is here a death,
and B the spectral appearance of the person who dies. In talking of this
subject it is necessary to put out of the question all who play fast and
loose with their secret convictions: these had better give us a reason,
when they feel internal pressure for explanation, that there is no
weathercock at Kilve; this would do for all cases. But persons of real
inquiry will see that first, experience does not bear out the asserted
frequency of the spectre, without the alleged coincidence of death: a