in the coffin, and that she concealed it by aid of powder. But, granting telepathy, was not the phantasm a projection from the mind of the mother, who knew the fact? It is plain that telepathy, if accepted, makes it almost impossible for a ghost to prove his identity. He can do this only by communicating knowledge contained in no incarnate mind, but afterwards discovered to exist in some long-lost document or other source of evidence. The nearest approach known to me to such a thing is in the case of Queen Mary's secret jewels. Gregory published a "vision" of these jewels, with many attendant circumstances, beheld by a hypnotised young man. Several years later was discovered, in a heap of old law papers in the Scottish Register House, an inventory of Queen Mary's jewels. Still later the inventory was published by Dr. Joseph Robertson. I compared the inventory with the account of the vision, and the results were, to a considerable degree, corroborative. But corroboration of this kind must, in the nature of the case, be very rare.

Thus any knowledge contributed by a seeming phantasm of the dead may be explained away by a sweeping theory of telepathy. The phantasm makes you aware of this or that fact, which is verified. But if the verifying evidence may conceivably have become known, say to a German savant working in the Sultan's library, then it may be urged that the German savant unconsciously "wired on" his information to you in the shape of an hallucination. This theory is not easily accepted, but it may be more credible than the hypothesis of an hallucination caused by a disincarnate mind.

As to haunted houses," the Society has occupied many to little purpose. Ghosts, indeed, are seen, and astonishing noises are heard by such members of the investigating parties as are in the way of experiencing hallucinations wherever they go. But that proves nothing. I myself stayed for a week in a "haunted house," whence

the noises had evicted a large shooting party, but nothing beyond the normal swam into my ken. To be sure, I had asked for as quiet a room as possible-I certainly got it. As far as the researches of the Society go, the ghosts retreat before them, whereas, on the theory that the Society are superstitious fools, they ought to see ghosts in exceeding abundance, by dint of expectation. It would appear that haunted houses are local centres of a permanent possibility of hallucination. Thus in an old house at St. Andrew's, a cheerful family last year constantly met an unknown lady on the stairs. She always went into the same room, but never was found there when pursued. The cheerful family regarded her as a pleasing peculiarity of the mansion. This anecdote leads to the difficult topic of "collective hallucination,' as when a number of persons similarly situated are similarly and simultaneously hallucinated. The causes remain a puzzle. Are all affected by an external cause, or does one person wire on" his hallucinations to the others? It will be observed that this theory of hallucination gets rid of the old puzzle, How about the clothes of the ghost?" Clothes have no ghosts, yet I have heard of only one ghost without clothes (on the evidence of the report of a criminal trial in 1753). The new theory simply explains that there is neither ghost nor clothes in the case; the hallucination merely includes clothes for the sake of decency, or because the agent, the mind which affects the percipient's mind, thinks of himself as dressed, in his habit as he lived."

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While the Society, advancing from the experimental thought-transference to telepathy, has more or less explained" wraiths," and has, perhaps, suggested a conceivable theory of ghosts, in the region of spiritualistic material phenomena, as of volatile articles of furniture, it has found no certainty. Experiments with paid "mediums” have invariably resulted in the detection of imposture,

notably in the case of Slade and of Eusapia Paladino. But it is fair to say that some thinkers even now believe that Eusapia occasionally gets her effects without cheating. In the cases of amateur mediums, many things told on evidence unimpeachable in worldly matters are certainly hard to explain. For a number of years a Mrs. Piper, a citoyenne of the United States, has been closely studied by the learned, as by Prof. William James, Dr. Hodgson, and Prof. Oliver Lodge. Her specialty is to convey, by writing or word of mouth,

messages from the dead." Vast reports on Mrs. Piper have been edited by Dr. Hodgson, certainly a clear-headed and sceptical observer, who exposed Eusapia Paladino and Madame Blavatsky. As at present advised, Dr. Hodgson expresses his belief that the dead do communicate through Mrs. Piper. Others hold that the "communicators" are only secondary personalities" of the lady, and that, when she does hit on facts not normally knowable by her, she owes the information to telepathy. How is the reverse to be proved? How can she communicate matter at once capable of verification, and yet unknown to any living mind? This is the old difficulty which besets spirits of the dead.

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On the whole, psychical research has, I think, shown that there is a real element of obscure mental faculty involved in the "superstitions" of the past and present. It has also made some discoveries of practical value in hypnotism and the treatment of hysteria. It strengthens the opinion that science has not yet exhausted all attainable knowledge about the constitution of man. The study has usually been criticised by persons, as supercilious as superficial, who have not taken the trouble to get up their case, and who declaim against " the supernatural." There cannot be anything supernatural; there may be many things supernormal. To the popular mind, to "the man in the street," psychical

research is interesting only so far as the man in the street thinks that it affords matter confirming, or confuting, the belief in the continued conscious existence of the human. personality after death; or as supplying "tips" for the turf or the Bourse. Science is not concerned with these practical results, but only with the investigation of phenomena.

24

EVOLUTION AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS

THE

BY LESLIE STEPHEN

HE future historian of thought will no doubt regard the promulgation and the rapid triumph of evolutionist doctrines as the most remarkable phenomenon in the intellectual development of the nineteenth century. At present it would be presumptuous in anyone to attempt any adequate estimate of the bearing of those doctrines upon religious conceptions. I can only venture to indicate some of the obvious considerations which occur to a contemporary. Perhaps the most obvious is that some theory of evolution must be the natural goal of all coherent philosophy. To reason is to unify our knowledge, and therefore to detect continuity in the whole world-history; to show how to-day follows from yesterday, and therefore from an indefinite series of yesterdays.

Our ancestors thought it necessary to stop somewhere. The traditional cosmogonies trace history back to an absolute beginning. The drama begins, as it will end, with a catastrophe. Bossuet could base a history of mankind upon the assumption that the Hebrew legend represented indisputable historic truth. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the progress of rationalism had made such a position impossible. After Voltaire it was impossible to take the historical truth of the Bible narratives as a postulate needing no further proof. The eighteenthcentury rationalism, however, had been content to deny. without caring to explain the beliefs. It accepted, we' may say, the orthodox assumption that religions had