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Ferriar, Hibbert, and other writers who have more recently considered the subject, there can,
we think, be little doubt of the proposition, that the external organs may, from various causes,
become so much deranged as to make false representations to the mind; and that, in such
cases, men, in the literal sense, really see the empty and false forms and hear the ideal
sounds which, in a more primitive state of society, are naturally enough referred to the action
of demons or disembodied spirits. In such unhappy cases the patient is intellectually in the
condition of a general whose spies have been bribed by the enemy, and who must engage
himself in the difficult and delicate task of examining and correcting, by his own powers of
argument, the probability of the reports which are too inconsistent to be trusted to.
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But there is a corollary to this proposition, which is worthy of notice. The same species of
organic derangement which, as a continued habit of his deranged vision, presented the sub-
ject of our last tale with the successive apparitions of his cat, his gentleman-usher, and the
fatal skeleton, may occupy, for a brief or almost momentary space, the vision of men who are
otherwise perfectly clear-sighted. Transitory deceptions are thus presented to the organs
which, when they occur to men of strength of mind and of education, give way to scrutiny,
and their character being once investigated, the true takes the place of the unreal representa-
tion. But in ignorant times those instances in which any object is misrepresented, whether
through the action of the senses, or of the imagination, or the combined influence of both, for
however short a space of time, may be admitted as direct evidence of a supernatural appari-
.
tion; a proof the more difficult to be disputed if the phantom has been personally witnessed by
a man of sense and estimation, who, perhaps satisfied in the general as to the actual exis-
tence of apparitions, has not taken time or trouble to correct his first impressions. This
species of deception is so frequent that one of the greatest poets of the present time
answered a lady who asked him if he believed in ghosts:  No, madam; I have seen too
many myself. I may mention one or two instances of the kind, to which no doubt can be
attached.
The first shall be the apparition of Maupertuis to a brother professor in the Royal Society of
Berlin.
This extraordinary circumstance appeared in the Transactions of the Society, but is thus stat-
ed by M. Thiebault in his  Recollections of Frederick the Great and the Court of Berlin. It is
necessary to premise that M. Gleditsch, to whom the circumstance happened, was a botanist
of eminence, holding the professorship of natural philosophy at Berlin, and respected as a
man of an habitually serious, simple, and tranquil character.
A short time after the death of Maupertuis, M. Gleditsch being obliged to traverse the hall in
which the Academy held its sittings, having some arrangements to make in the cabinet of nat-
ural history, which was under his charge, and being willing to complete them on the Thursday
before the meeting, he perceived, on entering the hall, the apparition of M. de Maupertuis,
upright and stationary, in the first angle on his left hand, having his eyes fixed on him. This
was about three o clock, afternoon. The professor of natural philosophy was too well
acquainted with physical science to suppose that his late president, who had died at Bâle, in
the family of Messrs. Bernoulhe, could have found his way back to Berlin in person. He
regarded the apparition in no other light than as a phantom produced by some derangement
of his own proper organs. M. Gleditsch went to his own business, without stopping longer
than to ascertain exactly the appearance of that object. But he related the vision to his
brethren, and assured them that it was as defined and perfect as the actual person of
Maupertuis could have presented.
When it is recollected that Maupertuis died at a distance from Berlin, once the scene of his tri-
umphs overwhelmed by the petulant ridicule of Voltaire, and out of favour with Frederick,
with whom to be ridiculous was to be worthless we can hardly wonder at the imagination
even of a man of physical science calling up his Eidolon in the hall of his former greatness.
The sober-minded professor did not, however, push his investigation to the point to which it
was carried by a gallant soldier, from whose mouth a particular friend of the author received
the following circumstances of a similar story.
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Captain C   was a native of Britain, but bred in the Irish Brigade. He was a man of the
most dauntless courage, which he displayed in some uncommonly desperate adventures dur-
ing the first years of the French Revolution, being repeatedly employed by the royal family in
very dangerous commissions. After the King s death he came over to England, and it was
then the following circumstance took place.
Captain C   was a Catholic, and, in his hour of adversity at least, sincerely attached to
the duties of his religion. His confessor was a clergyman who was residing as chaplain to a
man of rank in the west of England, about four miles from the place where Captain C  
lived. On riding over one morning to see this gentleman, his penitent had the misfortune to
find him very ill from a dangerous complaint. He retired in great distress and apprehension of
his friend s life, and the feeling brought back upon him many other painful and disagreeable
recollections. These occupied him till the hour of retiring to bed, when, to his great astonish-
ment, he saw in the room the figure of the absent confessor. He addressed it, but received no
answer the eyes alone were impressed by the appearance. Determined to push the matter
to the end, Captain C   advanced on the phantom, which appeared to retreat gradually
before him. In this manner he followed it round the bed, when it seemed to sink down on an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]