The Night Side of Nature: or, Ghosts and ghost seers

Front matter

By Ms Crowe January, iS8s.] BOUTLEDGIS SIXPENNY NOVELS WITHOUT ABRIDGMENT. ROUTLEDGE'S 6d. EDITION OF LORD LYTTON'S NOVELS. The Author's Copyright Revised Edition, in which are given the latest revisions and corrections made by the Author, together with the Prefaces he wrote to ihe various Editions No "other 6d. Edition contains these of his Novels published during his lifetime. Prefaces and Revisions. 139. Falkland and Zicoi, with a Prefatory Note. 132. "Eugene Aram, with Three Prefaces. 133- Godolphin. 140. Pelham, with Dedication. 141. The Disowned, with a Preface. 143. Devereui, with a Preface. 1*3. Alice ; or, The Mysteries. Sequel to ' Ernest Maitravers." 134. Last Days of Pompeii, with Two Prefaces. 135. Rienzi, with Dedication and Two Prefaces. 136. Ernest Maitravers, with a Pre 1 j,.

Paul Clifford, with Two Prefaces. 13c?., Leila, Calderon the Courtier, and The Pilgrims of the Rhine, in One Volume. New Copyright Volumes. 147. NIGHT AND MORNING. 148. SANONI. CHARLES DICKENS, !. — 6d. each. 127. Pickwick Papers. Part 1. 128. Ditto. Part 1. 130. Nicholas Nickleby. Part 1, 131. Nicholas Nickleby. Part 2. 126. Oliver Twist. 1 25. Sketches by 3oz. HErtRY FIELDING, i.— 6d. each. 67. Tom Jones. Vol; 156, Joseph Andrews. 68 Ditto. Vol; 2s i 157. Amelia. TOBiAS SMOLLETT.-6d. each. 51. Roderick Random. ! 155. Peregrine Pickle. Vol. 2. j J58. Humphry Clinker. 154. Peregrine Pickle. Vol. 1. W. H. MAXWELL.— Author's Edition— 6d. each. 149. Stories of Waterloo. iot. Captain Blake. 150. The Bivouac: Stories of the Penin- 162. Wild Sports of the West suiar War. Captain MARRYAT.— 6d. each. 94.

Peter Simple. 100. Japhex. , 106. Percival Eeene. 95. The King's Own. 101. Midshipman Easy. | 107. Monsieur Violet 06. Newton Forster. 102 The Dog Fiend. I 108. RatUin, the Reefer. 97. Jacob Faithful. iuj. The Phantom Ship. 109, Valerie. 98. Frank Mildmay. 104. Olla POdrida. 123. The Pirate and tha 99. Pacha of Many Tales, io^. The Poacher. Three Cutters. EUGENE SUE.-6d. each. 73. The Wandering Jew. 1 78. The Mysteri 78. The Mysteries of Paris. Part ! (The Transgression). Part 1 (Morning) Ditto. Part 2 (Noon). Ditto. Part 3 (Night). 75. Ditto. Part :■. (The Chastisement). 76. Ditto. Part 3 (The P.edemption). ■;■;- Bo, THE NIGHT SIDE OF NATURE OR GHOSTS AND GHOST SEERS BY CATHERINE CROWE AUTHORESS OF " SUSAN HOPI.EY," " LH.LY DAWSON," ETC. T.TC. " Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee!"

Introduction

. " Know yc not that ye are the Temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwellethinyou?" — i Cor. iii. 6. To minds which can admit nothing but what can be explained and demonstrated, an invests gation of this sort must appear perfectly idle ; for whilst the most acute intellect or the most powerful logic can throw little light on the subject, it is, at the same time — though I have a confident hope that this will not always be the case — equally irreducible within the present bounds of science ; meanwhile experience, observation, and intuition must be our principal, if not our only, guides. Because, in the seventeenth century, credulity outran reason and discretion ; the eighteenth century, by a natural reaction, flung itself into an opposite extreme. Whoever closely observes the signs of the times, will be aware that another change is approaching.

The contemptuous. scepticism of the last age is yielding to a more humble spirit of inquiry ; and there is a large class of persons amongst the most enlightened of the present, who are beginning to believe that much which they had been taught to reject as fable, has been, in reality, ill-understood truth. Somewhat of the mystery of our own being, and of the mysteries that compass us about, is beginning to loom upon us — as yet it is true but obscurely ; and in the endeavour to follow out the clue they offer, we have but a feeble light to guide us. "We must grope our way through the dim path before us, ever in danger of being led into error, whilst we may confidently reckon on being pursued by the shafts of ridicule — that weapon so easy to wield, so potent to the weak, so weak to the wise — which has delayed the births of so many truths, but never stifled one.

The pharisaical scepticism which denies without investigation, is quite as perilous, and much more contemptible, than the blind credulity which accepts all that it is taught without inquiry ; it is, indeed, but another form of ignorance assuming to be knowledge. And by investigation I do not mean the hasty, captious, angiy notice of an unwelcome fact, that too frequently claims the right of pro nouncing on a question, but the slow, modest, painstaking examination that, is content to wait upon nature, and humbly follow out her dis closures, however opposed to preconceived theories, or mortifying to human pride. If scientific men could but comprehend how they discredit the science they profess, by their dee- Most persons are aware that the Greeks and Romans entertained certain notions regarding the state of the soul, or the immortal part of man, after the death of the body, which have been generally held to be purely mythological.

Many of them, doubtless, are so ; and of these I am not about to treat ; but amongst their con ceptions, there are some which, as they coincide with the opinions of many of the most enlightened persons of the present age, it may be desirable to consider more closely. I allude here par ticularly to their belief in the tripartite kingdom of the dead. According to this system, there were the Elysian fields, a region in which a certain sort of happiness was enjoyed ; and Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked ; each of which was, comparatively, but thinly inhabited. But there was also a mid region, peopled with innumerable hosts of wandering and mournful spirits, who, although undergoing no torments, are represented as incessantly bewailing their condition, pining for the life they once enjoyed in the body, longing after the things of the earth, and occupying themselves with the same pursuits and objects as had formerly constituted their business or their pleasure.

Old habits are still dear to them, and they cannot snap the link that binds them to the earth. Now, although we cannot believe in the existence of Charon, the ferryman, Cerberus, the three-headed dog, or Alecto, the serpent-haired fury, it may be worth while to consider whether the persuasion of the ancients with regard to that which concerns us all so nearly, namely, the destiny that awaits us when we have shaken off this mortal coil, may not have some foundation in truth : whether it might not be a remnant of a tradition transmitted from the earliest in habitants of the earth, wrested by observation from nature, if not communicated from a higher source : and also whether circumstances of con stant recurrence in all ages and in all nations, frequently observed and recorded by persons utterly ignorant of classical lore, and unac quainted, indeed, with the dogmas of any creed but their own, do not, as well as various passages r potic arrogance and exclusive scepticism, they would surely, for the sake of that very science they love, affect more liberality and candour.

This reflection, however, naturally suggests another, namely, do they really love science, or is it not too frequently with them but the means to an end ? Were the love of science genuine, I suspect it would produce very different fruits to that which we see borne by the tree of know ledge, as it flourishes at present ; and this suspicion is exceedingly strengthened by the recollection, that amongst the numerous students and professors of science I have at different times encountered, the real worshippers and genuine lovers of it, for its own sake, have all been men of the most single, candid, unpre judiced, and inquiring minds, willing to listen to all new suggestions, and investigate all new facts ; not bold and self-sufficient, but humble and reverent suitors, who, aware of their own ignorance and unworthiness, and conscious that they are yet but in the primer of nature's works, do not permit themselves to pronounce upon her disclosures, or set limits to her decrees.

They are content to admit that things new and unsus pected may yet be true ; that their own know ledge of facts being extremely circumscribed, the systems attempted to be established on such uncertain data must needs be very imperfect, and frequently altogether erroneous ; and that it is therefore their duty, as it ought to be their pleasure, to welcome as a stranger every gleam of light that appears in the horizon, let it loom from whatever quarter it may. But, alas ! poor science has few such lovers ! Les beaux yeux de sa cassette, I fear, are much more frequently the objects of attraction than her own fair face,! The belief in a God, and in the immortality of what we call the soul, is common to all nations ; but our own intellect does not enable us to form any conception of either one or the other.

All the information we have on these and kindred subjects is comprised in such hints as the Scriptures here and there give us ; what ever other conclusions we draw must be the result either of our intuitions, or of observation and experience. Unless founded upon these, the opinion of the most learned theologian, or the most profound student of science that ever lived, is worth no more than that of any other person. They know nothing whatever about these mysteries, and all a priori reasoning on them is utterly valueless. The only way, there fore, of attaining any glimpses of the truth in an inquiry of this nature, where our intellect can serve us so little, is to enter on it with the conviction that, knowing nothing, we are not entitledto reject any evidence that may be offered to us, till it has been thoroughly sifted, and proved to be fallacious.

That the facts presented to our notice appear to us absurd, and altogether inconsistent with the notions our intellects would have enabled us to form, should have no weight whatever in the investigation. Our intellects are no measure of God Almighty's designs ; and I must say that I do think one of the most irreverent, dangerous, and sinful things man or woman can be guilty of, is to reject with scorn and laughter any intimation which, however strangely it may strike upon our minds, and however adverse it may be to our opinions, may possibly be showing us the way to one of God's truths. Not knowing all the conditions, and wanting so many links of the chain, it is impossible for us to pronounce on what is probable and consistent and what is not ; and this being the case, I think the time is ripe for drawing attention to certain phenomena, which, under whatever aspect we may consider them, are, beyond doubt, exceedingly interesting and curious ; whilst, if the view many persons are disposed to take o/ them be the cor rect one, they are much more than this.

I wish also to make the English public acquainted with the ideas entertained on these subjects by a large proportion of German minds of the highest order. It is a distinctive characteristic of the thinkers of that country, that, in the first place, they do think independently and courage ously ; and, in the second, that they never shrink from promulgating the opinions they have been led to form, however new, strange, heterodox, or even absurd, they may appear to others. They do not succumb, as people do in this country, to the fear of ridicule, nor are they in danger of the odium that here pursues those who deviate from established notions ; and the consequence is that, though many fallacious theories and untenable propositions may be advanced, a great deal of new truth is struck out from the collision, and in the result, as must always be the case, what is true lives and is established, and what is false dies and is forgotten.

But here in Britain our critics and colleges are in such haste to strangle and put down every new discovery that does not emanate from themselves, or which is not a fulfilling of the ideas of the day, but which, being somewhat opposed to them, promises to be troublesome from requiring new thought to render it intel ligible, that one might be induced to suppose them divested of all confidence in this inviolable law ; whilst the more important, and the higher the results involved may be. the more angry they are with those who advocate them. They do not quarrel with a new metal or a new plant, and even a new comet or a new island stands a fair chance of being well received ; the intro duction of a planet appears, from late events, to be more difficult, whilst phrenology and mesmerism testify that any discovery tending to throw light on what most deeply concerns us, namely, our own being, must be prepared to encounter a storm of angry persecution.

And one of the evils of this hasty and precipitate opposition is, that the passions and interests of the opposers become involved in the dispute; instead of investigators, they become partisans; having declared against it in the outset, it is important to their petty interests that the thing shall not be true ; and they determine that it shall not, if they can help it. Hence these hasty, angry investigations of new facts and the triumph with which failures are recorded and hence the wilful overlooking of the axiom that a thousand negatives cannot overthrow the evidence of one affirmative experiment. I always distrust those who have declared them selves strongly in the beginning of a controversy. Opinions which, however rashly avowed, may have been honest at first, may have been changed for many a long day before they are retracted.

In the meantime the march of truth is obstructed, and its triumph is delayed; timid minds are alarmed ; those who dare not or cannot think for themselves are subdued; there is much needless suffering incurred, and much good lost ; but the truth goes quietly on its way, and reaches the goal at last. With respect to the subjects I am here going to treat of, it is not simply the result of my own reflections and convictions that I am about to offer. On the contrary, I intend to fortify my position by the opinions of many other writers ; the chief of whom will, for the reasons above given, namely, that it is they who have principally attended to the question, be Germans. I am fully aware that in this country a very con siderable number of persons lean to some of these opinions, and I think I might venture to assert that I have the majority on my side, as far as regards ghosts — for it is beyond a doubt that many more are disposed to believe than to confess — and those who do confess are not few.

The deep interest with which any narration of spiritual appearances bearing the stamp, or apparent stamp, of authenticity is listened to in every society, is one proof that, though the fear of ridicule may suppress, it cannot extin guish that intuitive persuasion, of which almost every one is more or less conscious. I avow that, in writing this book, I have a higher aim than merely to afford amusement. I wish to engage the earnest attention of my readers, because I am satisfied that the opinions I am about to advocate, seriously entertained, would produce very beneficial results. We are all educated in the belief of a future state, but how vague and ineffective this belief is with the majority of persons, we too well know ; for although, as I have said above, the number of those who are what is called believers in ghosts, and similar phenomena, is very large, it is a belief that they allow to sit very lightly on their minds.

They feel that the evidence from within and from without is too strong to be altogether set aside, but they have never permitted themselves to weigh the significance of the facts. They are afraid of that bugbear, Superstition — a title of opprobrium which it is very convenient to attach to whatever we do not believe ourselves. They forget that nobody has a right to call any belief superstitious, till he can prove that it is unfounded. Now, no one that lives can assert that the re-appearance of the dead is impossible ; all he has a right to say is that he does 'not believe it ; and the interrogation that should immediately follow this de claration is, "Have you devoted your life to sifting all the evidence that has been adduced on the other side from the earliest periods of history and tradition?" and even though the answer were in the affirmative, and that the in vestigation had been conscientiously pursued, it would be still a bold inquirer that would think himself entitled to say, the question was no longer open.

But the rashness and levity with which mankind make professions of believing and disbelieving, are, all things considered, phenomena much more extraordinary than the most extraordinary ghost story that was ever related. The truth is, that not one person in a thousand, in the proper sense of the word, be lieves anything ; they only fancy they believe, because they have never seriously considered the meaning of the word and all that it involves. That which the human mind cannot conceive of, is apt to slip from its grasp like water from the hand ; and life out of the flesh falls under this category. The observation of any pheno mena, therefore, which enabled us to master the idea, must necessarily be extremely beneficial; and it must be remembered that one single thoroughly well-established instance of the re appearance of a deceased person would not only have this effect, but that it would afford a demonstrative proof of the deepest of all our intuitions, namely, that a future life awaits us.

Not to mention the modern Germans of emi nence who have devoted themselves to this investigation, there have been men remarkable for intellect in all countries who have considered the subject worthy of inquiry. Amongst the rest, Plato, Pliny, and Lucien ; and in our own country, that good old divine, Dr. Henry Moore, Dr. Johnson, Addison, Isaac Taylor, and many others. It may be objected that the eternally quoted case of Nicolai, the bookseller at Berlin, and Dr. Ferriar's "Theory of Appari tions," had not then settled the question ; but nobody doubts that Nicolai's was a case of disease ; and he was well aware of it himself, as it appears to me everybody so afflicted is. I was acquainted with a poor widow in Edinburgh who suffered from this malady, brought on I believe by drinking ; but she was perfectly con scious of the nature of the illusions, and that temperance and a doctor were the proper exor cists to lay the spirits.

With respect to Dr. Ferriar's book, a more shallow one was assuredly never allowed to settle any question ; and his own theory cannot, without the most violent straining, and the assistance of what he calls coincidences, meet even half the cases he him self adduces. That such a disease as he de scribes exists, everybody admits ; but I maintain that there are hundreds of cases on record for which the explanation does not suffice ; and if they have been instances of spectral illusion, all that remains to be said is, that a fundamental reconstruction of the theory of that subject is demanded. La Place says, in his " Essay on Proba bilities," that "any case, however apparently incredible, if it be a recurrent case, is as much entitled under the laws of induction to a fair valuation, as if it had been more probable beforehand."

Now no one will deny that the case in question possesses this claim to inves tigation. Determined sceptics may indeed deny that there exists any well-authenticated instance of an apparition ; but that at present can only be a mere matter of opinion, since many persons as competent to judge as them selves maintain the contrary ; and in the mean time I arraign their right to make this objection till they have qualified themselves to do so by a long course of patient and honest inquiry; always remembering that every instance of error or imposition discovered and adduced, has no positive value whatever in the argument, but as regards that single instance ; though it may enforce upon us the necessity of strong evidence and careful investigation. With respect to the evidence, past and present, I must be allowed hereto remark on the extreme difficulty of producing it.

Not to mention the acknowlodged carelessness of observers, and the alleged ncapacity of persons to distinguish betwixt reality and illusion, there is an exceeding shy ness in most people who either have seen, or fancied they have seen, an apparition, to speak of it at all except to some intimate friend ; so that one gets most of the stories second-hand ; whilst even those who are less chary of their communications, are imperative against their name and authority being given to the public. Besides this, there is a great tendency in most people, after the impression is over, to think they may have been deceived ; and where there is no communication or other circumstance rendering this conviction impossible, it is not difficult to acquire it, or at least so much of it as leaves the case valueless.

The seer is glad to sind this refuge from the unpleasant feelings engendered ; whilst surrounding friends, some times from genuine scepticism and sometimes from good-nature, almost invariably lean to this explanation of the mystery. In consequence of these difficulties, and those attending the very nature of the phenomena, I freely admit that the facts I shall adduce, as they now stand, can have no scientific value ; they cannot, in short, enter into the region of science at all, still less into that of philosophy. Whatever conclusions we may be led to form, cannot be founded on pure induction. We must confine ourselves wholly within the region of opinion ; if we venture beyond which we shall assuredly founder. In the beginning, all sciences have been but a collection of facts, afterwards to be examined, compared, and weighed by intelli gent minds.

To the vulgar, who do not see the universal law which governs the universe, everything out of the ordinary course of events is a prodigy ; but to the enlightened mind there are no prodigies, for it perceives that both in the moral and tho physical world there is a chain of uninterrupted connection ; and that the most strange and even apparently contradictory or supernatural fact or event will be found, on due investigation, to be strictly dependent on its antecedents. It is possible that there may be a link wanting, and that our investigations may consequently be fruitless ; but the link is assuredly there, although our imperfect know ledge and limited vision cannot find it. And it is here the proper place to observe, that, in undertaking to treat of the phenomena in question, I do not propose to consider them as supernatural ; on the contrary, I am per suaded that the time will come when they will be reduced strictly within the bounds of science.

It was the tendency of the last age to reject and deny everything they did not understand ; I hope it is the growing tendency of the present one to examine what we do not understand. Equally disposed with our predecessors of tho eighteenth century to reject tho supernatural, and to believe the order of nature inviolable, we are disposed to extend the bounds of nature and science, till they comprise within their limits of space all the phenomena, ordinary and extraordinary, by which we are surrounded. Scarcely a month passes that we do not hear of some new and important discovery in science ; it is a domain In which nothing is stable ; and every year overthrows some of the liasty and premature theories of the preceding ones j and" this will continue to be the case as long as scientific men occupy themselves each with his own subject, without studying the great and primal truths — what the French call Les ve'rites meres — which link the whole together.

Mean time, there is a continual unsettling Truth, if it do not emanate from an acknowledged authority, is generally rejected ; and error, if it do, is as often accepted ; whilst, whoever disputes the received theory, whatever it be — we mean especially that adopted by the professors of colleges — does it at his peril. But there is a day yet brooding in the bosom of time, when the sciences will be no longer isolated ; when we shall no longer deny, but be able to account for phenomena apparently prodigious ; or have the modesty, if we cannot explain them, to admit that the difficulty arises solely from our own incapacity. The system of centralisation in statistics seems to be of doubtful advantage, but a greater degree of centralisation appears to be very much needed in the domain of science.

Some improvement in this respect might do wonders, particularly if reinforced with a slight infusion of patience and humility into the minds of scientific men ; together with the recollection that facts and phenomena which do not depend on our will, must be waited for — that we must be at their command, for they will not be at ours. But to return once more to our own subject. If we do believe that a future life awaits us, there can be nothing more natural than the desire to obtain some information as to what manner of life that is to be for which any one of us may, before this time to-morrow, have exchanged his present mode of being. That there does not exist a greater interest with regard to this question in the mind of man, arises, partly from the vague intangible kind of belief he entertains of the fact ; partly from his absorp tion in worldly affairs, and the hard and indi gestible food upon which his clerical shepherds pasture him — for, under dogmatic theology, religion seems to have withered away to the mere husk of spiritualism ; and partly, also, from the apparent impossibility of pursuing the inquiry to any purpose.

As I said before, observation and experience can alone guide us in such au inquiry ; for though most people have a more or less Intuitive sense of their own immortality, intuition is silent as to the mode of it ; and the question I am anxious here to discuss with my readers, is, whether we have any facts to observe, or any experience from which, on this most interesting of all subjects, a conclusion nmy be drawn. Great as the difficulty is of producing evidence, it will, I think, be pretty generally admitted that, although each individual case, as it stands alone, may be comparatively valueless, the amount of recurrent cases forms a body of evidence, that on any other subject would scarcely be rejected ; and since, if the facts arc accepted, they imperatively demand an explanation — for, assuredly, the present theory of spectral illusions cannot com prise them— our inquiry, let it terminate in what ever conclusion it may, cannot be useless or un interesting.

Various views of the phenomena in question may be taken ; and although I shall offer my own opinions, and the theories and opinions of others, 1 insist upon none ; I do not write to dogmatise, but to suggest reflection and inquiry. The books of Dr. Ferriar, Dr. Hibbert, and Dr. Thatcher, the American, are all written to support one exclusive theory ; and they only give such cases as serve to sustain it. They maintain that the whole phenomena are refer able to nervous or sanguineous derangement, and are mere subjective illusions ; and what ever instance cannot be covered by this theory, they reject as false, or treat as a case of extraordinary coincidence. In short, they arrange the facts to their theory, not their theory to the facts. The books cannot, therefore, claim to be considered as anything more than essays on a special disease ; they have no pretence what ever to the character of investigations.

The question, consequently, remains as much an open one as before they treated it ; whilst we have the advantage of their experience and information with regard to the peculiar malady that forms the subject of their works. On that subject it is not my intention to enter ; it is a strictly medical one, and every information may be obtained respecting it in the above-named treatises, and others, emanating from the faculty. The subjects I do intend to treat of are the various kinds of prophetic dreams, presentiments, second-sight, and apparitions ; and, in short, all that class of phenomena which appears to throw some light on our psychical nature, and on the probable state of the soul after death. In this discussion I shall make free use of my German authorities, Doctors Kerner, Stilling, Werner, Eschenmayer, Enne moser, Passavant, Schubert, Von Meyer, &c, &c. ; and I here make a general acknowledgment to that effect, because it would embarrass my book too much to be constantly giving names and references ; although when I quote their words literally, I shall make a point of doing so ; and because, also, that as I have been both thinking and reading much on these subjects for a considerable time past, I am, in fact, no longer in a condition to appropriate cither to them or myself, each his own.