GHOSTS AND THE BALANCE OF DOUBT. N OT the least strange
of the many strange things connected with what is roughly classed as "the supernatural "—ghosts, wraiths, second-sight, hauntings, and the like—is "the balance of doubt," or '• the hovering faith," as Addison called it, which is almost always the result of a fair-minded and conscientious examination of such facts as are available. One set of people, who do not examine the facts at all, are very cocksure in the negative direction. Another set, who also do not examine the facts but swallow any and every supernatural legend, are equally positive in the other. Those, however, who neither take up the pack-of-nonsense attitude on the one hand, nor on the other adopt the trivialities of the spiritualists and ghostmongers wholesale, but try to judge reported facts about ghosts as they do reported facts about other mani- festations and phenomena, almost always arrive at a balance of doubt. Mr. Andrew Lang is one of these. No man has taken more trouble than he has to consider and estimate at its true value the literature of ghostly manifestations. With great skill and care he has hunted up the origins of most of the famous ghost-stories of other times, and in not a few instances has shown that, whether true or false, the received explanations of the phenomena will not bold water. For example, in regard to the Wesley ghost, he has proved that the story cannot possibly be dismissed as a piece of practical joking indulged in by Hetty Wesley, and that the evidence alleged to point to her complicity will not bear examination. But when Mr. Lang comes to sum up the general results of his investigations, as he does in the preface to the very in- teresting book, "Dreams and Ghosts," which he has just published with Messrs. Longmans, he cannot go further than the balance of doubt of which we speak :—" The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately: Do you believe in ghosts ?' One can only answer : 'How do you define a ghost?' I do believe, with all students of human nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But as to whether such hallucina- tions, among the sane, are ever caused by psychical influences from the minds of others, alive or dead, not com- municated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence." This passage will, no doubt, be a considerable disappointment to the professed spiritualists, for in the course of much of his writing Mr. Lang seems to lean strongly in favour of the ghosts. That, however, is not really a fair way of putting his position. It would be nearer the truth to say that he takes more pleasure in upsetting the explanation of a ghost-story than in upsetting the ghost-story itself. But after all, this is perhaps the attitude of mind most wanted at the moment. People are extraordinarily credulous as to explanations of ghost-stories. Almost anything has been considered good enough to explain a ghost-story; and a jumble of wrong dates, irrelevant facts, and "scientific laws," invented ad hoc by the explainer, are usually accepted as perfect solutions of problems which, whatever their real nature, require patient and careful consideration. To say, for example, that Mr. Smith probably confused the dates in his mind, that in the early morning it is very easy to mistake the housemaid for a General in full uniform, and that the" well-known" laws of optics and acoustics will account for anything else that is strange in the story, is to explain nothing whatever.
If, however, it were only Mr. Andrew Lang's mind which was in"a balance of doubt" we should not, of course, regard the fact as so very strange and remarkable. The fact that a single individual, however able, cannot make up his mind, but suspends his judgment, is not necessarily important. What is significant is that Mr. Lang's attitude is exactly the attitude of so many of the wisest minds in various ages. There is nothing whatever new in Mr. Lang's balance of doubt. It is, indeed, because it is so common a commonplace that we attach importance to it. Before the eighteenth century—or shall we say up till the last quarter of the seventeenth—most men, learned and unlearned, believed in ghosts. Practically, it was not a matter about which there were two opinions. Then came the age of science, and almost immediately witches, and ghosts, and hanntings, and magic became ridiculous and absurd. The intellectual fashion set dead against the super- natural. Yet still the men of strongest judgment and widest mind maintained the balance of doubt. Take Addison at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Here are his actual words on the subject of the supernatural :—" There are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hover- ing faith as this, which refuses to settle upon any determi- nation, is absolutely necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither." This is from the paper in the Spectator which describes the witch. In the paper on the haunted avenue he makes great fun of the cock-and-bull stories told by the footman and the milk- maid. When, however, he comes to the general question his attitude is almost exactly that of Mr. Lang :—" I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time, I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless. Could not I give myself up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot dis- trust in other matters of fact." So much for the widest-minded man of the early part of the eighteenth century. When we come to the middle period of the same epoch we find the strongest intellect of the age also in a balance of doubt. Dr. Johnson, though positive in almost every other opinion, could not make up his mind on the ghost question. Though he could not, like John Wesley, accept ghosts as indisputable, he entirely refused to regard them as impossible phenomena. His general attitude was summed up in the following sen- tence: — "It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it ; but all belief is for it." He put his view again much in the same way when discussing the ghost at Newcastle-on-Tyne in which John Wesley had expressed his belief. Dr. Johnson refused to believe in the truth of the story, and declared that Wesley had not taken sufficient trouble to investigate the matter :—"' I am sorry that John did not take more pains to inquire into the evidence for it.' Miss Seward (with an incredulous smile) : 'What, Sir! about a ghost ? ' Johnson (with solemn vehemence) : Yes, Madam : this is a question which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided; a question, whether in theology or philosophy, one of the most important that can come before the human understanding." One might multiply plenty of modern instances to back up Johnson's plea for the importance of the subject, but that is really not necessary, for, as we have said, Mr. Lang is only the latest exponent of what has become a commonplace, the balance of doubt in regard to supernatural phenomena. It is certainly a most strange and curious fact in regard to matters which have always occupied so great an amount of attention that the wiser minds should still be hopelessly undecided. Probably the explanation of this fact is to be found in that dread of the supernatural with which we dealt a few weeks ago. That instinctive dread, implanted in almost all minds, has set an almost insuperable barrier to the proper investigation of supernatural phenomena. What advance should we have obtained in the science of botany if the investigation of stamens and pistils caused a sense of dread and horror, and confused and perplexed the intelligence P Dr. Johnson used to dwell upon another difficulty. "The question simply is, whether departed spirits ever have the power of making themselves perceptible to us ; a man who thinks he has seen an apparition, can only be convinced him- self ; his authority will not convince another, and his convic- tion, if rational, must be founded on being told something which cannot be known but by supernatural means." This was not an adequate view of the difficulty. If only we could find a sufficiently large number of cases in which men had been sure that they were in touch with the supernatural, their authority should convince us. The problem, then, is to investigate the alleged examples of supernatural appearances, and to see if enough can be found to bear the tests applicable to other forms of evidence. It cannot be said that as yet anything like a sufficiency of sound and trustworthy cases has been produced. At the same time, we are inclined to admit that enough curious and "odd facts," to use Mr. Balfour's phrase, have already been put on record to justify systematic study. Enough, that is, has been done by those who are investigating on the lines of the Psychical Society to make it worth while for them to proceed. Very possibly nothing will come of it all, but at any rate there is a primci-facie case. There is also this further excuse for the investigation. In bunting for ghosts the Psychical Researchers may very possibly hit on facts of importance in other and allied regions of scientific investiga- tion. The men who searched for the philosopher's stone did not find it, but they gained much important knowledge in the field of chemistry. The Psychical Society may not run down a genuine ghost or haunted house, but in the pursuit they may very likely develop our knowledge of the human mind and its functions and powers.
But though we have no objection to investigation, and agree with Mr. Lang when he says "assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena and gave us inquiring minds," we do not fail to recognise the great dangers that attend these investigations. Those dangers are not perhaps what our fore- fathers imagined, but they are none the less real. Satan may not seize the man who draws the veil that shrouds a forbidden world, but undoubtedly inquiries into the supernatural, unless conducted in a careful, a reasonable, and a knowledge- able spirit, are apt to demoralise the mind. The man who inquires, not because he wants more light on what he agrees with Dr. Johnson to be an all. important subject, but because he wants excitement and novelty, is almost certain to be injured by his researches. The analogy between these investigators and those who examine into the phenomena of disease is fairly exact. The doctor is not harmed, because he pursues his inquiries in the proper spirit. The amateur is, because he only wants to satisfy a morbid curiosity. The doctor learns not to be horrified and de- moralised by the appalling records of pathology, and of the "abhorred dexterity of surgeons." The lay man who dabbles in medical books is almost certain to become a hypochondriac. Those, then, who undertake to investigate the phenomena of the supernatural should investigate thoroughly, and in a wise and liberal and reasonable spirit. Those who do not care to give themselves up thoroughly to the inquiry should keep their hands and brains off. They will not elucidate anything by their amateur efforts, but merely prevent true results. Dabbling in psychical investigation presents a real danger, and those who wish to keep a sane and well-balanced mind will forbear personal inquiry, unless they have both a special aptitude and a real desire for a whole-hearted study of the phenomena. The matter is eminently one for the expert, and thus only for those who sincerely mean to make themselves ex- perts. The consideration of the general conclusions and results of the experts is, of course, another matter. All who desire may deal with these as they deal with the general results of medical science in regard to cancer or consumption. What they should avoid is a half.and-half study either of ghosts or of tubercles.
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