(TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:)
Sr,—For many years I have read with interest letters on the above subject that have appeared in your columns, and have been more and more struck with the need there is to be clearer both as regards the question of soundness of evidence, and as regards the deductions to be made from such evidence as is valid. First, as regards the validity of the evidence. What appears to me to be so far lacking is: (1) Written records of visions and the like, made at the time and before the occur- rence of the event, or the hearing of the news, that appeared to account for them ; and (2) Written records of visions, &c., that were, so to say, failures. I know by experience how deceitful " memory " is. Get several people who witnessed an occurrence together, and have not discussed it since, to write down their "recollection" of it, and compare the several accounts The fact is, the first time that we try to recall an event we have to fill up gaps by guesswork and deduction ; we then relate the completed story, and henceforward the " recollection " is that of the completed story as related, and not that of the original event. I have found people "re- membering as if it were yesterday" quite different occur- rences that were really one and the same. Then as to failures. I remember a lady who was expecting a daughter home from New Zealand after a long absence having a very vivid vision of going down to the port and meeting her daughter's coffin. I wrote down the vision at once. But the daughter arrived safely, and nothing had occurred to justify the vision. How many such failures are recorded and published ? Would anyone suggest that such visions (and we read lately of equally meaningless phantasms "seen" in the day-time) had their origin in something outside ? Next, as to deductions. It is true, I believe, that in cases of delirium and madness the patient cannot distinguish between images produced through the eye and images produced in the brain only; a subjective black dog or snake appears to obscure the objective carpet as it passes over it. This naturally raises the question, "What is seeing" ? Many years ago I suggested that, until we can think of something better, photography might be taken as the teat of objectivity. Con- sidering, then, the facts of hallucination, which prove to us that a human being can project on objective scenery visions created in the brain, and can be unable to detect any difference between the two as regards reality, and considering also the occurrence of quite meaningless visions and phan- tasms, I do not see that, so far, we have any reason to regard these appearances as other than subjective. We must be on our guard against the strong superstitions bias that relaters of phantasm stories almost always show. They are angry when evidence is sifted; they accept evidence that they would consider ridiculously weak if offered in a court of law. Whether, when a vision has "point," the brain that created it has been influenced from outside, or whether it was but a lucky " hit " among many "misses "—that is a question that will be answered according to individual belief. So far, at any rate, it lies out of reach of proof.—I am, Sir, &a., 22, Wellington Square, Oxford. W. LARDEN.
[Our correspondent's warnings are excellent per se, but he cannot have studied the principles of action of the Society for Psychical Research if he thinks that all those who collect evidence in regard to psychical phenomena behave in the credulous manner be depicts. The precautions as to the sifting of evidence which be very properly recommends are, and have been for years, the commonplaces of such sagacious and painstaking investigators as Mrs. Sidgwick and the late Mr. Podmore, to mention only two names. The credulous spiritualists, indeed, denounce the Society for its insistence upon sound evidence. With regard to the suggestion that only significant appearances are re- corded, we may draw attention to the Census of Hallucina- tions taken some twenty years ago by the Society for Psychical Research. The census involved about 17,000 per- sons, and seemed to show that the proportion of significant appearances to the total number witnessed was too large to be accounted for by chance. We cannot publish any more letters on this subject.—En. Spectator.]
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