The Book of Dreams and Ghosts | Page 2

the testimony for these cannot be rigidly studied,

that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogous tales
current on better authority in our own day. But these ancient legends
are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because of their
merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now perhaps
for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their historical
sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how the fancy of
periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as are now reported
in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic ghost stories have
peculiar literary merit as simple dramatic narratives. (2) Every one has
heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers's spectre, Lord
Lyttelton's ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams's dream of Mr.
Perceval's murder, and so forth. But the original sources have not, as a
rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of calm historical criticism,
by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3)
Even ghost stories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact of
hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, "human
documents". Now, granting such facts (of imposture, hallucination, or
what you will), as our dull, modern narratives contain, we can regard
these facts, or things like these, as the nuclei which our less critical
ancestors elaborated into their extraordinary romances. In this way the
belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such, from madness
and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in the phenomena of
alternating personalities in certain patients. Their characters, ideas,
habits, and even voices change, and the most obvious solution of the
problem, in the past, was to suppose that a new alien personality--a
"devil"--had entered into the sufferer.
Again, the phenomena occurring in "haunted houses" (whether caused,
or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified
into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities
of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead
person's appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was
easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from
purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such
purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have
a cause. That cause is, probably, a dwindling of the myth-making
faculty.

Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature,
must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand.
This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense of
the years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who had
experience of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. In this
healthy state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kept their
experience to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested that they
"were sure it was only a dream". Next, to tell the story was, often, to
enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domestic
circumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as a
matter of "principle," or of "religious principle," though it is difficult to
see where either principle or religion is concerned, if the witness is
telling what he believes to be true. Next, some devotees of science aver
that these studies may bring back faith by a side wind, and, with faith,
the fires of Smithfield and the torturing of witches. These opponents
are what Professor Huxley called "dreadful consequences argufiers,"
when similar reasons were urged against the doctrine of evolution.
Their position is strongest when they maintain that these topics have a
tendency to befog the intellect. A desire to prove the existence of "new
forces" may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence.
This is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men
otherwise scientific. But all studies have their temptations. Many a
historian, to prove the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put
evidence, and logic, and common honesty far from him. Yet this is no
reason for abandoning the study of history.
There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomes popular,
every inquirer knows what customs he ought to find among savages, so,
of course, he finds them. In the same way, people may now know what
customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may pretend to find
them, or may simulate them by imposture. The white sheet and
clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering of the
ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget wanton
fabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, and these are among
the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into things ghostly. He
must adopt the stoical maxim: "Be