Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 6. Charles S. Peirce

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      Criticism on Phantasms of the Living: An Examination of an Argument of Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore

      The most imposing of the arguments of Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore, in favor of spontaneous telepathy, popularly called ghosts, as presented in their Phantasms of the Living is this. Only one person in three thousand each year has a visual hallucination. Hence it is easy to calculate from the annual death-rate that in a population of fifty millions there would be each only one visual hallucination fortuitously coinciding within twelve hours, before or after, with the death of the person represented. But these gentlemen, having addressed, as they estimate, a public of only 300,000 persons, claim to have found thirty-one indubitable cases of this kind of coincidence within twelve years. From this, they cipher out some very enormous odds in favor of the hypothesis of ghosts. I shall not cite these numbers, which captivate the ignorant, but which repel thinking men, who know well that no human certitude reaches such figures as trillions, or even billions to one.

      But every one of their thirty-one coincidences sins against one or more of eighteen different conditions to which such an argument must conform to be valid. This I proceed to show.

      1^st. Every case should have occurred between January 1st, 1874, and December 31st, 1885, for the calculation of the probabilities depends upon this supposition. Now Case 199 occurred in 1873 and Case 355 occurred in 1854.

      2^nd. The percipient should in each case have been drawn from their public, which they estimate at 300,000 persons who are supposed to have seen the advertisement. But no person could have seen the advertisement who was dead at the time of its publication; and this was the state of the percipients in Cases 170, 214, 238, and 695.

      3^rd. According to their calculations, there ought not to have been among their 300,000 persons any having had two hallucinations fortuitously. Such cases must, if their calculations are correct, be in some way abnormal, and ought to be thrown out. Now the percipient of Case 184 seems to have hallucinations nearly every day. The percipient of Case 175 has had them frequently without any coincidence. In Cases 173 and 298 the percipients had had other hallucinations without significance.

      4^th. The general frequency of hallucinations, upon which the whole argument depends, was ascertained by asking of certain persons whether or not they had had any visual hallucinations, within the last twelve years, “while in good health, free from anxiety, and wide awake.” It is, therefore, an indispensible requisite to the validity of the argument from probabilities, that no account should be taken of coincidences where the percipient was not in good health. This happened in Cases 28, 174, 201, 202, 236, and 702.

      5^th. For the same reason, cases should be excluded where the percipient was not clearly free from anxiety. But they certainly were anxious in Cases 27, 28, 172, 174, 184, 231, and 240; and were probably so in Cases 182, 195, and 695.

      6^th. For the same reason, all cases should be excluded where the percipient would not certainly have been confident of having been wide awake, even if no coincidence had occurred. Now the percipient of Case 175 says, “I cannot yet answer to my satisfaction whether I was awake or asleep.” One of the witnesses to Case 195 calls it a “vivid dream.” In Case 702, the percipient is doubtful whether it was anything more than a dream. It is difficult to admit any case where the percipient was in bed, which happened in Nos. 26, 170, 172, 173, 174, 182, 184, 199, and 697. This objection applies with increased force to cases where the percipient was taking an afternoon nap, which happened in Nos. 28 and 201.

      7^th. All cases should be excluded in which the person who died was not clearly recognized in the apparition. This applies with great force to No. 170, where the apparition was distinctly recognized as the percipient’s own mother, who did not die, though a person who resembled her did. It also applies to Case 201, where the percipient says she “could not say who it was.” Also, to Case 236, where the percipient’s original statement was that she saw “a dark figure”; although after having been shown the testimony of a second witness, who testifies that it “resembled her [the percipient’s] brother,” she assents to this statement. In Case 249 the supposed ghost only showed his hat and the top of his head. In Case 697, the percipient does not seem to have recognized the apparition until after the news of the death had reached her.

      8^th. It is absolutely essential to the force of the argument, that the death should have occurred within twelve hours before or after the time of the apparition; and it is not sufficient that the evidence should satisfy a mind that already admits the existence of ghosts, but the proof must be strong enough to establish the fact, even if we assume that it is due only to hazard. This is a point which the authors totally fail to appreciate. They have admitted among their thirty-one cases no less than thirteen which might well enough be set down as falling probably within the twelve-hour limit, once we have admitted any special antecedent likelihood of such an occurrence; but which beg the question entirely, when, the evidence of the coincidence being but slight, they are used to prove the existence of such a likelihood. In Case 26, for example, on the morning after the apparition, the percipient says he searched the newspapers,—and that day was Saturday. His words are, “The next day, I mentioned to some of my friends how strange it was. So thoroughly convinced was I, that I searched the local papers that day, Saturday.” The authors interpret this as meaning that he told his friends one day, and searched the papers the day after that, which is directly contrary to his statement, and unlikely in itself. Their only warrant СКАЧАТЬ