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

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СКАЧАТЬ the vision occurred on Friday at 2 A.M. But it is certainly more natural to suppose that he inadvertently used this expression meaning the night of Friday at 2 A.M. This is the more likely of the two suppositions; but the case ought not to be included, unless it can be shown beyond all reasonable doubt, and irrespective of considerations drawn from the time of the death, that the vision occurred on the night of Thursday. In Case 170, the death was not heard of for months. “Time passed, and all was forgotten.” Under these circumstances, as no written note was taken of the time of the apparition, the coincidence is plainly doubtful. I shall discuss Cases 182 and 197, which violate this rule, under another head. In Cases 195, 201, 202, 214, 231, 237, and 355, the date is wholly uncertain. In Case 199, the vision occurred, if at all, on Saturday; the death on Wednesday. In Case 702, the date given for the apparition differs from that of the death by one day; but this is only a blunder, for it is admitted that the date was changed, after ascertaining the day of death, by four days.

      9^th. Cases ought to be excluded in which it is possible that a real person was seen. In Case 202, the percipient, who “had been ordered by the doctor to take absolute rest, and not read at all, and do no work whatever,” and who is excessively near-sighted, when she was out driving, in the neighborhood of London, met a carriage, containing, as she thought, the person who died (although this person’s head was turned away) together with another who did not die. It surely seems a little unnecessary to suppose that this was anything more than a case of mistaken identity. In Case 249, a man, looking out of his window on Christmas day, saw, on the other side of a brick wall, the hat and the top of the head of what he took to be one of his neighbors coming to see him. He turned round to remark upon it to the persons in the room; and his first surprise came when there was no knock at the door (we may assume after the lapse of more than a minute). Then, looking out of the window, he did not see anything at all. It appears quite unnecessary to suppose any hallucination here, unless possibly some slight aberration of the senses connected with the festivities of the season. I should suggest, as possible, that some boy had stolen the old man’s hat, and was perpetrating some Christmas joke, which he was ashamed to confess when it turned out that the person impersonated was at that moment dying. When so simple a hypothesis is admissible, it cannot be said that the appearance of something that was not there has been positively established. There are several other cases which might easily be explained by supposing that a real person was seen.

      10^th. Every case should be excluded which can be explained on the supposition of trickery. In Case 350, one evening three maidservants in the kitchen saw a face outside the window. They could see all around it, so that there was no body attached to it; and while they were looking at it, it turned slowly through a considerable angle, about a vertical axis. Now, the lady of the house is so exceedingly superstitious that she gravely testifies that her dog howls whenever there is a death in the village; and it is more than likely that the maids take after the mistress in this respect. The dog was howling at the moment that the face appeared,—so that this circumstance may have helped them to identify the face with that of a woman who was at that moment expiring under the surgeon’s knife, in an operation for cancer. Although the mistress thinks that they were unaware of the operation, yet, as the cook shortly afterward married the widower, it is not impossible that the servants were better informed than the mistress thought, and that they were, in fact, talking about the woman and her danger (and perhaps even dared to hint at another wedding) when they were confounded by this dreadful sight. One of the three servants testifies that it looked like the “face of a skeleton”; while the other two identify it with that of the woman who died. Meantime, it appears that there were certain young men who had a way of tapping at that window in the evening, and looking in and smiling at the girls, and who had not been treated with quite the politeness to which they probably thought themselves entitled. What, then, can possibly be more natural, than to suppose that these young men had contrived, in some way, to let down a skull by a string from above, perhaps from the roof, to frighten the girls and punish them for their rudeness? Clearly, this cannot be admitted as a proved case of seeing something that was not there.

      11^th. No case should be admitted upon the unsupported and unverified statement of a superstitious, ignorant, and credulous person. And a common sailor or skipper may be assumed to be such a person. This throws out Cases 300 and 355.

      12^th. Cases should be excluded in which there is any room to suspect that the percipient was intoxicated. This applies to Nos. 29 and 249; and no doubt to others.

      13^th. Cases should be excluded which can possibly be explained by the delirium of fever. In Case 214, the percipient first told of the apparition after four months of severe illness, with constant delirium or unconsciousness. It is not at all unlikely that the whole story is the product of a delirious imagination.

      14^th. No case should be admitted which can be attributed to the effect of imagination. In Case 195, the percipient herself is inclined so to explain her vision.

      15^th. All cases ought to be excluded in which the percipient did not tell of having seen the vision until after the news of the death had been received. Otherwise, all sorts of exaggerations would creep in. There might even be cases of downright lying, besides cases in which the well-known sensation of having undergone a present experience on some previous occasion might have given rise to the idea of an apparition which was really not experienced. This would be a rare case, but we are dealing with rare cases. This objection applies to Cases 172,173,174,184, and 214.

      16^th. No case can be admitted which rests largely on the testimony of a loose or inaccurate witness. Inaccuracies of more or less importance can be detected in Cases 27, 170, 182, 197, and 199. For example, in Case 182, a young lady on shipboard, going from London to the Cape of Good Hope, saw one night, a good while after the lights were out, an apparition of a young girl, a friend or acquaintance of hers who, as she knew, was out of health, and who had the consumption. She is positive that this vision took place at half past ten; and, as no bell is rung at that time, this positive precision is already suspicious. She also testifies positively that she mentioned the occurrence the next morning to four persons, who all severally took written notes of it; but the only two of these persons who can be reached now profess to know nothing whatever of the matter. She gives May 4th as the date of the vision, but the death occurred on May 2nd. She says, however, that she is sure she wrote to her father from the Cape, giving the date of the vision, before she heard of the death. Her father, on the other hand, is certain he wrote to his daughter the news of the death by the very next mail after it occurred. Now, since taking this testimony, the letter which she wrote to her father has been found by him. The whole passage about the apparition is not given, as it should be; but it is stated that the letter gives the date of May 4th. Now the date of the letter is June 5th; and it only takes three weeks or less for news to go from London to the Cape of Good Hope, so that she must have already heard of the death, if her father’s statement is accurate. But why is the passage of this letter withheld?

      In Case 197, the percipient is a lady. She was at Interlaken at the time of the vision, and the death took place in Colorado. She testifies positively that written notes were taken at the time of the occurrence, both by herself and another; but she is unable now to give the date, and the other witness has not been called upon. Now Messrs. Gurney, Myers, and Podmore request us to accept this as a positively proved case of coincidence, because this one witness avers, with all the solemnity the matter calls for, that, when the news of the death did arrive, it was found to be absolutely simultaneous with the vision, after making the necessary allowance for difference of longitude. But the lady remembers the time of day at which the vision occurred, namely, it was before breakfast when she was lying on her bed. The time of day of the death is also known; and the best supposition that can be made with regard to the date of the vision will make it eight hours from the time of death. We are asked, in the face of this demonstrated inaccuracy, to accept a coincidence of date as beyond question, because this witness testifies that it was a coincidence exact to the minute.

      17^th. No case can be admitted where there is only a meagre story told in outline, and we are not furnished with any СКАЧАТЬ