DO YOU BELIEYE IN PRESENTIMENT ?

By Surgeou-Major Wm. CuERAN, A.xM.L'.

(Concluded from page 97.)

"Whether the variety, which I have ventured to call mixed,

may not more appropriately come under the heading of Appari- tions or Second Sight, rather than of Presentiment, pure and

simple, must be determined by the interpretation which each one will put for himself on these phenomena. That both

aw rarer at present than they used to be in former times is certain, and equally certain is it that the incredulity with which such stories are now received is on the increase.

Many indeed hold that they are a priori impossible ; but the

evidence oi history and tradition is too stiong fur them, and

this is the feature of the case with which I am chiefly concerned here. That George the First was, during many years of his life, disturbed by a prophecy* that he should die very soon after

his wife, that Mr. Lyttletonf died most mysteriously and

unexpectedly at the very moment that was predicted to him by the apparition of a woman whom lie had wronged, and that

Captain Speer stated to several gentlemen, just before setting out on an expedition in America, that he had received a

notification of his approaching death in a dream, appear to me to be as worthy of belief, nay as susceptible of proof, as are any of those private or domestic occurrences that pass un-

questioned in ordinary life. At the same time no tourist is now scared from visiting the

Highlands or the Isles of Scotland, by an apprehension of

seeing himself disappear gracefully in a kilt, over some neigh- bouring knoll, or ot hearing his doom rehearsed to him in

ghostly characters, amid the mists of Lock Awe or under the clouds of Ben Crouchan. The Banshee has become a ques- tionable topic of conversation, even for the professional story- teller in Kerry or Connemara; and even sensation novelists now shrink from the use of illustrations which Pascal and Johnson did not hesitate to employ. Where they trod, one like me need not be ashamed to follow ; and I have already said that the phenomena I am relating ai-e, for the most part, if not

altogether, susceptible of an interpretation which physiology approves or experience may endorse. Whether they will ever

admit of a higher application is not for me to determine, and a medical paper is scarcely the proper vehicle for a spiritual discussion. This only I will say for myself, that I shrink with horror from the idea of annihilation, and anything would be better than that materialism which is now eating its way, like

a canker, through all the chinks and crevices of our national

and moral life.

Isaac Wait ing relates of Dr. Donne that, having gone to Paris, " leaving his wife, who was then pregnant, in London, he, (Dr. D.) two days after his arrival in that city, saw his wife in

a vision pass twice before him, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms. A messenger that was

sent to inquire into the state of Mrs. D.'s health found her

very sad and sick in bed, and that after a long and dangerous labour she had been delivered of a dead child. Upon examina- tion, the abortion proved to have occurred on the same day, and about the very hour that Mr. Donne affirmed he saw her pass by him in his chamber." The same writer quotes the credulous

* The Pour Georges, p. 53, and the learned reader need scarcely be informed that prophecies of this kind played a much more important part in former days than they do now. M acaulay gives an amusing account of the excitement produced by the arrival of one Baldearg O' Donnel in Limerick, during the first siege of that place,"and Kaye, op. cit > Vol. II, p. 420, seems to think that

" the exciting national prophecies which said that' the'sikbs would some day stream down to the sack of Delhi" had something to do with the turn their loyalty or love of loot took in the mutiny. For some further account than, is called for here of that stichomanci/ or divina- tion through books, especially the writings of Virgil, which was' so much in vogue in the days of the Stuarts, as well as among other non-Christian

people, I would refer to Scott's Heart of Midlothian, pp. 102-3, and Pirate, p. 213, as well as to Elphinstone's Caubul, Vol. I, p. 293, Malcolm's History of fersia, Vol. I, p 470, and bale's Preliminary Discourse, (Tegg's Koran) p. 90, tfouthey's Life of Wesley, Vol. I, pp. 115-16, Chamber's Encyclopaedia article Sortes Biblicae. The christian Intelligencer, Xo. 1, p. 73 ; Lee's Ihe Other World, Vol. I, pp. 269-70; Varia, by H. Friswell, p. 230; Sketches of Central Asia, by A. Vambery, p. 291; Sehulyer's Turkistan, Vol. I, pp. 81-2; and Prejevalsky's Mongolia, Vol. I, pp. 80-1. t Por particulars of this strange occurrence see Wraxkall's Memoirs,

Soger's Table Talk, pp. 219-20, Hayward's Auto-biography Letters, &c., of Mrs. Hozzi, Vol I, pp. 332-37, and Dr. Lee's work already quoted, Vol. I. p. 38, &c. Mr. Maguire relates a story iu his interesting, 'Father Mathew' A Biography, p. 519, which is so much akin to this that 1 am induced to give it here. It runs to the effect that " while at Pensaeolia ? ? ? ? ? a

young foreigner named Demetrius Keoboe died, and Jfather Mathew offi.

ciated at his funeral. This funeral took place on Monday, December loth, 1850, and on Wednesday the 18th, there was another funeral at which he

also attended. This was the funeral of a cousin of Demetrius. A contract

had been made between them that the first who died should preparc a place in heaven for the other who was to follow immediately. Demetrius was buried on the Monday and, in 20 hours more,

both cousins were tenants of the same tomb. What was the cause ? Possibly it was the^ellect of imagina- tion upon a system depressed by sorrow at the loss oi a beloved friend. Whatever the explanation, the facts were as they have been stated," + Londiniana, Vol. IV, p. 293.

218 THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE. [May 1. 1878.

Aubrey to the effect that " the beautiful Lady Diana Kich, . .

? . as she was walkinginher father's garden, about 11 o'clock, . . . . met with her own apparition, habit and everything

as in alooking glass. About a month after she died of small-

pox," and the following story of Lord Eoscommon is told by Johnson* in his Life of that poet:

" The Lord Eoscommon, being a boy of ten years of age, at Caen in Normandy, one day was, as it were, madly extravagant in playing, leaping, getting over the tables, boards, &c In the heart

of this extravagant fit he cries out, my father is dead.

A fortnight after, news came from Ireland that his father

was dead." A very similar, if it is not indeed even a more

authentic and striking, example is given in Dr. Lee's book

already quoted ; and having so far dealt with the subject in its

individual relations and under particular aspects, I will now

offer some general considerations on the whole subject, and then leave these and it to speak for themselves.

That the belief in presentiment is more intense and operative in times of danger, as during sieges, battles, &c., is proved by numerous examples, and it is certain that " when the mind is

wound up to a high pitch of feeling and expectation, the

slightest incident, if unexpected, gives fire to the train which imagination has already laid." Many instances in point occurred during the Peninsular and Crimean Wars. The panics we occasionally hear of a^ occurring in corps or armies are often the products of the same unseen influences, and it is well known that scores of our sepoy battalions were under the spell of

this kind of impulse in 1857. f Kayej tells us that Darcy Tod led his troop into action at Ferozeshuhur with a strong presenti- ment of his approaching end, and Kinglake? adds that Ad-

miral Korniloff, the first defender of Sebastopol, was labouring during the early hours of the siege of that place under a

similar impression. Dwelling upon the great and ceaseless

strain to which the heavy Brigade was subjected in its encounter with the Eussian cavalry in the early part of the war, the same able writer says that

" with some it suspended to an extra- ordinary degree all care about self" || and, describing the

more celebrated Balaclava charge, he adds that, " under tension of this kind prolonged for some minutes, the human mind, without being flurried, may be wrought into so high a state of activity as to be capable of well-sustained thought, and a man, if he

chose whilst he rode down the length of this fatal north valley, could examine and test and criticise, nay even could change or restore that armour of the soul by which he had been

accustomed to guard hi3 serenity in the trials and dangers of life^f." Here we see the influence of danger under a

two-fold aspect, viz., as impressing the mind with a presenti- ment of death on the one hand, and as bracing, nay exalting, it into such a forgetfulness of the present, as rendered it in-

different to what passed around it on the other. The applica- tion of this feature of the case to the physical interpretation of our task is, I think, self-evident; and there is a general be- lief that drowning men and others subjected to great or unfore- seen strains, are often able to recall incidents which had long since occurred or form such a picture in their minds' eye of the nature of things and the destiny of man, as years of study or contemplation in their closet would fail in developing or

unfolding. The religious is, like the feminine mind, very prone to enter-

tain impressions of the same kind ; and this is not to be won-

dered at when we consider the elements of which it consists

and the aspirations it feeds on. Looking to the future rather than to the present, it is more conversant with the ideal

than with the real, more apt to indulge the imagination and the fancy than the reason or the judgment, and to

regulate its range of thought and vision accordingly. Guid-

ed by a standard of its own creation, which it often places on a pedestal that is inaccessible to ordinary mortals, it aims at a

perfection which is scarcely attainable in ordinary life, and che- rishes hopes that can only be fully realized beyond the grave.* This feeling naturally leads to a dissatisfaction with, or a

distrust of, its present wordly surroundings, if it does not engen- der a habit of prying into the future, that savours of credulity or superstition. If it does not emasculate the mind it unnerves

and enfeebles it. It may produce either ecstacy or hysteria, for, as Pope says :?

Men prove with child, as powerful fancy works, And maids turned bottles, call aloud for corks ;

and religious excitement or isolation is, we all kaow, more

efficacious in the development of these exalted feelings, than any other condition of life that we are acquainted withal. It

was so as well in pagan times as under the banners of the Cross ; it led the Mahomedan to Cordova and the Crusader to the gates of Gaza ; it enables the Hindoo widow to mount, without flinch-

ing, the funeral pyre, and the red ekin to pass, without mur-

muring, through his horrible ordeal of initiation ; and contempla- tion, vision, and trance are the very basis of Budhism, the largest religious organization in the world. Nor is this spirit to be always deprecated. On the contrary,

the excitement or enthusiasm it sometimes produces may dis-

arm death of its sting, and stimulate to deeds of endurance or

daring from which ordinary prudence or valor might shrink. It encouraged the captive Jews to baffle all the arts of their

oppressors and look with serenity for an ultimate delivery. It

enabled the early Christian martyrs to submit without repining to tortures, whose very name elicits a shudder, whilst it also in-

duced them to throw away their livesf rather than yield to

compliances which appear to us frivolous or unmeaning. And

herein lies its danger, namely, in its excess. It can produce a

* Lives of Eminent English Poets, Chandos Classics, p. 89. t Kaye, op cit., Yol. I, pp. 311-12. % Kaye's War in Afghanistan, Yol. I, p. 606. He tells a similar story

in his Lives of Indian Officers, Ed. of 1869, Vol. Ill, p. 87. ? Op cit., Vol. II, p. 363. || Op cit., Vol. IV, p. 177. 5 Ibidem, Vol IV, p. 280, and the late Dr. George Wilson has given

utterance to a sentimenr which I have often heard mentioned in connec- tion with sudden emergencies of the l;ind here contemplated, but which is almost as inexplicable as the phenomenon under review. The experi- ment is, at least, one which few would care to undertake. " There is a strange fact, he says, viz., that on the point of sudden drowning or the like the whole life of the individual, from his youngest days has passed before him, accompanied by an aptitude to comprehend the whole; and a writer has most beautifully imagined that the book of account of the Bible will be our own mind endowed with a power of contemplating all its past conduct and judging of its propriety"?\ Memoir of George Wilson, pp. 50.1. Describing a supper at Professor Wilson's (of Edin- burgh), at which De Quincey was present, and during which the con- versation turned on forgetfulness, which the latter seemed ttf deny, the late Mr. Warren, Miscellanies, pp. 497-8, mentioned an instance, " of a gentleman, who, in hastily jumping from on board the "Excellent," to catch a boat . . ? missed it, and fell into the water . . sinking to a great depth. For a while he was supposed drowned. He afterwards said that all he remembered after plunging into the water was a sense

of freedom from pain and a sudden recollection of all his past life, especially of guilty actions that he had long forgotten. Professor Wdson said that, if this were so. it was indeed very startling; and I think Mr. De Quincey said that he also had heard of one, if not two or three such cases." Colonel Long speaks to the same effect, in his Central Africa?Naked Truths of Naked People-where he describes, p. 169, the electric flash of memory which enabled him to review the past from childhood's days to manhood," as he watched one night, in great peril and anxiety, for the movements of the savages by whom he was sur-

rounded.

* Wishart and Guthrie, who are included among 'he 'martyrs' of Pr?s- byterianism, are said to hare foretold, or at least to haTe had presenti- ments of their r'eaths. Se? the Works of Thomas M'Crie, Vol. I> p. 21, and the Lives of Alexander Henderson and 'ames Guthrie, p. 144. Of the former his biographer says that

'? secluded from the bustle of the world, he

had an opportunity of conversing with his Hod, and of being admitted to those heavenly enjoyments, and attaining those religious experiences which are often, in a high degree, the privileges of Christians placed in such circumstances," and I have no doubt a all that similar, if not pre- cisely identical, examples of this tendency and spirit might be found in

Ribadineira, Butler and others of the hagiologists of the Greek and Latin Churches. f for confirmation in noint see the Persecution of Diocletian, by A. J.

Mason, pp. 123-191 and 228. The same writer has an interesting account, p. 33, of " the revival of belief in omens and prophecies, auguries and oracles" that took place during the excitement and anxiety that accompanied the persecution under this Emperor, or followed the establishment of Chris- tianity under Constantino. Consult, al-o, for information, abou' oracles and the importance attached to them in the early church, an article on the

Sybilline Books that appeared in the Edinburgh Review for July 1877, passim. Many of these oracles, however, were so pronounced as to cut both ways, such as the well-known one? Aio te, Acacide, Romanos vincera posses? which may account for the verification tha; occasionally attended them.

May 1, 1878.] DO YOU BELIEVE IN PRESENTIMENT ??BY W. CUEEAN.

Cromwell and a Columbus as well as a gifted Gilfillan or a

Davy Deans, a George Fox or a Johanna Southcote, as well as

a Richard Baxter and a Fenelon, or even a St. Francis DeSales. It enabled the victims of the Bloody Assizes to meet death, not

merely with fortitude, but with exultation Some of

them, we are told, composed hymns in the dungeon and chaunt- ed them on the fatal sledge,* and Southeyi- expressly tells

us that " the Methodist soldiers in the English army were at the time preceding the battle of Fontenoy wrought up to such a pitch of fanaticism that one of them being fully prepossessed with a belief that he should fall in the action, danced for joy before

he went into it, exclaiming that he was going to rest in the bosom of Jesus. Others when mortally wounded broke out into

rapturous expressions of hope and assured triumph at the mere

prospect of dissolution." If such things take place in the dry wood, what may we not expect in the green tree, and assuredly a gloomy despondency of mind, which sometimes assumes the dimension of a presentiment, is no more to be wondered at on the eve of a journey or during the uncertainty of a battle, than are the morbid exultation and hilarity described above. That the examples given above?and I might quote many

more?clearly prove the existence of such a phenomenon as I have been describing, admits, I think, of no reasonable doubt, and were I again asked the question :

" Do you believe in

Presentiment?" I would say, " Yes! There is undoubtedly such a phenomenon, and it has occurred so often and under such cir-

cumstances, as to preclude the possibility of its being altogether illusory or fictitious." And, were I further asked to explain it, I would, I fear, be obliged to confess that I was, at present, unable to do so. I could only point out the conditions under which it usually occurs. Ask for some account of the peculiar- ities of the individuals in whose persons it has been known to

happen, and say tliat every example of such occurrence should be judged by its own surroundings, and allowed to stand or fall

by the evidence, pro or con, available in the case. There is

no such course now open to me. I have never myself experi- enced any such sensation or impression as is contemplated within, and it is now universally acknowledged that " events that took place in a distant past are not realized with the same intense vividness as those which take place among ourselves. They do not press upon us with the same keen reality and are not judged by the same measure; they come down to us with a

legendary garb, obscured by the haze of years, and surrounded

by circumstances that are so unlike our own that they refract the imagination and cloud and distort its picture.''^ Another

great observer has said that:?"Nothing grows so insipid by lapse of time as personal anecdote. The allusions become in-

distinct, the words lose the original seasoning of tone and

gesture, the facts lose their interest, and even their authenticity is apt to be called in question, when proof is become impossible and, if this be so in respect of the records of daily life, how much more is it likely to be the case in connection with nar-

ratives which are, from their very nature, improbable, or, at

least, open to the suspicion of having been exaggerated by a disordered fancy, if they are not actually conjured up from the recesses of a too sensitive consciousness, by the unwonted stimulus of danger or fear.

Neither need we assume the existence of any special inspira- tion or supernatural message when we hear of the occasional

fulfilment of political and other prophecies or predictions amongst us. Many coming events cast their shadows before them, and history is constantly repeating itself even in our own day. The Russians are now where they were in 1829, dictating their

own terms to the terrified Mahmoud, and few doubted the

ultimate success of the northern states over those of the south,

notwithstanding the gallantry and early victories of the latter

The same may be said, totidem verbis, of the encounter

between the Germans and the French, and the very acceptance of such qualifying epithets as able, shrewd, far-seeing, long- headed, &c., that we so often see prefixed to the names of

successful men implies of itself a belief in the survival of the

fittest. All that is wanted is a little more dash or vigour, a little more worldly sagacity or penetration on their part than are possessed by their neighbours or opponents. If to these wo

add greater powers of introspection or intuition, a more calculating mind, or a better use of experience and observation, than are

possessed or made by others, we have got at the secret, and nothing succeeds like success. " Every one knows instances," says Dean Stanley,*

" both in ancient and modern times, of pre- dictions which have been uttered and fulfilled in. regard to

events of this kind?political events Even

within our own memory the great catastrophe of the disruption of the United States of America was foretold, even with the

exact date, several years beforehand. Sometimes there has been an anticipation of some future epoch in the pregnant sayings of eminent philosophers or poets ; as, for example, the intimation of the discovery of America by Seneca, or of Shakes- peare by Plato, or the reformation by Dante. Sometimes the same result has been produced by a power of divination granted in some inexplicable manner to ordinary men. Of such a kind were

many of the ancient oracles, the fulfilment of which, according to Cicero, could not be denied without a perversion of history. Such was the foreshadowing of the twelve centuries of Roman

dominion by the legend of the apparition of the twelve

vultures to Romulus, and which was understood four hundred

years before its actual accomplishment ; such, but with less

certainty, was the traditional prediction of the conquest of

Constantinople by the Mussulmans ; the alleged predictions of Archbishop Malachi .... of the series of Popes down to the present time ; not to speak of the well-known in- stances which are recorded both in French and English history." M. Froudef takes a somewhat different view of the

faculty. Alluding to the exulting triumph of the protestants at the religious changes that were made by Henry the Eighth, as well as to the corresponding depression and anxiety of the Catholics, he says that

" there seems,indeed, to be in religious men, whatever be their creed and however limited their intellectual power, a prophetic faculty of insight into the true bearings of outward things?an insight which put to shame the sagacity of statesmen and claims for the sons of God, and only for them, the wisdom even of the world. Those

only read the world's future truly who have faith in principle, as opposed to faith in human dexterity; who feel that in human

things there lies really and truly a spiritual nature, a spi- ritual connection, a spiritual tendency, which the wisdom of

the serpent cannot alter, and scarcely can affect." Dr. Arnold^ held, on the other hand, that "people try to make out from

prophecy too much of a detailed history," and he thinks that, " with the exception of those prophecies which relate to our

* M?caulay, op. eit. (P. E.) Vol. I, pp. 315-16. f Souihey's Life of Wesley, Vol. I, pp. 38-9. See also for a very similar

account of I be enthusiasm of the Covenanters, who were defeated at the battle of Rulliongreen previous to execution. Scott's Tales of a Grand-

father, p. 225, also pp. 238-7, and for a good and very graphic account of the fanaticism, daring, and indifference to torture and death, of the Ana-

baptists of Germany under Matthias, John of Leyden and others, see liob-rtson's History as above, pp 253-55. "There is a Constitutional

tendency in many minds, says Dr Carpenter," Mesmerism, Odyllism, &c. &e., in I' raser for February 1877, p. 136 " to be seized by some strange notion which takes entire possession of them; so that all the actions of the individual thus 'possessed,' are results of its operation ....

. such delusions are most tyrannous and most liable to spread, when connected with religious enthusiasm; as we see in the dancing and flagellant manias of the Middle Ages: the supposed demonia- cal possession that afterwards became common in the nunneries of France and Germany : the ecstatic revelatons of Catholic and Protestant vision- aries; the strange performances of the Convulsionaires of St Mddor, which have been since almost paralleled at Methodist 'revivals' and Camp Meetings; the preaching epidemic of Lutheran Sweden; and many other outbreaks of a nature more or less similar

"

+ See Lecky's History of Rationalism, Vol. I, p. 160. ? The Memoirs of sir Philip Francis, Vol. II, p 400,

L

* History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I, pp. 514-15 t The History of England, Vol. I, p. 3U8,

'

I Life By Dean Stanley, Vol. I, p. (j2.

120 THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE. [Mat 1, 1878.

Lord, the object of prophecy is rather to delineate principles and states of opinion which shall come than external events."

But any further discussion of tbis phase of the subject might take us out of our depths, and the object of this little essay

is to show that there is, firstly, historical evidence of the exist- ence of such an insight or faculty as I am here describing ; and, secondly, that this gift or power need not necessarily be the

offspring of a supernatural spirit or agency. "What I have already advanced will, I think, suffice to prove

the truth of the former proposition, but the latter is much less

amenable to this kind of deduction, and I have already said

that my concern is more with the physiological side of the

question, than with its theological significance or bearing. I

believe with poor Keats, that

There never lived a mortal man who bent His appetite beyond his natural sphere, But starved and died;

and I am neither afraid nor ashamed to confess that the latter

aspect of the question is beyond me. All I contend for is

that the faculty exists or may be acquired through the ordinary channels of human intercourse or communication, and were

further proof of this wanted, it may be supplied from sources that are accessible to all, and whose authority few will question. Thus Butler, whose curious rhymes are so frequently fraught with quaint allusion to the past or humorous description of the present, gives expression to the former view, when he asks, though Sidrophel, Hudibras Canto II, part 1, p. 192?

Do not the hist'ries of all agea Relate miraculous presages Of strange turns in the world's affairs Foreseen b' astrologers, soothsayers, Chaldeans learned Genethliaes, And some that have writ almanacks;

while Shakespeare, with his usual comprehensiveness and

sensible grasp of facts, adopts the more commonplace interpre- tation advocated within. Falling in with the King's?Ilenry IY?humour or answering his wish for some knowledge of the

future, Warwick replies that

There is a history in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd; The which observ'd, a man may prophecy, "With a near aim of the main chanoe of things As yet not come to life; which in their seeds, And weak beginnings, lie intreasured, Such things become the hatch and brood of time ;

and the proper application of this art has ere while passed for a superhuman wisdom, or been regarded with horror, as witchcraft

or worse.

If now applying these tests to the interpretation of the

phenomena detailed within, we may thereby account for the

scepticism or incredulity with which such stories have been

usually read or related, we have only got rid of one difficulty to find ourselves face to face with another, and that by no means the least of the two. The evidence in favor of the occurrence

and realization of presentiments is quite as strong as that upon which we rely for the truth of other historical occurrences, and small as may appear to be their utility, yet is their exist-

ence not to be ignored from the apparent absence of it. I say

apparent, for there are many well-authenticated instances of

life being saved through compliance with one of them, and Xiord Dundonald* expressly ascribes the safety of himself

and of his charge, in a grave crisis, to the supervention or

instrumentality of a presentiment. However that may be, the

question still remains : Are these visions or impressions of a

spiritual or physical nature the outcome of an overwrought brain or of a supernatural inspiration ? Do they result natur- ally from that modicum of uncertainty or fear that involun-

tarily attaches to every dangerous undertaking ? Or are they as naturally the consequence of an interference or inspiration of another and more etherial kind ? The obvious answer to these

queries is that, if so, they ought to be far more frequent than they appear to be, and that their realization ought to be much less fitful or casual than it now notoriously is. We all feel

or know that presentiments and predictions like dreams often

miss their mark, if they do not fail outright, and this failure

alone ought to stamp them as of the "earth, earthy." Whether, however, they can be placed in the same category, I am

unable to say ; but I do not think they can, and as to those

vague generalities, constitutional sympathy, and chemical action or affinity, they are, to my mind, incapable of affording us

any aid in the inquiry. The so-called psychic force is equally unavailing, and I am not ashamed to confess my almost entire

ignorance of reflex, automatic, or unconscious cerebration. I

have never, moreover, had much taste for metaphysical subtlety or conjectural refinement. My forte, whatever it be, does not

lie in the direction of profound psychological analysis, or

minute intuitive speculation, and so declining to discuss the

question " with scrupulous quirks and disquisition nice." I leave

it, as above, for elucidation by or the confusion of my readers. I had once indeed fondly hoped I might be able to turn the

phenomenon to account in support of a belief in the existence

of a separate spiritual life for the soul, but occurrences of thi3 kind are so open to miscarriage or misconception, or so suscep- tiblo of a natural explanation, that one is afraid to trust to

them in so momentous a question. Moreover, they would probably, had we sufficient data to go upon, be found as often

within as without the creeds, and I view with considerable distrust those writings or attempts that try to explain the inex- plicable, or remove the veil that can only be pierced, if at all

in this life, by the eye of faith. The apparition that beckoned Antony to his doom at Actium, with an

" iterum me Philippis vide- bis," was probably as real as the "Tolle, Lege, Tolle, Lege," which the great Saint Augustine ascribed to the interposition of an angel. Colonel Gairdner who fell at Preston Pans, acted to his dying day, as we learn from Scott, on the belief that he had received

a similar ghostly warning, and the good Dr. Newman assures us that the straw that broke the camel'3 tack in his case, was

a sentence in the Dublin Review,* " securus judicat orbes

terrarum," which had reference to the supremacy of the pope.

I quote these familiar examples to show that a feather may

turn the scale either way when the mind is agitated by danger or doubt, when it is in a state of unusual tension or excite-

ment, too much buoyed up by hope, or per contra, too much

depressed by fear. We may, in either case, leave religion out of the question, and speaking for myself alone, I will not hesi- tate to say that Christianity's strongest claim on our adhesion

lies, in my opinion, in the fact that it has so long survived the attacks of its professional exponents.

* Describing an attack of the French on the town and citadel of Kosas and the straits to which he and his companions in the latter were reduced, I ord I), says:?" The dawn of the 30th might have been our last, but from the interposition of what some people may call presentiment. Long before daylight I was awoke with an impression that the enemy were in possession of the castle, though the stillness which prevailed showed this to be a delusion. Still I could not recompose myself to sleep, and after lying for some time tossing about, I left my couch and hastily went on the esplanade of the fortress. All was perfectly still * * * *

A loaded mortar, however, stood before me, pointed during the day in such a direction, that the shell should fall on the path over the hill which

the French must necessarily take * * * * Without other object than that of diverting my mind from the unpleasant feeling which had taken possession of it, I fired the mortar. Before the echo had died away a,

volley of musketry from the advancing column of the enemy showed that the shell had fallen amongst them, just as they were on the point of storming?" The Autobiography of a Seaman, Vol. I, p. 309.

* See, for a somewhat similar state of mind and escape from it, the

Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, pp. 133-141 inclusive. It is said of the celebrated Raymund Lulli, who had been, till his thirtieth year, quite 'a man of the world, that, " one night, while composing a love song, the image of the crucified Saviour was presented visibly to him. He sought to lose the impression, but in vain."?Neander's History of Christian Dogma, Vol. I, p. 548 ; "and both Hepworth Dixon, Her Majesty's Tower, Vol. I, p. Ill, and Froude op eit.> Vol. I, pp 260-7, testify to the comfort which the passage of scripture, on which his eye casually glanced, gave Cardinal Fisher on his way to the scafi'old.

May 1, 1878.] DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASES OF THE EYE MADE EASY.?BY G. C. HALL. 121

To those, however, who, looking beyond the cold and formal precision of a negative philosophy, recognise a higher aim and object in life than is implied in a process of destructive ana-

lysis, or a carping criticism of whatever is not obvious or

useful, there is another outlook, and that affords so ready a

solution of the difficulty as to dispense those who believe in

its operation from the necessity of further question or

inquiry. Need I say that I allude to " the intervention and

ministry of good angels, the assaults of bad, the certain power of consecrated places, and the persevering malignity of the Devil and liislegion.*" At no time could such a power be so benefioientlv

or fruitfully exercised as during the strife and confusion of a

battle, in the conflict of peoples or nations, and generally on the

approach of danger to life. A belief in the tutelary guardian- ship of angels would appear, from the Old Testament, to have

been a part of the religion of the Jews. It descended from them

to the early Christians, and is now, as indeed it has ever been, professed by both the great eastern and western communions.

Its more general acceptance in these days would save us all a good deal of mental trouble, as well as do away with the necessity of

referring for an explanation, in this and other mysterious ques- tions, to those very elastic if not quite inexplicable hypotheses, the so-called doctrines of association and intuition.

The spirituality of their nature would be quite compatible with their ubiquity; for, as Moore says, in his Loves of the

Angels,? No aid of words the unbodied soul requires To waft a wish or embassy desires, But by a throb to spirits only given By a mute impulse only felt in heaven, Swifter than meteor shafts, through summer skies, From soul so soul the glanced idea flies.+

And the facility with which people can now converse, by means of electricity, from China to Peru, appears to me to lend no

little sanction to this doctrine. Moreover, 'tis a very consoling one ; and, admitting the existence of disembodied spirits at all, we may easily assume that the intercourse between them and their proteges would be far more rapid and vivid, nay more instantaneous and impressive than anything of the kind we can

new even conceive. But this is a phase of the question with

which my readers may not care to sympathise, and even if they did, this would scarcely be the place to push it to its legitimate consequences. I merely introduce it as a means towards an end, as one, perhaps the most plausible, of the solutions that might be offered of the phenomenon here reviewed, and my readers need not be reminded that it is much easier to state a case in the

region of metaphysics or philosophy than it is to offer an

adequate explanation of the same. Demonstration is only pos- sible to the mathematician, if so, or always even to him, and " it is a part of our earthly nature always to find something wanting, always to havf a vague, dull, ignorant yearning for some knowledge of the future wrhioh cannot be appeased"* in the present. Let us piously hope it may not be so with us

always.

V

* Need I say that I quote from Dr. Lee's book so often referred to. t Tliis sentiment is so well set forth in a letter on Angels and Flowers

that lately appeared in a CalcuMa paper, that I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of reproducing it in full and the more so as this little essay makes no pretence of exclusive knowledge, or exhaustive physiological investigation. It also eschews controversy and leaves the writers quoted, as Tvell as their writings, to interpret themselves, or be interpreted by others. Sik,?The graceful writer of the notes in your yesterday's issue descrip-

tive of the "Wallachian peasantry, says :? "Another fancy of the Wallachian peasant is that every leaf and flower

has life and immortality. They suppose that leaves and flowers are the habitations of imprisoned souls, and their songs upon this subject have a freshness and pathos hardly to be found in the popular ballads of any other country. The Wallachian 'doine' or folklore has something of an Ossianic character; but instead of representing the thoughts of a stern solemn

people living in a misty mountain lari'i, it breathes the ardent spirit of a southern race, inhabiting a delightful climate, beautiful with purple skies and gorgeous flowers

"

The passage recalled to my mind a beautiful thought in one of Father Bewmiii's sermons (1831) many years before he left the University, and some of your readers may be glad to see it:? "I say of the Angels,

'

every breath of air and ray of-light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God.' Again, I ask what would be the thoughts of a man who,

" when examining a flower, or a herb or a pebble, or a ray of light, which he treats as something so beneath him iu the scale of existence, suddenly discovered that he was in the presence of some powerful being who was hidden behind the visible things he was inspecting,?who, though concealing his wise hand, was giving them their beauty, grace, and perfection, as being God's instrument for the pur-

pose,?nay, whose robe and ornaments those objects were, which he wqs so eager to analyze?" Newman himself attributed these views to the influence of the Alexan-

drian school and the early Church upon his mind. He considered the

angels as carrying on the economy of the visible world, and as " the real

causes of motion, light and life, and of those elementary principles of the physical Universe which, when offered in their development to our senses, suggest to us the notion of cause and effect and of what are called the laws of nature." I do not know that there is anything very fanciful in the indulgence of such views, and the eminent scientific authors of the Unseen Universe have, I think, suggested somewhere in that work, the possibility of certain phenomena in the visible world, being produced by angelic agency.

The 'writer might have added that a very similar thought, but which has even a higher aim, is embodied in the following beautiful lines of Mr. Keble (the Christian Year, cheap Ed., p. 45) whereat commenting on the ?words of St. Paul, lfomans 1-20, he says

The raging fire, the roaring wind

Thy boundless power display, But in the gentler breeze we find Thy Spirits viewless way.

?And again, p, 58 :?

There's not a strain to memory dear, Nor flower in classic grove ;

There's not a secret note warbled here, But 'minds me of thy love.

Or, if unwilling to trust to such interested or gushing evidence, lie might quote the more terrestrial, though equally beautiful, lines in which Burns celebrates the influence of his mistress as well as her presence in absentia, to his enamoured eye in his flue song, " Of a' The Airts The Wind can blaw." If more sceptically inclined he could quote the more pantheistic lines of Pope :

All are but parts of one stupenduous whole, Whose body nature is and God the soul.

Or the more familiar lines of Shakespeare might perhaps better accord with his contemplative vein?

Finds tongues in tree, books in the running brooks, Sermons iu stones and good in everything.

Nor is this sentiment peculiar to Christianity. On the very contrary a belief in angelic, or if you so prefer supernatural, interposition has extended from the days of Homer to those of Mahomed, and it pervades all the best poetry of Greece and Rome. Ovid is almost as pronounced as St. Paul in favor of the necessity of a celestial initiation or guidance, when he says, Fast. Lib. vi. 5.

Est Deus in Nobis, agitante calescimus ipso.

and Dante took the wind out of the sails of Spinosa when he said that?

La gloria di Colni, che tutte muove, Per l'uuiverso penetra e, risplende M una parte piu, e meno altrove.

* Miss Braddon in Aurora Floyd, Vol. I, p. 29.