Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/456

440 It has been observed that an absolute scepticism on the theme of an invisible world can be maintained only by the aid of Hume's often repeated sophism—that no testimony can be held sufficient to establish an alleged fact, which is at variance with common experience; for it must not be denied that some few instances of the sort alluded to rest upon testimony in itself thoroughly unimpeachable. "At least let indulgence be given to the opinion that those almost universal superstitions which, in every age and nation, have implied the fact of occasional interferences of the dead with the living, ought not to be summarily dismissed as a mere folly of the vulgar, utterly unreal, until our knowledge of the spiritual world is so complete as shall entitle us to affirm that no such interferences can, in the nature of things, ever have taken place. The mere supposition of there being any universal persuasion, which is totally groundless, not only in its form and adjuncts, but in its substance, does some violence to the principles of human reasoning, and is clearly of dangerous consequence." So writes Mr. Isaac Taylor, adding, that whether such and such alleged facts happen to come to us mingled with gross popular errors, or not, is a circumstance of little importance in determining the degree of attention they may deserve—the one question to be considered being this: Is the evidence that sustains them in any degree substantial? He is, indeed, of opinion that almost all instances of alleged supernatural appearances may easily be disposed of, either on the ground of the fears and superstitious impressions of the parties recording them, or on that of the diseased action of the nervous system, which, in certain conditions, generates visual illusions of the most distinct kind; but he contends that no such explanations will meet the many instances, thoroughly well attested, in which the death of a relative, at a distance, has been conveyed, in all its circumstances, to persons during sleep;