"In truth, the evidence with respect to such apparitions is very seldom accurately or distinctly questioned. A supernatural tale is, in most cases, received as an agreeable mode of amusing society, and he would be rather accounted a sturdy moralist than an entertaining companion who should employ himself in assailing its credibility. It would, indeed, be a solecism in manners, something like that of impeaching the genuine value of the antiquities exhibited by a good-natured collector for the gratification of his guests. This difficulty will appear greater, should a company have the rare good fortune to meet with the person who himself witnessed the wonders which he tells; a well-bred or prudent man will, under such circumstances, abstain from using the rules of cross-examination practised in a court of justice; and if in any case he presumes to do so, he is in danger of receiving answers, even from the most candid and honourable persons, which are rather fitted to support the credit of the story which they stand committed to maintain, than to the pure service of unadorned truth. The narrator is asked, for example, some unimportant question with respect to the apparition; he answers it on the hasty suggestion of his own imagination, tinged as it is with belief of the general fact, and, by doing so, often gives a feature of minute evidence which was before wanting, and this with perfect unconsciousness on his own part. It is a rare occurrence, indeed, to find an opportunity of dealing with an actual ghostseer; such instances, however, I have certainly myself met with, and that in the case of able, wise,

candid, and resolute persons, of whose veracity I had every reason to be confident. But, in such instances, shades of mental aberration have afterward occurred, which sufficiently accounted for the supposed apparitions, and will incline me always to feel alarmed in behalf of the continued health of a friend who should conceive himself to have witnessed such a visitation.

"The nearest approximation which can be generally made to exact evidence in this case, is the word of some individual who has had the story, it may be, from the person to whom it has happened, but most likely from his family or some friend of the family. Far more commonly, the narrator possesses no better means of knowledge than that of dwelling in the country where the thing happened, or being well acquainted with the outside of the mansion in the inside of which the ghost appeared.

"In every point, the evidence of such a secondhand retailer of the mystic story must fall under the adjudged case in an English court. The judge stopped a witness who was about to give an account of the murder, upon trial, as it was narrated to him by the ghost of the murdered person. Hold, sir,' said his lordship; the ghost is an excellent witness, and his evidence the best possible; but he cannot be heard by proxy in this court. Summon him hither, and I'll hear him in person; but your communication is mere hearsay, which my office compels me to reject.' Yet it is upon the credit of one man, who pledges it upon that of three or four persons, who have told it successively to each other,

that we are often expected to believe an incident inconsistent with the laws of nature, however agreeable to our love of the wonderful and the horrible."*

CHAPTER VIII.

DISORDERED STATE OF THE POWER OF ABSTRAC

TION.

§ 80. Remarks on the general Nature of this

Power.

THE power of abstraction is not, properly speaking, an original and distinct source of knowledge; but it furnishes, nevertheless, one of the most important means, in virtue of which the knowledge which we have may be separated from other knowledge, and contemplated in a new aspect. It is the perceptive power (the external perceptivity) which gives the carpenter a knowledge of the log of wood, upon which he finds himself employed; but it is the abstractive power which enables him to contemplate this complex object in its parts, separating the various traits or qualities of length, breadth, hardness, firmness, texture, colour, and the like, and making them, in their state of intellectual insulation from each other, the subjects of fixed and distinct examination. It applies equally well to external and to

* Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, Letter X.

internal objects; it separates and holds in its grasp the invisible objects of mind, as well as the visible and tangible objects of outward sense; and hence, if other things furnish no reason to the contrary, it may, without impropriety, be considered under the general head of the External Intellect as well as at any subsequent place.

§ 81. Farther considerations on the Nature of this

Power.

In order to understand the nature of the abstractive power more fully, we proceed to say farther, that in every case of abstraction there appears to be a number of things involved. In the first place, it is implied that the object in respect to which the act of abstraction is to take place, is complex; or, if the object be not complex, that there is, at least, a combination of objects or parts of objects present to the mind. There is implied farther, that in every case of abstraction there must necessarily be a determination, a choice, an act of the will. This internal voluntary movement must concern the complex object before the mind; or, if the object be not one, the combination of objects before the mind, in some specific and precise point of view, rather than another. So that we may truly and justly be said to have not only a desire, but a determination to consider or examine some part of the complex object or objects before us more particularly than other parts. When the mind is in this manner directed to any particular object out of many, or to any particular part of a single complex object, we find it to M

be the fact, that the principle of association, or whatever principle it is which keeps the other objects or parts of objects in their state of union with it, ceases, in a greater or less degree, to operate and to maintain that union; the other objects rapidly fall off and disappear, and the particular object or part of an object, towards which the mind is especially directed, remains the sole subject of consideration. That is to say, it is abstracted, or becomes, as it is represented and exists in the mind, an abstract idea. And if this be a correct statement of the matter, it will be seen that the abstractive power is not, properly speaking, a simple power, but implies a complex movement of the mental action.

It ought, perhaps, to be added here, that the abstraction or separation of the object may exist mentally when it cannot take place in the object itself. For instance, the size, the figure, length, breadth, colour, &c., of a building, may each of them be made subjects of separate mental consideration, although there cannot be an actual or real separation of all, or, perhaps, any of these things in the building itself.

§ 82. Of Natural Defect in the Power of Ab

straction.

The power of abstraction, to a greater or less extent, is unquestionably one of the leading attributes of human nature. Many discussions have arisen in relation to it. Whether it is or is not a power possessed by brute animals, has been made a matter of inquiry; but this is a point which it is not necessary