Message #190559

[Apparition from Beyond the Veil]

prove the existence of “new forces” may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence.  This is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific.  But all studies have their temptations.  Many a historian, to prove the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, and common honesty far from him.  Yet this is no reason for abandoning the study of history.

There is another class of difficulties.  As anthropology becomes popular, every inquirer knows what customs he ought to find among savages, so, of course, he finds them.  In the same way, people may now know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may pretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture.  The white sheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering of the ghostly part.  The desire of social notoriety may beget wanton fabrications.  In short, all studies have their perils, and these are among the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into things ghostly.  He must adopt the stoical maxim: “Be sober and do not believe”—in a hurry.