THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY." 813 



person's credit, or would lead a customer to doubt whether his banker 

 was solvent ; but in such cases all that is possible is a guess more or 

 less judicious, and a guess, however judicious, is a totally different 

 thing from settled rational belief. As regards all detailed matters of 

 fact, I think there is a time, greater or less, during which the evidence 

 connected with them may be collected, examined, and recorded. If 

 this is done, a judgment can be formed on the truth of allegations re- 

 specting them at any distance of time. Such judgments are rarely abso- 

 lute ; they ought always or nearly always to be tempered by some de- 

 gree of doubt, but I do not think they need be affected by lapse of time. 

 If, however, this opportunity is lost, if no complete examination is made 

 at the time of an incident, or if being made it is not properly or fully 

 recorded, clouds of darkness which can never be dispelled settle down 

 upon it almost immediately. All that remains behind is an indistinct 

 outline which can never be filled up. Under certain conditions rare 

 occurrences are quite as probable as common ones. The main condition 

 of the probability of such an event is that the rare occurrence should, 

 from its nature and from the circumstances under which it occurs, be ca- 

 pable of being observed, and that the evidence of it should be recorded 

 in the manner which I have already described. If a moa were caught 

 alive and publicly exhibited for money, or if the body of a sea-serpent 

 were to be cut up upon the coast and duly examined by competent 

 naturalists, the existence of moas and sea-serpents could be proved 

 beyond all reasonable doubt. The reason why their existence is dis- 

 believed or doubted is not that they are seen, if at all, so seldom, 

 but because in each particular instance they are seen, if at all, in such 

 an unsatisfactory way that it is doubtful whether they ever were seen. 

 There are innumerable ghost-stories in circulation, but as far as I know 

 no instance has ever yet been even alleged to exist in which the exist- 

 ence of a ghost has been properly authenticated as readily and as con- 

 clusively as that of any other being whatever. Stories of the inter- 

 ference of unseen agents stand upon exactly the same footing, speak- 

 ing generally. Isolated instances occur in all ages and countries, but 

 the common characteristic of them all is to be unauthenticated. Ten 

 cases distinctly proved under the conditions referred to . . . would do 

 more to settle the question of the existence of miracles as a class than 

 innumerable cases depending on assertions which were not properly 

 examined when they were originally made, and which can now never 

 be examined. On the other hand, what reason can possibly be sug- 

 gested why the action of an invisible person upon matter should not 

 be ascertained just as clearly as the action of a visible person ? The 

 restoration of a dead body to life might, if it occurred, be proved as 

 conclusively and as notoriously as the death of a living person, or the 

 birth of a child. If such events formed a real class to which new 

 occurrences might be assigned, a large number of instances of those 

 occurrences would be, so to speak, upon record, established beyond all 



