>Ki <>M >->!<; in- 



spirit or aiiparitioiml ghost-soul should continue to 

 cling to the persons Inviil on earth, anil that lie 



ehost-soul should continue to 

 ng to the p"'roii- liiM-d on earth, anil that lie 

 si ii in lil -i -fU by everv possible means to give them 

 forewarning* 'of tilings soon to ha]>|M>n ? And 

 what agent* more natural than those gifted souls 

 that stand between the living and the dead, who 

 have attained clearness of spiritual vision liy rising 

 above the bondage of sense, through lonely medita- 

 tion ami inner communion with things unseen ? 

 Such are the seers to whom the gift of second- 

 sight was once attributed in the Highlands ; and 

 we find, as was to be expected, that most often 

 they were reputed men of severe and virtuous life, 

 who wonld gladly have lont their faculty if they 

 could, and indeed were often sorely troubled in 

 their minds as to whether it was not something 

 that had come from the devil and not from Goo. 

 In Aubrey's account we read of one who besought 

 the presbytery to pray for him that he should he 

 relieved from this burden, and how after special 

 supplication and confession it was taken from him. 

 Among the Covenanters too the gift of special 

 foresight and prophecy was one vouchsafed t<> men 

 like IVilen, eminent for holiness and spiritual 

 elevation. The gift seems not to have descended 

 by Micce-sioii, although this is stated to have been 

 the case in Skye In-fore the gospel reached it, and 

 there was long a persistent Mief that it belonged 

 to the seventh son of a seventh son ; according to 

 some it appears in special cases to have been 

 capable of beinx communicated from one person 

 to another. Martin in his Description of the 

 Western Ilia of Scotland ( 1 703 ) gives a full account 

 of the second si^-lit, with a classification of the 

 special visions usually seen, which is conveniently 

 summarised in the seventh chapter of Defoe's well- 

 known Life and Adventure* of Duncan Campbell 

 (e. 1680-1/30), the deaf and dumb soothsayer, who 

 inherited the faculty from his Lapland mother. 

 With regard to the difficult question of the deter- 

 mination of the time between the sight and the 

 fu I til men t, we read here that if an object was seen 

 early in the morning the event would be accom- 

 plished a few hours afterwards ; if at noon, the 

 same day ; and if at night, the accomplishment 

 wonld take place weeks, months, and sometimes 

 years afterwards, according to the time of night 

 the vision was beheld. The appearance of a 

 shroud was an infallible prognostic of death, and 

 the nearness or remoteness of the event was judged 

 by the amount of the body that was covered by 

 the ghastly sheet ; if it was not seen above the 

 middle, a delay of a twelvemonth might lie Imped 

 for ; but if it ascended high towards the head, the 

 mortal hour was close at hand. The reader will 

 remember the splendid artistic use made of an 

 analogous notion to this by Rossetti in The King's 

 Triii/ri/i/. The vision makes such a lively impres- 

 sion upon the seers, continues Martin, that they 

 neither see nor think of anything else except the 

 vision, ax long as it continues; the eyelids of the 

 seer are rigidly lixed, and the eyes continue staring 

 until the object vanishes. Sir Walter Scott ha* 

 put the second -sight to line use in H'averley, The 



ad of Montrime, and elsewhere. 

 The gradation of symliolical appearances we have 

 mentioned strikes the imagination and gives some- 

 thing like a system to the supernatural phenomena. 

 But if we turn to the cases related we find no such 

 'egular order and exactness. The evidence is vague 

 and confused, and the incidents are often of the 

 immt trivial character, the revelations, apparently 

 mere subjective hallucinations, commonly made 

 to poor illiterate men, predisposed from their con- 

 ditions of life to melancholy and superstition. 

 Moreover, one standing weakness is that such 

 predictions may force their own fulfilment, and 

 the indefiniteness of the time provides a convenient 



loophole of escape for the conscience. As we see 

 in the popular notions about dreams, there is a 

 besetting snare of a tendency unconsciously to 

 antedate the later impression and to read back 

 details into the dream. Even contradictory dreams 

 are forced to the required interpretation on prin- 

 ciples of implied symbolism or even of mere con- 

 ventional and completely irrational explanation ; 

 and similarly we find unrecognised apparitions 

 capable of symbolic explanation, as a black dog 



I appearing before a death, phantasmal lights, and 

 the like, as well as weeping, the screech of the 

 bans/iff. &i:, in the region of sounds. Again, 

 coincidences, really due to pure accident, account 

 for much ; and still more the invariable leaning of 

 the primitive mind to false analogies and to con- 

 found the post hoc with the propler hoc. The 

 savage and the enthusiast alike think in the same 

 vicious circle; what he believes he therefore sees, 

 and what he sees he therefore believes. 



Stories of second-sight meet us also in the actual 

 world of history. We find it in the story of Wallace 

 and r.rnrr ; again in the famous vision that Thomas 

 the Rhymer liad of the death of Alexander III. 



j at Kinghorn ; associated with the tragic fate of 

 .lame- I . ; and in the unheeded warning given to 

 the Scottish nobles before going to find their fate 

 at Flodden. A Scottish seer is said to have fore- 

 told the unhappy career of Charles I., and another 

 the violent deal ii of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. 

 In 1652 Sir George Mackenzie, afterwards Lord 

 Tarbat, wrote a minute account of its manifesta- 

 tions, addressed to the celebrated Robert Boyle, 

 which is published in the correspondence of Samuel 

 Pepys. Aubrey throughout life had strong interest 

 in the superstition, and has recorded not a few 

 examples. Next came Martin's copious description, 

 then the Rev. John Eraser's Authentic Instance* 

 (1707), and in 1763 the ambitious but poor and 

 credulous Treatise on the Second Sight by Theo- 

 philus Insulanus. A fresh revival of interest in 

 the subject took place after the publication of Dr 

 Johnson's memorable Journey to the Hebrides 

 (1775). Johnson was naturally superstitions, and 

 would willingly have believed in the possibility of 

 messages from the other world. But his love of 

 truth was too strong to be satisfied with the evi- 

 dence, and he confessed that he never could 'advance 

 his curiosity to conviction, but came away at last 

 only willing to believe.' On one occasion Boswell 

 tells us he laid down a sound canon for such ques- 

 tions, incapable to l>e shaken : ' We could have no 

 certainty of the truth of supernatural appearances 

 unless something was told us which we could not 

 know by ordinary means, or something done which 

 could not ! done but by supernatural power; that 

 Pharaoh, in reason and justice, required such evi- 

 dence from Moses; nay, that our Saviour said: 

 " If I had not done among them the works which 

 none other man did, they had not had sin."' As 

 we have seen, si>ectral sights may l>e caused by 

 dreams, and every night so many are dreamed that 

 some must come true ; morbid conditions of mind 

 or liody may account for many more ; not to speak 

 of accidental optical illusions, or the workings of 

 an abnormally vivid imagination. And again, from 

 the other side, we may say that it is hardly a com- 

 pliment to the idea of a divine providence to sup- 

 pi >-e that special miracles are wrought to announce 

 the marriage or death of a Highland peasant, the 

 wreck of a Yioat, the winner of a race, or the arrival 

 of a stranger in a remote island of the Hebrides. 

 Nothing wiser on this question generally has been 

 written than Mrs Henry Sidgwick's paper, 'On the 

 Evidence for Premonitions,' in the Proceedings of 

 thf Society for Psychical Research for December 

 1888. She defines premonitions as predictions, 

 foreshadowings, or warnings of coming events, 



