NOTES ON GHOSTS AND GOBLINS. 421 



that grave-clothes are white, we may inquire what a 

 ghost wants with grave-clothes? It might as well 

 refuse to appear without a coffin. And then, many 

 ghosts have appeared in their habit as they lived. If we 

 inquire what is the real conception in the ghost-seer's 

 mind as to the nature of the vision, we find a difficulty 

 in- understanding what idea is formed by the real 

 believer in ghosts respecting the vestments in which 

 spirits make their appearance. This is an old difficulty. 

 In fact, it has probably occurred to every one who has 

 thought over a ghost story. So soon as we come to the 

 description of the ghost's vestments there is always a 

 hitch in the story. For my own part, I must have 

 been a very small child indeed, when I first pondered 

 over the question, Who made the ghost's clothes ? 



Of course there is no difficulty in the case of those 

 who believe only in ghostly apparitions as phantoms of 

 the brain. Here a distinction must be drawn. I am not 

 speaking of those who regard such apparitions as either 

 due to a diseased action of the brain or to the power of 

 fancy in forming from real objects, indistinctly seen, the 

 picture of a departed friend ; but of those who look 

 on visions of the dead as produced by supernatural 

 impressions on the brain. Those who think that at 

 the will of the dead a vision may be caused to appear, 

 can of course understand that this vision would either 

 be clothed in the garb which had been worn during life, 

 or in grave-clothes, or in such other dress as suited the 

 circumstances under which the vision appeared. But 

 this view is not ordinarily adopted by those who regard 



