590 The Outline of Science 



succeed in verifying them, and will accept the evidence as proof 

 of their continued existence. 



Sometimes the communications are useful; as when Sweden- 

 borg was able to get from the deceased Dutch ambassador, M. 

 Marteville, the location of a secret drawer unknown to the family, 

 in which was a missing document that had been long hunted for 

 fruitlessly by the widow. Verification of the finding of the docu- 

 ment, after getting the information, was specially satisfactory in 

 this case, because it was done in the presence of a number of 

 people who happened to be in the deceased's house at the time 

 when Swedenborg arrived to report what he had learned, and to 

 stimulate the final instructed search. 1 



Sometimes the communicators show signs of anxiety and 

 distress, about things they wish to remedy and cannot. As when 

 a soldier, killed at the front, appears to a stranger at a sitting 

 and begs that his kit may be overhauled and certain letters and 

 documents extracted and destroyed, for that they would cause 

 irremediable mischief if seen by his folk at home. How to get this 

 done is forthwith discussed ; and at length the communicator sug- 

 gests the name of a person known to him, in sufficient authority 

 and with sufficient family connection to make it possible that the 

 mission might be accomplished. The sequel is that the message 

 was given, and suitable action taken. It all turned out true ; so the 

 vicarious misery which had been legitimately weighing on the 

 mind of the deceased was averted. 



Sometimes the natural affection they exhibit takes a form 

 which does happen to be of an evidential character. As when a 

 secret engagement is announced to his family by a deceased 

 soldier, with the name and address of his betrothed, accompanied 

 by the request that when she is found a certain object of remem- 

 brance which is still in his unopened kit, unknown to anyone, may 

 be found and given her. 2 



1 Kant, Trattme fines Oeistersehers. 



'See Barrett, On the Threshold of the Unseen, p. 181. 



