May 12, 1899. ] 



SCIENCE. 



679 



tree. The shadow of the bird immediately 

 came to him and replied to the anxious 

 questioner: " Be quite easy. My young 

 ones are safe and sound. The house-oat 

 knocked down the nest in jumping on the 

 garden wall. You will find them in the 

 grass at the foot of the wall." The gentle- 

 man hurried to the garden and found the 

 little nestlings full of life at the spot in- 

 dicated. 



As both these stories are pefectly authen- 

 ticated, we must consider them in the light 

 of our phantom knowledge. As the birds 

 themselves were living at the time, the pro- 

 jection of their shadow offers nothing in- 

 congruous, especially if it took place in the 

 dusk of the evening, a detail which Mr. 

 Kardec omits, but which we may readily 

 supply. The natural anxiety of the mother 

 bird would, as it were, lend the shadow 

 wings, and her intensity of feeling would 

 produce the effect of conversation. It is 

 not likely that the bird actually spoke, for 

 the incident took place in France, and no 

 bird, not even the most refined parrot, has 

 yet spoken French. There are other ways 

 of convejang information than vFOrd of 

 mouth, and an enlightened master knows 

 how to make use of them. In the case of 

 Tartuffe the phantom may have been real 

 and virtually immortal. It belongs to 

 another class than the shadow phantoms. 

 The creation of a great poet's brain has an 

 objective existence which may be far more 

 permanent than the shadow of an ordinary 

 actor. No doubt, the image formed in the 

 brain having the gigantic aura of that of 

 Moliere could so embody itself in astral pre- 

 cipitates as to secure a life which might en- 

 dure for centuries. 



It need surprise no one to meet the phan- 

 tasm of Tartuffe in real existence. Surely 

 the shades of Hamlet and Portia and 

 Othello have a definite place among the ob- 

 jective phenomena of Earth just as surely 

 as their names have a fixed place in our 



literature. Doubtless, at times this posthom 

 of Shylock crosses the Eialto bridge, and 

 the phantom of melancholy Jacques may 

 be found flitting disconsolate through the 

 forest of Arden. The sad plight of the 

 posthom King of Denmark, for example, 

 has not failed to touch the hearts of all 

 lovers of literature. Indeed, the strength 

 of the genius of Shakespeare is such that 

 the ancient king and his famous son and 

 namesake have as firm a reality as that of 

 the mediocre flesh and blood people which 

 swarm in modern society. We may notice 

 in passing that the speech of the phantom 

 king indicates that he was plunged in the 

 depths of sorrow. " The impression left on 

 the mind," says D'Assier, ' ' by the lamenta- 

 tions and the vain replies of the shades 

 who succeed in making themselves heard is 

 always a sentiment of profound sadness." 

 He compares the feelings of such a person- 

 age to those of a European transported 

 suddenly and nakedly into the wilds of 

 Australia, with just enough of his reason 

 left " to have the feeling of his impotence 

 and eternal isolation." 



Dr. Eliphas Levi, in his famous ' Dogma 

 and Ritual,' traces the career of shades still 

 moi'e closely, emphasizing especially the 

 existence of two mortal bodies after death, 

 the one heavy and confined on the earth, 

 the other flitting about in the mediate atmos- 

 phere. " When a man has lived well," says 

 Dr. Levi, the astral corpse or posthom 

 " evaporates like a fine incense in mounting 

 to higher regions. If the subject lived in 

 crime this phantom retained as prisoner 

 seeks the object of its passions and tries 

 still to cling to life. But the stars breathe 

 it and drink it ('les astres I'aspirent et le 

 boivent'). It feels its intelligence grow 

 feeble. Its memory is slowly lost ; all its 

 being must dissolve." 



Those scientific men (and there are 

 many) who find all attributes of the uni- 

 verse derived from the four gases, hydrogen 



