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ficance or value whatever: and this is precisely the result I should expect.
Similar reasoning, and perhaps a similar method, might be applied to cases where the death of a person has been seemingly communicated to a friend or relative at a distance, whether in a dream or vision,
or in some other way at the very instant of its occurrence. It is not, however, by any means so clear that in such instances we may not have to deal with phenomena admitting of physical interpretation. This is suggested, in fact, by the application of considerations resembling those which lead to the rejection of the belief that dreams give warning against dangers. Dreams of death may indeed be sufficiently common, and but little stress could be laid, therefor, on the fulfillment of several or even of many such dreams. But visions of the absent are not common phenomena. That state of the health which occasions the appearance of visions is unusual; and if some of the stories of death-warnings are to be believed, visions of the absent have appeared to persons in good health. But setting aside the question of health, visions are unusual phenomena. Hence, if any considerable proportion of those narratives be true, which relate how a person has at the moment of his death appeared in a vision to some friend at a distance, we must recognize the possibility, at least, that under certain conditions mind may act on mind independently of distance. The 8 prior/ objections to this belief are, indeed, very serious, but 8 priori reasoning does not amount to demonstration. We do not know that even when under ordinary circumstances we think of an absent friend, his mind may not respond in some degree to our thoughts, or else that our thoughts may not be a response to thoughts in his mind. It is certain that such a law of thought might exist and remain undetected--it would
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