In the second case, the excitement caused by the death of a friend is likely, it seems, to make two or more sane people say, and believe, that they saw him somewhere else, when he was really dying.  The only evidence for this fact is that such illusions occasionally occur, not collectively, in some lunatic asylums.  ’It is not, however, a form of mnemonic error often observed among the insane.’  ’Kraepelin gives two cases.’  ’The process occurs sporadically in certain sane people, under certain exciting conditions.’  No examples are given!  What is rare as an individual folly among lunatics, is supposed by Herr Parish to explain the theoretically ‘false memory’ whereby sane people persuade themselves that they had an hallucination, and persuade others that they were told of it, when no such thing occurred.

To return to our old example.  Jones tells me that he has just seen his aunt, whom he knows to be in Timbuctoo.  News comes that the lady died when Jones beheld her in his smoking-room.  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ Herr Parish would argue, ’you, Jones, saw nothing of the kind, nor did you tell Mr. Lang, who, I am sorry to find, agrees with you.  What happened was this:  When the awful news came to-day of your aunt’s death, you were naturally, and even creditably, excited, especially as the poor lady was killed by being pegged down on an ant-heap.  This excitement, rather praiseworthy than otherwise, made you believe you had seen your aunt, and believe you had told Mr. Lang.  He also is a most excitable person, though I admit he never saw your dear aunt in his life.  He, therefore (by virtue of his excitement), now believes you told him about seeing your unhappy kinswoman.  This kind of false memory is very common.  Two cases are recorded by Kraepelin, among the insane.  Surely you quite understand my reasoning?’

I quite understand it, but I don’t see how it comes to seem good logic to Herr Parish.

The other theory is funnier still.  Jones never had an hallucination before.  ‘The rarity and the degree of interest compelled by it’ made Jones ‘connect it with some other prominent event,’ say, the death of his aunt, which, really, occurred, say, nine months afterwards.  But this is a mere case of evidence, which it is the affair of the S.P.R. to criticise.

Herr Parish is in the happy position called in American speculative circles ‘a straddle.’  If a man has an hallucination when alone, he was in circumstances conducive to the sleeping state.  So the hallucination is probably a dream.  But, if the seer was in company, who all had the same hallucination, then they all had the same points de repere, and the same adaptive memories.  So Herr Parish kills with both barrels.