into the following narrative, it is convenient here to state them at length.  It is very commonly held that the soul or living personality of man, which will survive the change called by us “death,” is capable of entering living bodies and making use of their organs.  The form in which this belief is most commonly met with, is that of the alleged inspiration of trance mediums by the souls of the dead.  Such a case is that of Mrs. Piper, said to have been animated by the soul of Dr. Phinuit and other personalities now disincarnated.  It has naturally been argued that if it is possible for the disembodied spirit to occupy and animate the body of a human being, it would, a fortiori, be easy for it to do the same with the body of a beast, where the resistance of will would presumably be less.

This idea, coupled with the belief that the soul can be separated from the body during life, so producing a kind of temporary death, while leaving the body in such a state that it is capable of being again inhabited and animated, lies at the bottom of the numerous statements as to sorcerers and sorceresses changing themselves into hares, wolves, or cats, which are to be found in the records of witch trials.

That this was possible, at least after death, was evidently a strong belief upon the part of Major S——.  We are informed that he frequently intimated his intention of entering the body of a particular black spaniel which he possessed, and so strong a belief was attached to his words, that after his death all his dogs, including the spaniel in question, were shot, apparently in order to render impossible any such action upon his part.  The policy of the measure adopted was short-sighted.  If the Major had thoroughly succeeded in animating the body of the living spaniel, the physical resources at his disposal would have been too limited to have enabled him to give much trouble.  As it is, a series of witnesses attest apparitions of this spaniel, and of at least one other dog, which may naturally be regarded as much more disturbing.

The second point is possibly the same as the last, but it appears to be more probably based upon the belief held by Major S——­, in common with a large number of those who have made a serious study of apparitions—­and certainly a large number of the members of the S.P.R.—­that such apparitions are really hallucinations or false impressions upon the senses, created, so far as originated by any external cause, by other minds either in the body or out of the body, which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the term, and really acting through some means at present very imperfectly known.  Such an opinion of course reserves the question of the possible action of unseen forces upon what is commonly called matter involved in ’spirit’-photography, materialisation, levitation, the passage of matter through matter, and other forms of apport, although such a distinction, if logically carried out,