instant an attempt is made to touch it.  The only explanation of this phenomenon seems to me to lie in projection—­the cat possessing the faculty of separating—­in this instance, unconsciously—­its spiritual from its physical body—­the former travelling anywhere, regardless of space, time and material obstacles.  I have often had experiences similar to this with a friend’s dog.  I have been seated in a room, either reading or writing, and on looking up have distinctly seen the dog lying on the carpet in front of me.  A few minutes later a scraping at the door or window—­both of which have been shut all the while—­and on my rising to see what was there, I have discovered the dog outside!  Had I not been so positive I had seen the dog on the ground in front of me, I might have thought it was an hallucination; but hallucinations are never so vivid nor so lasting—­moreover, other people have had similar experiences with the same dog.  And why not?  Dogs, on the whole, are every whit as reasoning and reflective as the bulk of human beings!  And how much nobler!  Compare, for a moment, the dogs you know—­no matter whether mastiffs, retrievers, dachshunds, poodles, or even Pekinese, with your acquaintances—­with the people you see everywhere around you—­false, greedy, spiteful, scandal-loving women, money-grubbing attorneys, lying, swindling tradesmen, vulgar parvenus, finicky curates, brutal roughs, spoilt, cruel children, hypocrites of both sexes—­compare them carefully—­and the comparison is entirely in favour of the dog!  And if the creating Power (or Powers) has favoured these wholly selfish and degenerate human beings with spirits, and has conferred on certain of them the faculty of projecting those spirits, can one imagine, for one moment, that similar gifts have been denied to dogs—­their superiors in every respect?  Pshaw!  Out upon it!  To think so would mean to think the unthinkable, to attribute to God qualities of partiality, injustice and whimsicality, which would render Him little, if anything, better than a James the Second of England, or a Louis the Fifteenth of France.

Besides, from my own experience, and the experiences of those with whom I have been brought in contact, I can safely affirm that there are phantasms (and therefore spirits) of both living and dead dogs in just the same proportion as there are phantasms (and therefore spirits) of both living and dead human beings.

Psychic Properties of Dogs

Some, not all, dogs—­like cats—­possess the psychic property of scenting the advent of death, and they indicate their fear of it by the most dismal howling.  In my opinion there is very little doubt that dogs actually see some kind of phantasm that, knowing when death is about to take place, visits the house of the doomed and stands beside his, or her, couch.  I have had this phantasm described to me, by those who declare they have seen it, as a very tall, hooded figure, clad in a dark, loose,