We should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we had not endeavoured with particular attention to examine the question of the Second Sight.  Of an opinion received for centuries by a whole nation, and supposed to be confirmed through its whole descent, by a series of successive facts, it is desirable that the truth should be established, or the fallacy detected.

The Second Sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are perceived, and seen as if they were present.  A man on a journey far from home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him.  Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names, if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses.  Things distant are seen at the instant when they happen.  Of things future I know not that there is any rule for determining the time between the Sight and the event.

This receptive faculty, for power it cannot be called, is neither voluntary nor constant.  The appearances have no dependence upon choice:  they cannot be summoned, detained, or recalled.  The impression is sudden, and the effect often painful.

By the term Second Sight, seems to be meant a mode of seeing, superadded to that which Nature generally bestows.  In the Earse it is called Taisch; which signifies likewise a spectre, or a vision.  I know not, nor is it likely that the Highlanders ever examined, whether by Taisch, used for Second Sight, they mean the power of seeing, or the thing seen.

I do not find it to be true, as it is reported, that to the Second Sight nothing is presented but phantoms of evil.  Good seems to have the same proportions in those visionary scenes, as it obtains in real life:  almost all remarkable events have evil for their basis; and are either miseries incurred, or miseries escaped.  Our sense is so much stronger of what we suffer, than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain predominate in almost every mind.  What is recollection but a revival of vexations, or history but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities?  Death, which is considered as the greatest evil, happens to all.  The greatest good, be it what it will, is the lot but of a part.

That they should often see death is to be expected; because death is an event frequent and important.  But they see likewise more pleasing incidents.  A gentleman told me, that when he had once gone far from his own Island, one of his labouring servants predicted his return, and described the livery of his attendant, which he had never worn at home; and which had been, without any previous design, occasionally given him.