If he does yield fresh
information, and if that is known to any living mind, he and his
intelligence may have been wired on from that mind. His only chance
is to communicate facts which are proved to be true, facts which
nobody living knew before. Now it is next to impossible to
demonstrate that the facts communicated were absolutely unknown to
everybody.
Far, however, from conveying unknown intelligence, most ghosts convey
none at all, and appear to have no purpose whatever.
It will be observed that there was no traceable reason why the girl
with a scar should appear to Mr. G., or the soldier and suppliant to
Mrs. M., or Lieutenant B. to General Barker. The appearances came in
a vague, casual, aimless way, just as the living and healthy clergyman
appeared to the diplomatist. On St. Augustine's theory the dead
persons who appeared may have known no more about the matter than did
the living clergyman. It is not even necessary to suppose that the
dead man was dreaming about the living person to whom, or about the
place in which, he appeared. But on the analogy of the tales in which
a dream or thought of the living seems to produce a hallucination of
their presence in the minds of other and distant living people, so a
dream of the dead may (it is urged) have a similar effect if "in that
sleep of death such dreams may come".
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