The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-04-16

DO consumed, and he would have ITO mems
Of travelling 10 yon snd yonr spectroscope."
= grant" said this man, shat ghosta afe
very elusive things. We know 30 little of
them. except through testimony that is
equally elusive. that VI San hardly be said
10 be able sven to imagine how they would
proceed from ono place to another without
possessing tho power Of loaomotion. But
you should remember that tho vary fact
that 10 know next to nothing about them
warns a. not to say what they osn not do.
According to Mr.. ktsad's More Ghost
Stories,' the late Lady 1nndhurat, while
SSH ~ the larva state, could b In two
places at oncs. and IL was, you may recol
lect, . serious question among the school
men whsther spirits, when going from n
veninG space. II \ spsotsr wished to come
from bombay TO M spestroxosps in Nav
FORK without oonsuninR his wings, he
might then skip tho intervening space,
and be here without coming. Even
lleas, whtsh have no wings, san do
somsthing analogous TO this on a small
been se. m to come come from aslas eev .a.sa's 70 prey prey
uupon ths dead, and every cook knows that
house flies do q quite similar thing when
hsh is frying. Even wholly inanimato
things-liRhtning for nstance--can travel
80 rapidly o. practically TO be in dozens of
places at the same time. and the air IL
az OUCc WAbAOub kOIuk 0uy " LCEo
except under peculiar conditions. Nay,
sven purely imaginary things may possess
tho faculty; the squator runs all u tho
world, yet never moves relatively to the
oarth's axis or the degrees of longitude or
latitude. 10 there any reason for suppos-
ing that what can be done by animate, by
in~animats, and by imaginary things cannot
such a. ghosts, who are, in reality, simply
non-objectivs insects? They may be this.
at least; they are az likely to be that as
anything else; and. until more is known
about them. il cannot he shown that they
are Anythinge else. And when something may
as we'll be anything AZ anything else, it be-
comes very difficult to say precisely what
it is."
"Eyidently there is one thing on which
you pride yourself. You must be nice and
precise or else You are nothing. But if a
ghost be an insect. it ought to have six
feet, six legs. "
six feet under ground" said the man. ''If
you imagine that | am making puns mere
ly, you should remember that puns are as
possible in Thought and theories and state
ments Of fact Us they arc in words. When
thoughts and things resemble each other
sufficiently, the one may be substituted for
tho other. and in commonplace thinking,
such AZ the most cultivated man shares to a
wonderful degree with sayagss, among
whom 'animism' appears everywhere, there
IL always and necessarily suspicion that a
notion is taken as q fact. Now, my notion
10 that ghosts are insects, and it may be
that tho notion may precisely represent tho
fast, in which case it would not be even an
approach to mental, let alone verbal, pun
ming. All other attempts to explain
them have proved futile, and if the
world does not accept mine the world will
be like a ship at sea without rudder, keel or
compass, and it will stay 30 till a real ghost
shall DO caught in some scoop net or other
ingenious continuance. and dissscted Just az
the ghost larva, or man. may now be. Did
you ever hear Of adeHiccated ghast Or ghosti-
kin? Are not s~pecters always examined on
the superstition that they have 10 real and
substantial being, and are therefore entitled
to more respect than would be shown them
if they could be caught, have pins run
through them and put in glass cases? I re-
fuse to think seriously about them till this.
or something like this, shall have been done.
They are nice things to talk about and to
engage the vagrous mind, but there are lots
Of such things. Leave me now, and let me
go pack to my landscapes"