ABSTRACT
Some of Mr. Peirce’s strictures depend on distinct errors and misconceptions, while others appear to be unreasonable and overstrained. Mr. Peirce prefaces his detailed criticisms with a more general remark which cannot be quite passed over. Referring to “Phantasms of the Living,” Chap. XIII., he objects to the “enormous odds ciphered out in favor of the hypothesis of ghosts,” – more correctly, to the enormous improbability that a certain series of coincidences were due to chance alone – as calculated to “captivate the ignorant,” but to “repel thinking men, who know that no human certitude reaches such figures as trillions or even billions to one.” Anxiety is clearly a condition which admits of all degrees, while at the same time it cannot be accurately measured; but all that logic demands is that coincidental cases should be excluded when the anxiety was acute enough to be regarded with any probability as the sufficient cause of the hallucination.
