The New York Library.

One reads in the Courrier des États-Unis:

A New York newspaper publishes a rather curious fact, of which a certain number of persons already had knowledge, and on which, for some days, quite amusing comments were being made. The spiritualists see in it one more example of the manifestations of the other world. Sensible people do not go so far to seek the explanation, clearly recognizing the characteristic symptoms of a hallucination. This is also the opinion of Dr. Cogswell himself, the hero of the adventure.

Dr. Cogswell is the head librarian of the Astor Library. The devotion he allows himself in the completion of a complete catalogue of the library often leads him to consecrate to that work the hours he ought to allot to sleep. It is thus that he has occasion to visit alone, at night, the rooms where so many volumes are arranged on the shelves.

About a fortnight ago, around eleven o'clock at night, he was passing, candlestick in hand, before one of the nooks full of books, when, to his great surprise, he perceived a well-dressed man who seemed to be examining carefully the titles of the volumes. At first, imagining that it was a thief, he drew back and observed the stranger attentively. His surprise became even keener when he recognized, in the nocturnal visitor, Dr. ***, who had lived in the vicinity of Lafayette-Place, but who had been dead and buried for six months.

Dr. Cogswell does not much believe in apparitions, and he fears them still less. Nevertheless, he resolved to treat the phantom with attention and, raising his voice, said to it: Doctor, how is it to be explained that during your life you probably never came to this library, and now you visit it after being dead? Disturbed in his contemplation, the phantom looked at the librarian tenderly and disappeared without answering.

- Singular hallucination, said Mr. Cogswell to himself.

No doubt I have eaten something indigestible at dinner.

He returned to his work; then he went to bed and slept peacefully. The following day, at the same hour, he had a desire to visit the library. In the very same place as the day before he found the same phantom, addressed to it the same words, and obtained the same result.

Here is a curious thing, he thought; I must come back tomorrow.

Before returning, however, Dr. Cogswell examined the shelves that seemed to interest the phantom so keenly and, by a singular coincidence, recognized that they were filled with ancient and modern works of necromancy. The following day, on meeting the dead doctor for the third time, he varied the question and said to him: “This is the third time I meet you, doctor. Tell me if any of these books disturbs your repose, so that I may have it removed from the collection.” The phantom did not answer this time, any more than the other times, but disappeared definitively, and the persevering librarian was able to return at the same hour and to the same place, on successive nights, without meeting it.

Meanwhile, advised by friends to whom he had told the story, and by the doctors whom he consulted, he decided to rest a little and to make a journey of some weeks to Charlestown, before resuming the long and patient task he had imposed upon himself, and whose fatigue had no doubt caused the hallucination we have just related.

Observation. – On the article, we shall make a first observation: it is the lack of ceremony with which the deniers of Spirits arrogate to themselves the monopoly of good sense. “The spiritualists – says the author – see in the fact one more example of the manifestations of the other world; sensible people do not go so far to seek the explanation, clearly recognizing the symptoms of a hallucination.” Thus, according to this author, only those persons who think as he does are sensible; the others have no common sense, even were they doctors, and Spiritism counts them by the thousands. A strange modesty, in truth, that which has for its maxim: No one is right, except us and our friends!

We are still to have a clear and precise definition, a physiological explanation of hallucination. But, in default of explanation, there is a sense attached to this word; in the thought of those who employ it, it signifies illusion. Now, whoever says illusion says absence of reality; according to them, it is a purely fantastic image, produced by the imagination, under the dominion of a cerebral overexcitement. We do not deny that it may be so in certain cases; the question is to know whether all the facts of the same kind are in identical conditions. Examining what was related above, it seems that Dr. Cogswell was perfectly calm, as he himself declares, and that no physiological or moral cause would have come to disturb his brain. On the other hand, even admitting in him a momentary illusion, it would still remain to explain how that illusion was produced several days in succession, at the same hour, and with the same circumstances; this is not the character of hallucination properly so called. If an unknown material cause impressed his brain on the first day, it is evident that this cause ceased after a few instants, when the phantom disappeared. How, then, did it reproduce itself identically three days in succession, with twenty-four hours' interval? It is to be regretted that the author of the article neglected to do so, for he must, no doubt, have excellent reasons, seeing that he belongs to the group of sensible people. However, we acknowledge that, in the fact mentioned above, there is no positive proof of the reality and that, strictly speaking, one could admit that the same aberration of the senses may have been able to repeat itself. But will it be the same when the apparitions are accompanied by circumstances, in a certain way, material? For example, when persons, not in a dream, but perfectly awake, see absent relatives or friends, of whom they were absolutely not thinking, appear to them at the moment of death, which they come to announce, can one say that it is an effect of the imagination? If the fact of the death were not real, there would incontestably be illusion; but when the event comes to confirm the prevision – and the case is very frequent – how can one admit anything other than mere phantasmagoria? Even were the fact unique, or even rare, one might believe in a play of chance; but, as we have said, the examples are innumerable and perfectly proven. Let the hallucinationists be disposed to give us a categorical explanation and, then, we shall see whether their reasons are more conclusive than ours. We should like, above all, that they prove to us the material impossibility that the soul – they especially, who deem themselves sensible par excellence, and admit that we have a soul that survives the body – that they prove to us, we were saying, that this soul, which must be everywhere, cannot be around us, see us, hear us and, from then on, communicate with us.