Now does not all this read as if Mrs. Piper were dreaming of George Eliot, just as any of us might dream?  Its quality seems as if it might be a transcript of one of my own dreams, with the important exceptions that the dreamer wrote it all out, and that it is made up from a series of dreams, coming up at intervals for about six months, and apparently only when Hodgson was present, though there are records of George Eliot appearing to other sitters at other seances.

* * * * *

We have, then, groped our way to a vague notion of a dream-life on the part of certain sensitives, which seems to participate in another life, in some ways similar, that is led by intelligences who have passed beyond the body.

We are not saying that this interpretation of the phenomena is the correct one:  on the contrary we are constantly haunted by a suspicion that any day it may be exploded by some new discovery.  But we do say, with considerable confidence, that of all the interpretations yet offered—­even including the pervasive one that “the little boy lied,” it surpasses all the others in the portion of the facts that it fits, and in the weight attached to it by the most capable students—­even by James, who, however, did not accept it as established, though he gave many indications that he felt himself likely to.  Myers definitely accepted it, not from the impressions of the sensitives, but from having them capped by a veridical impression of his own.  Through the church service one Sunday morning, he felt an inner voice assuring him:  “Your friend is still with you.”  Later he found that Gurney, with whom he had a manifestation-pact, had died the night before.  We are not aware that Myers ever published this, but he told it to the present writer and presumably to others.  The convictions of Hodgson and Sir Oliver Lodge were interpretations of the phenomena of the sensitives, though Hodgson, it is now known, was probably mainly influenced by communications from the alleged postcarnate soul of all possible ones most dear to him.

But to return to the sensitives.  They seem to be somnambulists who talk out and write out what they see and hear in their dreams.  What they see, and consequently what they say, is a good deal of a jumble.  They see and hear persons they never saw before.  Sometimes they identify themselves more or less with these personalities.  Mrs. Piper nearly always does.  Those others say many things, and very often correct things, unknown to sensitives, to anybody present, or to anybody else that can be found.  Rather unusual among ordinary dreamers, but by no means unprecedented.  But from here on the experiences of the sensitives are more and more unusual.

Some of the people Mrs. Piper (I speak of her as the representative of a class) never saw before, and of whom she never saw portraits, she identifies from photographs.  Very few people have done that:  perhaps very few have had the chance.  There have been many times when I am sure I could, if photographs had been presented.