Research source

I will conclude this chapter with the following extract from “Lockhart’s Life of Scott:”

Date of account: First published 1848
Source: The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
Reference: The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers · selected passage 131
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

No doubt there are examples of error and examples of imposture, so there are in everything where room is to be found for them; and I am quite aware of the propensity of hysterical patients to deceive, but it is for the judicious observers to examine the genuineness of each particular instance; and it is perfectly certain and well established by the German physiologists and psychologists, who have carefully studied the subject, that there are many above all suspicion. Provided, then, that the case be genuine, it remains to be determined how much value is to be attached to the revelations, for they may be quite honestly delivered, and yet be utterly worthless—the mere ravings of a disordered brain; and it is here that conformity becomes important, for I can not admit the objection that the simple circumstance of the patients being diseased invalidates their evidence so entirely as to annul even the value of their unanimity, because, although it is not logically impossible that a certain state of nervous derangement should occasion all somnambules, of the class in question, to make similar answers, when interrogated regarding a subject of which, in their normal condition, they know nothing, and on which they have never reflected, and

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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