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 132
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
s, though all reason is against us, all tradition is for us; and this conformity of tradition is surely of some weight, since I think it would be difficult to find any parallel instance of a universal tradition that was entirely without a foundation in truth; for with respect to witchcraft, the belief in which is equal…
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 onlys, though all reason is against us, all tradition is for us; and this conformity of tradition is surely of some weight, since I think it would be difficult to find any parallel instance of a universal tradition that was entirely without a foundation in truth; for with respect to witchcraft, the belief in which is equally universal, we now know that the phenomena were generally facts, although the interpretations put upon them were fables. It may certainly be objected that this universal belief in ghosts only arises from the universal prevalence of spectral illusions; but if so, as I have before observed, these spectral illusions become a subject of very curious inquiry; for, in the first place, they frequently occur under circumstances the least likely to induce them, and to people whom we should least expect to find the victims of them; and, in the second, there is a most remarkable conformity here, too, not only between the individual cases occurring among all classes of persons, who had never exhibited the slightest tendency to nervous derangement or somnambulism, but also between these and the revelations of the somnambules.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis 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 onlyA 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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