There is not a more decisive instance of the identity of Belief and Association, than the dread of ghosts, felt in the dark, by persons who possess, in its greatest strength, the habitual disbelief of their existence. That dread implies belief, and an uncontrollable belief, we need not stay to prove. When the persons of whom we speak feel the dread of ghosts in the dark, the meaning is, that the idea of ghost is irresistibly called up by the sensation of darkness. There is here, indisputably, a case of indissoluble association; nor can it be shewn that there is anything else. In the dark, when this strong association is produced, there {373} is the belief; not in the dark, when the association is not produced, there is no belief.[105] [Bain's footnote 105: The efficacy of association is not correctly explained in this instance. The influence of Terror on belief is unquestionably great; but the operation is more complicated than the description given of it in the text. Terror, in the first place, is a depressing passion, and as such impairs the tone of mind suited to the anticipation of coming good, or in the obverse, increases the tendency to anticipate coming evil. In the next place, it is the state most liable to a morbid fixed idea of evil, calamity, or danger. Thirdly, we have learned in the course of our lives to expect numerous possible calamities; and are maintained in serenity only by seeing clearly a good way before us, so as to be sure that none of these possible evils are approaching. Darkness extinguishes for the time our assuring fore-sight, and thus, by removing a counteractive, leaves us a prey to all the demons of mischief. Fourthly, the emotion of Terror has its corresponding imaginations, into which are taken up with avidity all the suggestions of danger that have ever been made to us, including ghosts, hobgoblins, and other agents of calamity, when we have not natural vigour or express training to set them at nought. The mere fact communicated to us, on a few occasions, that ghosts appear in the dark, and sometimes perform dreadful deeds, would not by force of association alone produce all that un-nerving effect which children and weak or superstitious persons are liable to when, at night, exposed in a lonely place, or passing a churchyard.--_B._]