But there is a third presumption to which the skeptical may have recourse, in order to get rid of this well-established, and therefore very troublesome fact, namely, that Miss Lee _was_ ill, although unconscious of it herself, and indicating no symptoms that could guide her physician to an enlightened diagnosis; and that the proof of this is to be found in the occurrence of the spectral illusion; and that this spectral illusion so impressed her that it occasioned the precise fulfilment of the imaginary prediction—an hypothesis which appears to me to be pressing very hard on the spectral illusion; for it is first called upon to establish the fact of an existing indisposition of no slight character, of which neither patient nor physician was aware, and it is next required to kill the lady with unerring certainty, at the hour appointed, she being, according to the only authority we have for the story, in a perfectly calm and composed state of mind! for there is nothing to be discerned in the description of her demeanor but an entire and willing submission to the announced decree, accompanied by that pleasing exaltation, which appears to me perfectly natural under the circumstances; and I do not think that anything we know of human vitality can justify us in believing that life can be so easily extinguished. But to such straits people are reduced, who write with a predetermination to place their facts on a Procrustean bed till they have fitted them into their own cherished theory. In the above-recorded case of Miss Lee, the motive for the visit is a sufficient one; but one of the commonest objections to such narrations, is the insignificance of the motive when any communication is made, or there being apparently no motive at all, when none is made. Where any previous attachment has subsisted, we need seek no further for an impelling cause; but in other cases this impelling cause must probably be sought in the earthly rapport still subsisting and the urgent desire of the spirit to manifest itself and establish a communication where its thoughts and affections still reside; and we must consider that, provided there be no law of God prohibiting its revisiting the earth, which law would of course supersede all other laws, then, as I have before observed, where its thoughts and affections are it must be also. What is it but our heavy material bodies that prevents us from being where our thoughts are? But the being near us, and the manifesting itself to us, are two very different things, the latter evidently depending on conditions we do not yet understand.