of the hits has remained vivid, while the misses have passed into oblivion.* When we call to mind how many dreams are dreamt every night, most of them related to the interests and fortunes of the individual, and what a multitude of events happen in a day, it would be strange if occasional coincidences between the dream and its fulfilment did not take place. In the same way, when we reflect how many prayers are uttered in a day, most of them related to the immediate interests and concerns of the individual, and what a multitude of events happen in a day, we have no right to wonder at, or to conclude much from, the occasional coincidence between the prayer and its answer. A person naturally prays for what he wants, and may well happen, in a certain proportion of cases, to get, directly or indirectly, in the natural changes and chances of events among which his fortunes lie; and the fact that he does sometimes get it is not enough, therefore, to warrant the conclusion that he gets it through supernatural interposition, particularly *It was an ancient parable that there were two gates of sleep, out of one of which went false dreams, and out of the other true ones "Sunt geminæ somni portæ, quarum altera fertur when sympathetic friends, able to help him, know what he prays for. Most persons are ill more than once before they fall ill of the sickness of which they die; and if prayers are made for their recoveries on all these occasions of illness, there must in the nature of things be more favourable than unfavourable answers. He who perceives a divine verdict in the event, whatever it be, is guilty of the presumptuous error of the persons whom Christ severely rebuked for their eager discovery of a divine judgment in the fate of the unfortunate sinners upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. The truly pious believer will not fail to perceive the divine verdict in every case, and may justly rebuke the little faith of those who, not receiving the benefit they asked for in prayer, but receiving instead the evil which they specially asked to be delivered from, fail to see therein the true answer to the prayer and the certain proof of its efficacy. What but faithless faith is it which thinks the prayer not answered, when the event goes directly contrary to what was asked ? It would be not less curious than instructive to have a complete collection made of all the various omens that have been in repute among different nations and in different ages, in order to ascertain whether the greater number of them were believed to portend good fortune or misfortune. There can be little doubt that the ill omens would be found to preponderate largely over the good omens, if that were done, even as the demons and evil spirits have preponderated over the benevolent fairies and the good spirits; and for this obvious reason, that misfortunes and misery are more common in the world than good fortune and blessings, however optimists may pretend differently; and therefore the omens foreboding ill have obtained more credit because of their more frequent fulfilment. Friday retains still a bad preeminence as an unlucky day, not because it is really more unlucky than another day, but because any day of the week on which attentive note was taken, through a sufficiently long succession of experiences, of the events happening on it would have a preponderance of ills; a proof of this being that, in the opinion of some persons, Monday is an unlucky day on which to begin a new enterprise. Omens of good fortune, being more often discredited by the event, would be limited to comparatively rare occurrences and sequences. However bright, then, the ideal theory of life, a solid basis of pessimism is discovered practically in the instinctive experience of the race, as it is implied also in the central thought which is at the heart of all religions; in the invention of a future life to redress the calamities of this life; in the hearty thanks which devout Christians give to Almighty God, when it has pleased Him to deliver a brother or sister from the miseries of this sinful world. § Fallacies of Coincidence in Observation. The tendency of the mind to respond to agreeing instances and to overlook opposing instances, out of which so many errors of thought have sprung, is not manifest in reasoning from facts only, but operates equally in the observation or perception of the facts themselves; it is, indeed, this tendency which so often vitiates direct observation of that which lies plain to sense, were sense only applied plainly to it. A wrong idea or image of the fact, suggested by some agreeing features of it, prevents the person from seeing the real fact. How easy it is to make mistakes as to the identities of persons, and how often it happens that a witness, or one witness after another, swears positively in a court of justice to the identity of a person, who is not only not the person he is believed to be, but perhaps has no great likeness to that person! Nothing can be more positive than the assurance with which the mistaken evidence is given on such an occasion, nothing more inexcusable as an example of observation, nothing more instructive as an illustration of a common fallacy of observation. As in reasoning, so in perception, the tendency to generalize is stronger than the tendency to discriminate. What happens is that the resemblance of one or two leading features excites the notion of a certain person in the observer's mind, and the mental image of that person thereupon usurps his attention so that he has no eyes for the manifest and manifold minor points of difference in the real object. Perceiving the like features, he instantly, although unconsciously, fills in the rest of them, not from the real face before him, but from the notional image which he has had evoked in his mind; just as in ordinary vision the habit is to see a few features or signs only which, informed by previous experience, we interpret into the object; or as in ordinary hearing we catch only partial sounds of the word, and fill up the rest of the sound to complete the words of a known language-for we cannot do it with a little-known language-from the internal reservoir of former experience. Were any one to mark well and to take careful note of that which he really sees and hears in the course of a day, he would be not a little surprised to discover how small a part of what he thinks he sees and hears he does actually see and hear, and how often he thinks he sees and hears much that he never sees and hears at all. Passing glances or glimpses suggest objects, as passing sounds do words, |