Voices

Mr. Ives told me all this [i.e., the incident of the voice] the day after the funeral, and I noted it down. [Our colleague, Mr. Richard Hodgson, has had an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Ives. Mr. Ives has had no other hallucinations. The time of the boy's death was estimated only. He was expected back to dinner at 1 p.m., and it was between 12 and 1 p.m. that Mr. Ives was bathing and heard the cry. The words he heard were, ' Papa ! mamma ! ' in an agonised tone. The boy was 18 years of age. He appeared to have fallen on the rocks face downwards, from a height of about 80 feet. The 108 FURTHER AUDITORY CASES [chap. cliff at the spot begins at the summit with a sloping bank of grass, which suddenly, however, is followed by an almost sheer precipice, not seen from the top of the bank.] § 2. We come now to cases where the name heard was probably not actually spoken. The fact that the impression so often takes the form of a call of the percipient's name might be connected with the fact that this is also the commonest form of purely subjective auditory hallucination ; and might be taken as a fresh indication — parallel to the indications which have been noted in the visual class — that the telepathic phantasm, as a sensory phenomenon, truly belongs to the class of hallucinations. But it is in the very nature of this form of communication that it should strongly suggest — what in the following instance is positively affirmed — a certain occupation of the agent's thoughts with the percipient. We have often independent reason to suppose a similar condition in the visual cases ; but there is seldom anything in the visual phantasm of the agent to make it apparent. The first case is from Mr. G. A. Witt, of Fontenay House, Grove Park, Denmark Hill, S.E. September 26th, 1885. (273) When I left Bombay, on March 1st, 1876, by ss. 'Persia,' for Naples, an elder brother of mine was living in Germany, and in very bad health, though I did not, at the time, anticipate his early death. When in the Red Sea one day, sitting on deck and reading the Saturday Review, with other passengers — and I think Mrs. Fagan also — sitting near me and reading, I fancied I heard my brother's voice calling me by my Christian name. It seemed so distinctly his voice, and T thought I heard my name so clearly called, that it quite startled me, and made such an impression on me that I mentioned it to some of my fellow passengers, and at their suggestion took note of the hour and day it occurred. On arriving at Naples, some 12 or 14 days later, I