WHEN Considering the causes-before passing to those sources of hallucinations which are capable of being appreciated, that is to say, to the secondary causest-it must be borne in mind that a hallucination is composed of two distinct elements, the sensible sign, and the mental conception. These are mysteriously united, like the body and the soul, and are a perfect emblem of man's nature. The hallucination which is the material embodiment, a daguerreotype of the idea, is only the bodily portion, while the mental conception is the psychical portion. It is by defining these two elements that we must endeavor to seek for the cause of this singular phenomenon.

We have seen that fevers and many other diseases favor the production of hallucinations; but, at the same time, hallucinations also occur in persons of sound mind, and who are in good health. These, and such cases as the one which follows, can only be explained by a particular condition of the nervous system.

Example 101. Madame the Viscountess A., whom I attended for many years, was one day conversing with me about the apparitions recorded in the Scriptures, and in which she fully believed. "An event," she said, "happened some twelve years back, which

The causes of hallucinations so closely resemble those of illusions that we have not considered it necessary to separate them.

The primary cause of this and all other phenomena will always escape us. It is this which constitutes the difference between the finite and the infin. ite, toward which we constantly tend, often in spite of ourselves, but which all our endeavors after knowledge will never dissipate in this life.

satisfied me of the existence of those visions to which science gives the name of hallucinations. I received a letter from my son-in-law, the Count O., informing me of the severe illness of my daughter, who was many leagues away from me. The letter contained nothing which led me to anticipate a fatal termination. On entering my room-it was about nine o'clock in the morningthinking upon the state of my daughter, I heard a voice, in a feeling tone, utter these words: Do you love me!' I felt no surprise, and immediately replied in a loud voice, Lord, Thou knowest that I place my whole trust in Thee, and that I love you with all my soul.' The voice then added, 'Do you give her to me?' I felt a thrill of dread pass through me, but immediately recovering myself, I replied, However painful may be the sacrifice, Thy holy will be done!' I then sank on my couch in a state of great depression. The next day a second letter from my son-inlaw informed me of my dear child's death."

The Viscountess was a person endowed with an excellent understanding, a devout Catholic, but without bigotry or fanaticism. The hallucination took place in broad daylight, when she was in excellent health, and when her thoughts were concentrated on the illness of her daughter. Bred up in the Christian faith, and having recourse to prayer in all her afflictions, she felt no surprise at the voice she heard. When Madame A. related this anecdote to me, twelve years had passed away, but her belief in the reality of the event was as firm as on the day of its occurrence. This instance is to us a most convincing proof of the way in which the apparitions of the Middle Ages are to be explained, and of the erroneousness of that system which regards hallucinations as an invariable indication of insanity.

In a medical point of view, the nervous and circulatory systems undoubtedly perform a very important part in the production of hallucinations; but the difficulty is, how do they act? We are

entirely ignorant of this even in the ordinary operations of the mind. We only know that various stimulants, acting on the blood and on the nervous system, give greater brilliancy and vivacity to the ideas, which simply means that there is a greater influx of blood to the brain. We are neither acquainted with the agent which produces this excitement, where it operates, nor what are the changes which it produces. Must we not then admit a predisposition-that unknown something-which in one. person gives rise to apoplexy, in another to inflammation, and in a third to softening of the brain, or some other form of disease? Thus, then, under the influence of a moral or physical cause, is produced an excited state of the nervous and vascular systems, which give rise to hallucinations, without, however, its being possible to establish an intimate connection between the two series of events.

Having determined the part which is performed by the organic element, we next enter upon the consideration of the mental, where we must ultimately seek for the cause of the singular phenomena of hallucinations. Such an inquiry is beset by insurmountable difficulties, unless we first establish certain data to guide us in our inquiry. Thus we shall devote a first chapter to the examination of the action of social and individual influences, and of moral and physical causes, in the production of hallucinations; and in a second, we shall endeavor to penetrate more deeply into their mode of formation, by examining them in relation to psychology, to history, to morality, and to religion.

The causes of hallucinations should not be confounded with those of insanity, as was formerly the case. It is true, the majority of the insane are subject to hallucinations; but it is equally certain, that they may occur by themselves. Even when the hallucinations are combined with insanity, it is not always difficult to recognize their origin. Lastly, they may be conveniently

classed into those which coëxist with a sound state of mind, and into those which are accompanied by disease.

FIRST DIVISION-MORAL CAUSES.

Hallucinations constantly appearing in mental diseases, à priori, the division into moral and physical causes ought to be equally applicable to them.

A circumstance, however, which we have pointed out in our Mémoire sur l'Influence de la Civilization, in our opinion, decides the question in favor of moral causes. In fact, epidemic hallucinations, such as vampirism, ecstasy, and the visions observed in the different forms of plague, are not susceptible of any other explanation. In these cases, the hallucinations are transmitted by means of the ideas which exist in society, or have been inculeated by education and by the force of example, that is, by a true moral contagion, just in the same way as thousands of men will fly to arms at the command of a celebrated general, or as a multitude will massacre a defenseless wretch, hurried away by the ravings of a madman.

The two-fold action of the moral on the physical shows that hallucinations are amenable to the common law; but their nature, the part in which they take place, alike indicate the predominance of one of these influences; thus, at the commencement, we stated that a preoccupied state of the mind, the prolonged concentration of the thoughts upon one subject, were conditions highly favorable to the production of hallucinations. The examples which we have taken from poets, philosophers, and the founders of religious creeds, have proved this to be the case: at the same time, we have strongly insisted on the difference between these hallucinations and those which are observed in insanity.

Men who, from a defective education, are constantly in a state of over-excitement, whose organization has become exceedingly

susceptible, and in whom the imagination is left without restraint, are subject to hallucinations. Certain imaginations, says a modern writer, are necessarily superstitious; they are generally the most fertile and the most exalted; they prefer fable to reality; and attached by their instincts to the impossible, or at least to the ideal, they find nature too poor for them. They delight in the sombreness of the forest, for it is the abode of phantoms and of genii. The poetic imagination of the ancients encountered such beings in open day; and beneath the influence of their brilliant climate it created phantoms and spirits, and the laughing dryad of the wood. The same thing happens to persons whose minds are always filled with chimeras and fantastic creations.

This love of the marvelous, which justifies the saying, that man is ice to wisdom, but fire to folly, seems to us a fruitful source of hallucinations. When a man has passed ten, fifteen, or twenty years of his life in dreaming, it requires but a slight concentration of the mind upon his favorite subject for its image to become intensified, and suddenly transformed into a hallucination.

The marvelous histories and the tales of terror which were so long the accompaniments of childhood, prepared the mind, when it is naturally sensitive, to become the recipient of all the extravagant creations of the age. But it is said that in the present day this system is completely changed, and children are brought up with a feeling of contempt for these ancient superstitions. This argument might hold good when speaking of colleges and schools; but those who make use of it, forget the attendants to whom the child is entrusted during its earliest years, and the nursery, with its follies and its tales of horror, in the midst of which the child grows up. I shall content myself with quoting the example of the poet Robert Burns. "I owed much," he says, "to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ig norance, credulity, and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning