thoughts-and nothing more. They are subjective, and not objective. They are apparitions, having no reality outside of the mind, however real-like they may appear. They are ideas, mistaken for sensations. A very slight knowledge of the facts of mind will convince us of this. Let us look at some of these facts bearing on this subject, as, at first sight, it is not very obvious how our thoughts can assume a phantom shape, and appear to move about the room, and look in our face, deceiving and alarming us.

The affinity which exists between sensations and ideas is closer than is generally imagined. The only difference seems to be that in sensation the object of sense is present: in ideation it is absent, but remembered. It is certain that ideas frequently masquerade before the mind as sensations and are mistaken for them. It is so in dreams. What is more they often produce the same physical results. This happens both in our sleeping and in our waking states. Van Swieten relates that, passing a spot where a dead dog was lying in a state of decomposition, the horrid stench caused him to vomit; and that, happening to pass the same place many years afterwards, sickness and vomiting were again induced by the mere recollection of what he had formerly experienced. Sir David Brewster mentions the case of a lady (and such cases are not rare) who could never hear of any one having been subjected to severe sufferings without feeling acute twinges of pain in the corresponding part of her own person. If she was told of an arm being amputated, her own arm instantly suffered. In these cases sensations seem to come from within or rather ideas become so vivid as to resemble sensations, and to produce the same physical effects.

The substitution of ideas (I would prefer calling them "reminiscences," "recollections," or "memories,") for sensations is by no means uncommon. Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of this is in regard to sounds. The composer composes a tune, humming it

yet his piece implies the most marvellous discrimination of different tones, and their effect upon the ear. Any one with a taste for music may, in a similar manner, sing his favourite songs; uttering not a sound, yet in his mind accurately discriminating the finest gradations of sound. How can this thing be, seeing that music essentially consists in sounds? How can we accurately discriminate between sounds where there is no sound? know music and appreciate it, when there is no music? It is possible and actual only because ideas do duty for sensations, and are perfect representations of them. They are fac-similes, though somewhat more faintly printed than their originals. Accordingly, we discriminate as nicely, between the ideas of sound as we could between sounds themselves; and enjoy a tune which is wholly ideal, almost as much as one which is poured in at our ears.

Sir David Brewster-no mean authority-maintains that, in the case of spectral illusions, the spectre is painted on the retina and propagated to the mind like a true sensation, and is in everything subject to the same optical laws. He even proceeds further, and declares that the same fact "holds good "of all ideas recalled by the memory or "created by the imagination, and may "be regarded as a fundamental law in "the science of pneumatology." proof of this, he states that the spectres conjured up by the memory or the fancy "have always a 'local habitation;' that "they appear in front of the eye, and "partake in its movements exactly like "the impressions of luminous objects, "after the objects themselves are with"drawn."

In

I am afraid the facts here adduced will not bear the conclusion which is laid upon them. It would, in truth, require very strong evidence to establish what is apparently so improbable-that we cannot think of St. Paul's without a picture of it being formed on our retina; that we cannot think of a thunder storm without our tympanum being affected. There are very strong objec

with whatever authority it may be endorsed.

They must protest for his sake. Yes! and now also still more for Professor Heurtley's sake. For, if the doctrine of his letter to the Guardian is the doctrine, which he proclaims in his chair of Divinity, all who care that the youth of England should not have the lessons of their childhood confounded-that they should not learn to despise the men whom they have been taught to reverence-are bound to lift up their voice against such a Doctor. He must begin with declaring the Protest at the Diet of Spires to be atrocious; he must go on to denounce Athanasius as the most restless of all spirits, because he dared to set himself against the world—the

world meaning the majority of the Eastern and Western Churches; he must proceed to declare that those were false Apostles, who were brought before councils, and were condemned to be beaten or killed by majorities of them; he must end with exalting Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, as chief in the roll of saints. Of course he does none of these things. Is it safe, then, to punish Professors for all the heresies they may teach when they are not fulfilling their appointed office? Is it not a duty to bear witness against them, when in congregations or in newspapers they contradict what they bid us observe and do when they are sitting in Moses' seat? Your obedient Servant, F. D. MAURICE

THE age of ghosts is gone; but spectres are still occasionally seen. Indeed, the majority of mankind never go to bed, without, in "the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men," seeing phantoms flitting about them. A smaller number see visions in broad daylight, with their eyes wide open. A shadowy figure enters at a window or a door, or rises from the ground "like an exhalation," moves noiselessly about the room, takes a seat at the fire, sits for a time silent as death, and then melts into air, to the infinite relief of the spellbound spectator. Some peculiarly nervous people have such visitors almost daily. Others, the victims of intemperance, are tormented by "familiars" of a more fearful kind. A hundred devils dance before them, grin at them, deftly elude their blows, mock at their fury. Regarding the reality of such apparitions there is no doubt; they are the real representatives of the mythical

little has been written regarding them; for it is certain that, while they are understood by the few, they are still a subject of profound wonder to the many. It is in the writings of medical men chiefly that we have narratives of spectral illusions, and they too often content themselves with stating the case without accounting for it. It is true, the explanation lies a little beyond the strict limits of their profession-in the constitution of the mind rather than of the body; but a knowledge of mental science may surely be presumed on the part of every well-educated physician. Still, we want a philosophy of spectres. Even Dr. Abercrombie, with all his marvellous powers of observation, and his devotion to the study of psychology, is extremely confused in his explanation of spectral appearances, though nothing can be better than the cases which he cites.

The simple, but undoubted, explana

thoughts-and nothing more. They are subjective, and not objective. They are apparitions, having no reality outside of the mind, however real-like they may appear. They are ideas, mistaken for sensations. A very slight knowledge of the facts of mind will convince us of this. Let us look at some of these facts bearing on this subject, as, at first sight, it is not very obvious how our thoughts can assume a phantom shape, and appear to move about the room, and look in our face, deceiving and alarming us.

The affinity which exists between sensations and ideas is closer than is generally imagined. The only difference seems to be that in sensation the object of sense is present in ideation it is absent, but remembered. It is certain that ideas frequently masquerade before the mind as sensations and are mistaken for them. It is so in dreams. What is more they often produce the same physical results. This happens both in our sleeping and in our waking states. Van Swieten relates that, passing a spot where a dead dog was lying in a state of decomposition, the horrid stench caused him to vomit; and that, happening to pass the same place many years afterwards, sickness and vomiting were again induced by the mere recollection of what he had formerly experienced. Sir David Brewster mentions the case of a lady (and such cases are not rare) who could never hear of any one having been subjected to severe sufferings without feeling acute twinges of pain in the corresponding part of her own person. If she was told of an arm being amputated, her own arm instantly suffered. In these cases sensations seem to come from within or rather ideas become so vivid as to resemble sensations, and to produce the same physical effects.

The substitution of ideas (I would prefer calling them "reminiscences," "recollections," or "memories,") for sensations is by no means uncommon. Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of this is in regard to sounds. composer composes a tune, humming it

The

yet his piece implies the most marvellous discrimination of different tones, and their effect upon the ear. Any one with a taste for music may, in a similar manner, sing his favourite songs; uttering not a sound, yet in his mind accurately discriminating the finest gradations of sound. How can this thing be, seeing that music essentially consists in sounds? How can we accurately discriminate between sounds where there is no sound? know music and appreciate it, when there is no music? It is possible and actual only because ideas do duty for sensations, and are perfect representations of them. They are fac-similes, though somewhat more faintly printed than their originals. Accordingly, we discriminate as nicely between the ideas of sound as we could between sounds themselves; and enjoy a tune which is wholly ideal, almost as much as one which is poured in at our ears.

Sir David Brewster-no mean authority maintains that, in the case of spectral illusions, the spectre is painted on the retina and propagated to the mind like a true sensation, and is in everything subject to the same optical laws. He even proceeds further, and declares that the same fact "holds good "of all ideas recalled by the memory or "created by the imagination, and may "be regarded as a fundamental law in "the science of pneumatology." proof of this, he states that the spectres conjured up by the memory or the fancy "have always a 'local habitation;' that "they appear in front of the eye, and

In

partake in its movements exactly like "the impressions of luminous objects, "after the objects themselves are with"drawn."

I am afraid the facts here adduced will not bear the conclusion which is laid upon them. It would, in truth, require very strong evidence to establish what is apparently so improbable-that we cannot think of St. Paul's without a picture of it being formed on our retina; that we cannot think of a thunder storm without our tympanum being affected. There are very strong objec

regard to spectral illusions. It seems to imply that the mind can create light and project it from within upon the retina, for it is only by light that a true picture can there be formed. It seems also to imply that the mind first creates the spectre, then projects it upon the retina, and from the retina receives it back again, probably with more of a sensational character than it possessed before. That this is really involved in the theory may be made manifest. The picture said to exist on the retina must have some cause. That cause is nothing real-nothing in the external world, for spectres are allowed, on all hands, to have no actual objective existence. We must seek for it, therefore, in the mind. Nor can we believe that a vague idea would be represented by a definite and distinct picture on the optic nerve; the idea must be the counterpart, as it is the cause, of the retinal painting. Consciousness, however, does not reveal, in the case of spectral illusions, first, an idea in the mind, and then that idea projected into the outer world, and then returning to the mind in an objective form. Moreover, nature never acts in such a way-it is simpler in all its processes.

I hesitate, therefore, to go so far as the distinguished optician, and believe that in every case of spectral illusion there is a picture on the retina which is the cause of the deception in the mind. But the facts which have been adduced warrant us to believe that ideas frequently become so vivid as to be mistaken for sensations; and this alone is sufficient to account for the phenomena.

In our waking state, we generally discriminate accurately enough between our sensations and our ideas, and that just because we are always conscious of both at the same time. The genuine sensations which are constantly pouring in upon us through every one of our senses keep our ideas in their proper place. But in sleep it is different; our senses are then, in a great measure, led. The only sensations which reach

of a dull indistinct character.

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It

have the stage entirely to themselves. Sensations are shut out, and ideas having, as it were, the house to themselves, riot and revel within at their pleasure. this lies the explanation of dreams. is not exactly that we confound ideas with sensations, but that no sensations are present. Thought follows thought, according to the usual laws of associa tion, like the ever-shifting scenes of a panorama, and we live for the time in a purely ideal world. It is probable, moreover, that during our sleep our ideas become more vivid, just because our attention is not distracted nor disturbed. Our whole mind is concentrated upon them. The outer world does not divide with the inner world our mental energy. The latter monopolises it all, and accordingly rises into greater prominence. This is, probably, the reason why we remember some of our dreams so well, and remember them, too, as peculiarly vivid and real-like; while the fact of our forgetting so many of our sleeping thoughts may be taken as a proof that they were not more vivid than many of those waking thoughts which we forget so soon too.

But in our dreams everything seems to take an objective form. There appears to be not merely a process of thought, but an actual outside world We see men walking; we hear them speaking; we join with them in conversation. Mountains and streams, or, it may be, palaces, and towers, and temples, surround us on every side. There is a stage on which the visionary actors strut. This is generally regarded as the peculiar and mysterious element in dreams. But it is not really peculiar or mysterious. In all our thinking we give to our thoughts an objective form, though they stand out more distinct and more fully defined in our dreaming than in our waking states, on account of the absence of the disturbing element of sensation. In all thinking we are conscious not of our thoughts, but of their objects. But these objects belong to the outer world, and are therefore always thought of as existing there.

thought is such a representation of it as memory or imagination supplies. We think of its great outlines, of its snowy peak, of the scenery amid which it lifts itself aloft. It stands before the mind as a picture. It is not a mere thought in the brain: there is a thought in the brain, but it is of a mountain existing in Switzerland, and of this alone are we conscious. In every thought there is a representation less or more distinct of the thing thought of, and such representations in our sleep form dreams. In truth, our day dreams illustrate our night dreams. Absent men, when walking along the street, or sitting by their fire-side, may frequently be seen complacently to smile, or to knit their brows, or to clench their hands; and the secret of it is, that they have been placed by their own thoughts amid scenes and circumstances which have had such reality to them as to excite these physical manifestations of pleasure or annoyance. There is nothing, therefore, peculiarly mysterious in the objective form which our thoughts take in dreams, as this is a condition of all thinking.

In these mental facts, as we shall afterwards see, lies the explanation of almost every case of spectral illusion. There is, however, another circumstance, half mental and half physical, worthy of

note.

It is a singular, and it may be a significant fact, that all our various sensations may, in some measure, be produced by one common agent, electricity. When this marvellous influence is transmitted along the several nerves of special sense, it excites the sensation peculiar to each, and may be made to produce, in the same individual, and at the same time, flashes of light, crackling sounds, a peculiar taste, a prickling feeling, and a phosphoric smell. In a similar manner a box on the ear will produce a ringing sound; a blow on the eye, a spark of light. In all these cases it is probably the violent stimulus which is given to the nerve which is the proximate cause of the sensation. And may not that. lead us to suspect that feeble sensational

the nerves, and in the brain, which only require the excitement to be developed in consciousness? There are several circumstances which strengthen this suspicion into a belief.

No physical influence perishes all at once. Some men say that no physical influence once created ever perishes. The vibrations of the atmosphere excited by sound continually diminish, but never cease. In like manner, may not the effect produced upon the nerves of sense by the objects of sense, whether these be vibrations and vibratiuncles, as Dr. Hartley held, or something else, continue, though in a diminished and diminishing degree, after the sensation hast disappeared? We know that the sensational influence remains, and is even felt for a moment after the object is withdrawn. A dazzling body may be distinctly seen after the eyes are shut. A burning stick rapidly whirled round appears an unbroken ring of light; which can be accounted for only by supposing that the sensation produced by the object, when at one point of the circumference, has not vanished before it reaches it again. The length of time the sensation remains has even been made the subject of calculation. It is said to have been found by M. D'Arcet, a French philosopher, that the impression of light continued on the retina about the eighth part of a second after the luminous body was withdrawn. Is there, then, anything to prevent us supposing that the sensation may remain in the organ even after it has disappeared from the consciousness, and that the organ only requires to be stimulated by electricity, or excited by a blow, to send a faint sensation into the mind?

There are some facts to give probability to the supposition. Mr. Boyle has mentioned an individual who continued for years to see the spectre of the sun when he looked upon bright objects, and this fact appeared so interesting and inexplicable to Locke, that he consulted Sir Isaac Newton regarding its cause. The great philosopher in his reply stated an experiment which he had made