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Berlin, who was constantly harassed by figures of men and women, of beasts, and birds. Dr. Aldershott mentions a man who saw a soldier endeavouring to force himself into his house in a threatening manner, and, on rushing forward to prevent him, was astonished to find it a phantom. This man had afterwards a succession of visions, and was cured by bleeding and purgatives. The first vision was traced to a quarrel which he had had with a drunken soldier some time before, and which had made a deep impression on his mind.

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In febrile diseases, such cases are very common. "A highly intelligent friend," says Dr. Abercrombie, "whom I at"tended several years ago, in a mild "but very protracted fever, without "delirium, had frequent interviews with a spectral visitor, who presented the appearance of an old and grey-headed man, of a most benignant aspect. "His visits were always conducted in 66 exactly the same manner: he entered "the room by a door, which was on the "left-hand side of the bed, and seated "himself on a chair on the right-hand "side; he then fixed his eyes upon the "patient with an expression of intense "interest and pity, but never spoke, "continued distinctly visible for some seconds, and then seemed to vanish "into air."

Cases like these might be quoted without end; but, as the existence of apparitions is not doubted, these examples are enough to illustrate their nature, and we shall now proceed to investigate their source.

The simple fact, already alluded to, that all thought is objective and pictorial, affords us a solution of the mystery. We cannot think without thinking of something, and that something must be thought of as outside the mind. It is not our thoughts, but the things which we think of, that are present to our consciousness; and this, our thinking, consists of a series of visions. We think of men and women whom we have seen, and these by our very act of thought are summoned before the mind and appear there with less or more

distinctness. We are unceasingly seeing phantoms, but they are dim and shadowy; we know they are of the mind's creation, and are beheld only with the mind's eye, and therefore we are not surprised at such frequent and familiar visitors. We have already seen how the thoughts of the day verge into the dreams of the night. Any one may trace the process for himself by attending to what passes in his own mind when his eyes are shut and sleep is approaching. He will find his sensations becoming fainter, and his thoughts taking a more palpable and definite form. While yet awake he begins to see those visions which he sees more vividly when he has sunk into slumber. Here, then, we have in our own thoughts the rudimental forms of spectral appearances.

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In our waking state our thoughts have normal vividness, and, so long as it is so, we understand them perfectly. understand, and are not surprised at, the mental phantasmagoria. But the normal state may be disturbed by a variety of causes, either psychical or physical Fever or inflammation, brandy or opium, may stimulate into extreme sensibility the organ of thought. Violent emotion may agitate the mind and destroy its balance. The one cannot be affected without the other being affected to. A deep mental impression must leave its deep mark on the mental organism. Memory has its seat in the brain as well as sense, and, no doubt, has its furrows there. On the other hand, any irritation in the organism must reach the mind; for they have all things in common. Any such state of excitement, sensibility, or irritation, may make our mental conceptions take a phantom shape. They have only to acquire, from any cause, an abnormal vividness to stand out before us as apparitions; and, considering that all our thoughts are visions, it is only a wonder we are not more haunted by spectres than we are. Our freedom from such visitants is a proof of the fine balance of the mind.

Almost every case of phantom-seeing may be traced to such causes as these here indicated. If we grieve bitterly

over some one taken away from us by death, if we brood incessantly upon his form and features, our thoughts will possibly acquire such force as to destroy the balance between our sensations and our ideas, and the result will be a spectral appearance of the departed. If the brain be feverish or inflamed, if the whole nervous system be morbidly sensitive, our fancies will occasionally stand out with such vividness as to be mistaken for sensations. It is very seldom that a person in perfect health is troubled with such masterful, phantom conceptions, unless in cases of violent emotion, or where some sensation or idea has made a profound impression on the mind. A few people, however, have been so peculiarly constituted as to be able to call up spectres at their will; but this they could do only by concentrating their mind upon its conceptions, under which process they acquired such vigour as to assume the phantom character. "He has also the power," says Dr. Abercrombie, regarding a gentleman who saw visions, "of calling up spectral "figures at his will, by directing his "attention steadily to the conception of "his own mind; and this may consist "either of a figure or a scene which he "has seen; or it may be a composition "created by his imagination. But, though "he has the faculty of producing the

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If spectral apparitions be only our own thoughts in an abnormal and unnatural degree of activity, we shall expect them to have such variety as our thoughts have, both when we are awake and asleep. And so it is; they come into existence according to the laws which regulate the succession of all our thoughts. There is an endless variety of them, and they often start up before the mind, we know not how; just as we frequently cannot tell how particular fancies or reminiscences spring up within us. In general, however, we can trace their origin, and recognise old thoughts

under the weird-like robe of the phantom. It is the face of the deceased friend that looms upon us in vision, it is the subject which has been often and earnestly thought of which rises up before us as a spectre. The solitary old man sits down to dinner with the gallants and wits who lived when he was young and gay, for the figures of these are ever flitting before his memory, though the events of yesterday are forgotten. Luther, after praying for hours that he may be delivered from the devil, rises from his knees, and beholds the devil before him, and drives him from his presence by hurling the ink-bottle at his head.

I have already alluded to the proofs we have of sensational influences lingering in the brain, perhaps in the mind, after the object of sense is withdrawn. We have seen how Sir Isaac Newton was troubled with the spectre of the sun. Illusions of hearing also occur, though less frequently than those of vision. Dr. Abercrombie mentions a gentleman who, when recovering from an affection of the head, for which he had been severely bled, happened to hear a bugle sound, and its notes rang in his ears for nine months afterwards, till his health was completely restored. In such impressions made upon the nerves, the brain, and the mind, we have another source of phantom sights and sounds. Thus Dr. Ferriar mentions of himself, that, when on the verge of manhood, if he had been viewing any interesting object in the course of the day, and afterwards went into a dark room, the whole scene rose up before him, with a brilliancy equal to what it originally possessed, and remained floating before his vision for some minutes. The sensibility of the nervous system belonging to this period of life sufficiently accounts for the fact.

The facts here alluded to, as I have already hinted, are quite analogous to the familiar facts of memory. In memory, events withdrawn from consciousness appear to leave their vestiges in the brain, for any violent excitement of the brain will resuscitate dead reminis

cences.

We have already seen that it is so in fever. In like manner, persons

who have been taken out of the water in a state of suspended animation and restored, have frequently declared that, when they were in articulo mortis, their whole past lives rushed up before them with appalling vividness. Others have declared how their wives and children visibly appeared to them. If memorial impressions remain stamped upon the cerebrum, which is said by physiologists to be the seat of memory, there is no improbability in sensational impressions remaining in the sensory, which is understood to be the organ of sense. Any excitation, either mental or bodily, may revivify the one as readily as the other.

In regard to such matters, however, it becomes us to speak doubtingly, and not dogmatically. Many things connected with mind are still wrapped in mystery. There is an unknown land here still awaiting a discoverer. Some of the facts connected with insanity, with catalepsy, with mesmerism, with som

nambulism, are very obscure.

There

are persons who, when in these states, exhibit a character quite alien to that which they have when in their right mind. There have been somnambulists who, though stupid and ignorant when awake, have been accomplished, ingenious, brilliant, when asleep. There have been cataleptics and somnambulists, too, who have had two distinct currents of existence: when awake, remembering nothing of what they did when asleep; when asleep, remembering nothing of what they did when awake. In mesmerism, a state of mind similar to these is artificially produced, and the patients made to think and feel according to the pleasure of the operator. There are plainly some laws of mind and of brain of which we have not yet even guessed. But facts are accumulating; glimpses of light are being occasionally obtained; and it is evident that, in regard to the human mind, we are at this present day on the verge of some great discovery.

MANAGEMENT OF THE NURSERY.

BY ARCHIBALD MACLAREN, OF THE GYMNASIUM, OXFORD.

PART I.

AIR, DIET, THE BATH, AND CLOTHING.

"Он, any place is good enough for a nursery! Any room is good enough for children to play in!" Mothers are still heard to speak thus: when they do so it augurs ill for the health of the little ones. There is no place good enough for a nursery while a better is to be found. Pass the ground-floor, and then select the largest, the loftiest, the best ventilated and the best lighted room in the house-the room with the largest windows, and commanding the cheeriest prospect and make that the nursery.

I have seen nurseries as dark and as close as a prison-cell; selected avowedly because they were so "out of the

way." How can the ruddy cheeks of children but blanch, and their bright eyes but grow dim in such places? Drop your handkerchief on the lawn, and let it lie there but a single day, and, when you lift it again, you will find the grass pale and dry and discoloured, because it has been excluded from the light and the air; and yet light and air are not more necessary to its healthy growth than to that of the little denizens of the nursery.

Select for the nursery the best room in the house, and in it let no household office be performed: it is to be devoted to a purpose more important than boudoir or study-let it be kept as sacred. Let its furniture be no more than is actually required, and each article be placed in its appropriate locality; let these be kept free from every speck of

damp or dust; and let the carpetless floor be swept and brushed, and at proper intervals cleansed and scoured until the white boards shine again. For a large portion of every day, and frequently, in our variable climate, for the entire day, it must serve as dining-hall, and school-room, and play-ground all in one. Important duties all-and it would be difficult at this period of life to say which is the most important. And the nursery must serve for them all. Therefore let it be the housemaid's first care to open its every window and door as wide as sash-line and hinge will allow, that the sweet morning air may freely enter and take possession; for it is not sufficient merely to admit the air; it must be courted in, enticed in, wooed to enter and take full and absolute possession, before the coming of its rightful occupants.

But what is air, and in what consists its purity or impurity? Atmospheric air may briefly be said to consist of three gases in very unequal proportions. In 100 parts 79 will be nitrogen and 21 oxygen, with a very small quantity of carbonic acid-not more than about 5 parts in 10,000. This is its standard condition, and in the preservation or nonpreservation of this condition consists its purity or impurity-its fitness or unfitness for human use. For the present purpose the first constituent may be viewed as simply retaining the others, for the oxygen is that alone which is required by the lungs of an animated creature for the use of the body, and carbonic acid that which they impart in return; oxygen being so, essential to animal life that it could not be supported many moments without it-carbonic acid being so inimical to it, that death ensues whenever it exceeds a very small percentage of the air inspired. In every breath we inhale, by night or by day, we extract from the air a quantity of its oxygen; in every breath we exhale, we give back not only the air inhaled deprived of this oxygen, but charged with a proportionate quantity of carbonic acid. The change induced in the character of the air by the act of

breathing makes it at once obvious that it cannot be inspired a second time without loss and injury, and this loss and injury are of course added to every time it is inspired, until it becomes a deadly poison, and life becomes extinct under its influence.

Nothing deteriorates, nothing loses its purifying, revivifying properties so soon as air. Not only is it liable to be rendered impure and unfit for use by its being the common recipient of the waste particles of every surrounding object (and hence the necessity for the systematic, uniform and frequent cleansing of the nursery), but, even when pure, it must be kept in constant motion to continue so. Fill a room with fresh air, shut doors and windows, give it no outlet, and in half an hour it will have deteriorated, and this deterioration will be perceptible to the sense of smell, and will diminish the pleasure and comfort of respiration. Air, to be fit for human lungs, must be less or more in motion, and, to be this, it must be in communication with the great air-ocean outside of our dwellings-that bright translucent sea, at the bottom of which we all live, and move, and have our being. But this can be secured by the smallest channel, just as the waters of a lake may be kept fresh by the inlet of the smallest rivulet, with the outlet of the most diminutive sluice. An aperture of an inch wide along a single window will keep sweet and in healthful motion the air of a large room. This principle is generally understood and practically carried out in all house-ventilation. A permanent connexion with the external air is effected by the fireplace and its flue; the air of the room, it is calculated, will rise through the flue, where the atmospheric pressure is least, and the air outside on а level with the room will press through chink of window and door to fill its place. And, under ordinary circumstances, this calculation is sound, and the results satisfactory; but, in rooms where fires are seldom kept, the air in the flue becomes damp and stagnant, and the communication with the exter

nal air is virtually stopped. Hence the value of fires as aids to ventilation. Not only do they change the atmosphere more rapidly while they are burning, and at the same time draw all lingering damp from walls, and floor, and furniture, but they dry and keep free the permanent channel of ventilation.

But this means will be found insufficient where the air of the room is to supply many pairs of lungs. A nearer and more direct channel becomes necessary; and there is none better than that given by lowering the windows a little space, according to the state of the weather, at the highest point above the heads of the inmates. Through this opening the effete air will pass, and its place be supplied, and motion obtained, by the admission of fresh air through other channels. But, for the nursery, even this will be found inadequate to the preservation of a pure atmosphere, and the process just recommended for the beginning of the day should be repeated at given periods throughout its course-namely, the setting wide open of every window and door, while its inmates have been withdrawn. Pure air is as important as proper food-if possible, more so; for, while the natural effects of improper food may be resisted by the counter-influences of air, bathing, clothing, and exercise, nothing can counteract the influence of impure air. The organs of mastication, digestion, and assimilation will all have an influence on the conversion of food into blood; but air passes through no intermediate channel, undergoes no intermediate operation-at once from lip to lung it passes, and the union for good or for evil is final. Life may be supported many days without food; it cannot be supported many moments without air.

In the living organism, from the hour of birth there is going on a continual process of death and decay among the particles which make up its tissues; each particle preserves its vitality for a limited space only, and then separates from the tissue of which it has formed a part, and resolves into the inorganic elements of which it is composed.

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There is thus going on a continual disintegration and separation from the body of all its tissues. This process is greatly influenced by the activity of the bodily functions, every operation of the muscles or nerves involving the disintegration and decay of a certain part of their substance. We cannot lift a finger, we cannot execute a movement so slight as the raising of an eyelid, or the opening of the lips to speak a word, without causing a change in certain of the molecules or particles which compose the muscles and nerves employed in the execution of the movement, and in those which compose the nerve-centre in which the movement originates; and this change involves their death or decay. This being the case, it is obvious that a second process is necessary to repair the loss thus sustained by the body in the discharge of its manifold functions, and which is in relation to their activity. This reparative process is performed by the blood, which, in its neverending circulation, bears to each tissue the material for the replacement of all waste and for the building up of all additions; and, as this material is borne along through channels penetrating to every part of the organism, each tissue, by a law incomprehensible but unerring, selects from it and appropriates that particular pabulum which is fit for its special use, and that only. At every point of the body is this law in unceasing operation; a loss of vital power, followed by disintegration, decay, and removal, to be met by a replacement of material, a reproduction of parts, a renewal, an increase of vital power. And, as the disintegration of each part is hastened by its activity, so, by an equally unerring law, is the flow of blood bearing the renewing material increased in that part. Wherever nervous or muscular action is in fullest force, there will be the fullest distribution of life-restoring blood. From the moment of birth does this war between growth and decay, between life and death, go on. During the period of growth and development, the formative capacity, by a property inherent in the body itself, is greater

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