naturally induced to enquire, whether an original taint of the blood, or disease, or other causes of a strictly moral description, might not produce effects analogous to those which spring from the action of chemical fluids. The motion of the blood in the veins and arteries is accelerated by mental impressions. A high state of excitement is easily produced in certain constitutions; giving occasion to strange combinations in the train of ideas, deranging the principle of association, and bestowing upon recollected images a degree of strength, vivacity and reality which surpass the most intense sensation proceeding from external objects. The condition of confirmed insanity, it is presumed, consists in the ascendency which the imagination acquires over the senses. The ideas of the madman on certain points, are not only much more vivid in his mind than the impressions upon his external organs; but from the diseased state of his blood and nerves, the images of former scenes rise up before his fancy as real and palpable objects, and deceive his weakened intellect under the form of spectres, ghosts, and demons.

Dr. Ferriar reminds us that this species of delusion admits of many gradations and distinctions exclusive of actual insanity; and the famous case of Nicolai, the Prussian bookseller, is one which proves the truth of the Doctor's statement, and illustrates at the same time the general principle upon which all such phenomena are to be explained. The person just named informs the world that he saw, in a state of mind completely sound, and after the first terror was over, with perfect calmness, for nearly two months, almost constantly and involuntarily, a vast number of human and other forms, and even heard their voices; though all this, he adds, was merely the consequence of a diseased state of the nerves and an irregular circulation of the blood. In the year 1791, when he happened to be overtaken by some misfortune which greatly affected his feelings, he saw, while his wife and another person were in the room, a form like that of a person whom he knew to have been some time dead.

"I pointed at it, asking my wife if she did not see it? It was but natural that she should not see any thing: my question therefore alarmed her very much, and she immediately sent for a physi cian. The phantasm continued about eight minutes. I grew at length more calm, and being extremely exhausted, fell into a restless sleep, which lasted about half an hour. The physician ascribed the apparition to a violent mental emotion, and hoped there would be no return: but the violent agitation of my mind had in some way disordered my nerves, and produced further consequences, which deserve a more minute description."

He then proceeds to narrate, that at four in the afternoon, the form which he had seen in the morning re-appeared. He was by himself when this happened; and being rather uneasy at the incident he went to his wife's apartment. Thither he was accompanied by the apparition, which however at intervals disappeared, and always presented itself in a standing posture. About six o'clock there appeared also several walking figures, which had no connection with the first. After the first day, the form of the deceased person appeared no more, but its place was supplied by many other phantoms, sometimes representing aoquaintances, but mostly strangers. Those whom he knew were composed of living and deceased persons, but the number of the latter was comparatively small.

"These phantasms seemed equally clear and distinct at all times and under all circumstances, both when I was by myself, and when I was in company, and as well in the day as at night, and in my own house as well as abroad: they were however less frequent when I was in the house of a friend, and rarely appeared to me when I was in the street. When I shut my eyes these phantasms would sometimes vanish entirely, though there were instances when I beheld them with my eyes closed; yet when they disappeared on such occasions, they generally returned when I opened my eyes. I conversed sometimes with my physician and my wife of the phantasms which at the moment surrounded me; they appeared more frequently walking than at rest, nor were they constantly present. They frequently did not come for some time, but always re-appeared for a longer or shorter period, either singly or in company, the latter however being most frequently the case. I generally saw human forms of both sexes, but they usually seemed not to take the smallest notice of each other, moving as in a market place, where all are eager to pass through the crowd; at times, however, they seemed to be transacting business with each other. I also saw several times people on horse-back, dogs and birds. All these phantasms appeared to me in their natural size, and as distinct as if alive, exhibiting different shades of carnation in the uncovered parts, as well as in different colours and fashions in their dresses, though the colours seemed somewhat paler than in real nature. None of the figures appeared particularly terrible, comical, or disgusting, most of them being of an indifferent shape, and some presenting a pleasing aspect. The longer these phantoms continued to visit me, the more frequently did they return, while at the same time they increased in number about four weeks after they had first appeared. I also began to hear them talk; the phantoms sometimes conversed among themselves, but more frequently addressed their discourse to me; their speeches were commonly short, and never of an unpleasant turn. At several times there

appeared to me both dear and sensible friends of both sexes, whose addresses tended to appease my grief, which had not yet wholly subsided: their consolatory speeches were generally addressed to me when I was alone. Sometimes however I was accosted by these consoling friends while I was engaged in company, and not unfrequently while real persons were speaking to me. These con- . solatory addresses consisted sometimes of abrupt phrases, and at other times they were regularly executed.-Though my mind and body were in a tolerable state of sanity all this time, and these phantasms became so familiar to me that they did not cause me the 'slightest uneasiness, and though I even sometimes amused myself with surveying them, and spoke jocularly of them to my physician and my wife, I yet did not neglect to use proper medicines, especially when they began to haunt me the whole day, and even at night as soon as I awaked."

Nicolai gives so candid an account of his case that we are enabled to perceive at the first glance that the singular disease under which he laboured proceeded as well from a morbid state of the body as from a highly excited condition of the mind. It does not appear, however, that the phantasms which disturbed his repose were uniformly connected with the causes of his grief. On the contrary, so far as appears in his narrative, the greater part of them was totally unconnected even with his prevailing trains of thought. At all events, the proximate cause was a disordered state of the blood; for which reason, he never failed upon receiving a visit from his unsubstantial friends to send for the surgeon to have his veins relieved. Blood-letting and medicine were at all times successful in putting to flight the various tribes of phantasms. The airy figures of horsemen, ladies, dogs, birds, and pedestrians took their leave of the bibliopole upon the arrival of his apothecary. His bane and antidote became quite familiar to him; and accordingly, though he had a more extended intercourse with the world of spirits than fell to the lot of St. Theresa, or any other dreamer of dreams in ancient or modern times, he became neither frightened nor fanatical. He traced all his spectres and apparitions to a physical cause, and he sought his remedy in a similar source.

Dr. Hibbert has introduced into his book a great deal of valuable matter on the pathology of spectral illusions as connected with different habits of body and periods of life. He has extended his observations to such phenomena of that kind as result from "the highly excited states of particular temperaments"-" from the hysteric temperament"-" from the neglect of accustomed periodical blood-letting"-from such as occur as "Hectic symptoms"-from febrile and inflam

matory affections-from inflammation of the brain-from general nervous irritability-and from hypocondriasis.

There is a curious case brought forward under the head of the hysteric temperament, a condition of body incident to women at a certain age. The memoir in which it was originally described is inserted in the last volume of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, under the title of "Uterine Irritation, and its effects on the Female Constitution." The patient in question was a girl of sixteen, who had shewn general symptoms of plethora, the first symptom of whose mental disorder was an unusual somnolency. This was succeeded by disturbed and talking dreams, in which she uttered wild incoherent expressions, or sang musical airs. Indications of somnambulism followed. She would fall asleep, imagine herself an episcopal clergyman, go through the ceremony of baptizing children, and give an appropriate and extempore prayer. Or she would fancy herself living with her aunt near London, and placing herself upon one of the kitchen stools, ride upon it with a clattering noise, and take an imaginary journey to Epsom races. These illusions or wanderings, as the girl herself named them, would suddenly come on when she was walking with her mistress's children, or was going to church; while she was dressing herself; while she was arranging the furniture of the house; or while she was busily engaged in the duties of the pantry or of the dining table. About a quarter of an hour previous to each state of this kind she felt somewhat drowsy; a pain in the head, usually slight, succeeded; afterwards a cloudiness or mistiness came over the eyes; a peculiar ringing noise stunned her ears, sometimes resembling the sound of carriage wheels, and accompanied with a feeling of motion as if she herself were seated in the vehicle.

The state of all these sensations, says Dr. Hibbert, bore. some slight degree of resemblance to that which results from an incipient effect on the circulation after inhaling the nitrous oxide-false yet vivid external impressions having been felt. When, however, the fit was fairly on, there was an evident diminution of sensibility to outward things; and in proportion as her sensations became less vivid, her ideas or mental images became more intense. It is remarkable, too, that though she could not name objects when the light of a candle or of the fire shone fully upon them, she could point them out correctly in the shade, or when they were dimly illuminated. She also recognized any of her acquaintances much better by their shadows than by looking at their persons. In one of her paroxysms being requested to state what she felt,

she put her hand, to her forehead, complained of a pain in her head, and said that she saw mice running through the room. She had often said the same thing when her eyes were shut; and added, that she was frequently accompanied by a little black dog, of which she had never been able to rid herself.

Dr. Hibbert is pleased to indulge in some curious speculations relative to the impression which phantasms are supposed to make on the organs of sense; and his opinion seems to be, that the retina of the eye, for example, is the organ of ideas no less than of sensations. It is not easy to conjecture in what acceptation of the term the eye can be called the organ of ideas, except in so far that it is the medium through which the form and colour of external objects are made subjects of thought. This is the common meaning of the psychological language which is usually employed by metaphysical writers; but the autho rnow before us appears to hold that the organ of vision is somehow made subservient to those vivid recollections or images of the mind which he elsewhere denominates spectral illusions. For example: a friend of the bookseller, Nicolai, who was just recovering from a nervous fever, and was still very weak, imagined that, while he lay one night in bed, perfectly conscious, too, that he was awake, he saw the door of his chamber open, and a woman enter, who advanced to his bed-side. He looked at the figure for some moments, but not liking her, he turned to his wife; and on directing his eyes once more towards the phantom, it was not to be seen.

Now, bere comes the puzzle. It is admitted that, in this incident, the real sensation, or perception, rather, of a closed door (for it is taken for granted that there was light enough in the room for the sick man to see the door,) was followed by the fantastical representation of the door being opened by a female figure. The question then is, says the learned Doctor,

"If those very points of the retina on which the picture of the real door had been impressed, formed the same point of the visual organ on which the idea or past feeling that constituted the phantasm was subsequently induced; or, in other words, did the revival of the fantastical figure really affect those parts of the retina which had been previously impressed by the image of the actual object?"

Does not Dr. Hibbert perceive that he is mystifying this enquiry, by using hard words without either meaning or object? If the phantasm consisted, as he himself tells us, of "an idea or past feeling," how is it possible that it could