Myth and Science Part 10

The vivid imagination of artists is well known, so that they are able to see and represent things and persons, either in words, with the pencil, or the chisel, just as if they were actually present. The image so vividly realized is a necessary condition of the exercise of their respective arts. When great poets, such as Dante, Ariosto, Milton, and Goethe, conceived and idealized their thoughts with every detail of circ.u.mstances, persons, actions, expressions, and movements, no one can deny that the images were vividly present to their minds, and that while in the act of composition these were unconsciously regarded as having a real existence. If these poetic descriptions are presented to the attentive reader in such a vivid form as to transport him into a real world, much more must the authors of these marvellous creations have looked upon them as real at the moment of composition. The impression of truthfulness is indeed produced by the fact that the writers saw these things as though they were real. I speak of states of consciousness, not of reflex observation, of intense moments of sensation and imagination, which are unnoticed by the man who experiences them in his waking moments. Such is the reader of a poem, a romance, or history, the spectator of a picture, who is able for the time to abstract himself from surrounding objects, and who implicitly believes that he sees those places and persons, or whatever the book or painter has described or represented. If suddenly interrupted, he rouses himself, and may be said to awake to the present reality of things, as if startled from a dream.

Wigan relates that a celebrated portrait painter worked with such quickness and facility that he painted more than three hundred portraits in a year. When he was asked the secret of his rapid execution and of the faithfulness of the likeness, he replied, "When any one proposes to have his portrait taken, I look at him attentively for half an hour, while sketching his features on the canvas; I then lay the canvas aside and pursue the same method with another portrait, and so on. When I wish to return to the first, I take his person into my mind and place it before me as distinctly as if he were actually present. I set to work, looking at the sitter from time to time, since I am able to see him whenever I look that way." Talma a.s.serted that when he was on the stage, he was able by mere force of will to transform his audience into skeletons, which affected him with such emotion as to add force and energy to his action. Abercromby speaks of a man who had the faculty of calling up visions with all the vividness of reality whenever he pleased, by strongly fixing his attention on mental conceptions which corresponded to them. Yet he was a sane man, in the prime of life, perfectly intelligent, and versed in practical affairs.

A very slight withdrawal of the attention from surrounding objects is all that is necessary to enable artists and some other persons to call up these images with vivid distinctness, since even in the waking state the image may for the moment appear to be actually before them. Any one might attain to the same power of verification if the transition from the real to the merely ideal image were not in the waking state so instantaneous and easy; whereas in a dream the state of illusion is uninterrupted, and it is physiologically impossible for the mind to pa.s.s immediately from the image, which is believed to be real, to the simply representative idea of the thing.

Even in the waking state, the image and representative idea of the thing naturally tend to become, or to appear to be, actual realities, even in a strictly normal condition of mind and body. Nor do they only implicitly tend to become such by the innate impulse of the mind, but they actually become so in fugitive moments of which man is scarcely conscious, and they appear to him exactly as they do in dreams. Hence it follows that there is no hard and fast line between the sleeping and waking states, so far as the nature of images, their source, action, and combinations are concerned, when men are distracted in mind, and the course of their thoughts is not voluntarily directed to some definite object; so that by a psychological process the phenomena of the waking state may be partly transformed into those of dreams. The vivid character of the image, presented to the senses as if actually there, is common to both phenomena. The way in which we begin to dream shows how, owing to our physiological conditions, we pa.s.s through regular stages from the waking state into that of sleep.

"Nuovo pensiero dentro a me si mise, Dal qual piu altri nacquero e diversi; E tanto di uno in altro vaneggiai Che gli occhi per vaghezza ricopersi, E il pensamento in sogno tras.m.u.tai."[33]

So Dante writes in the "Purgatorio" with deep and subtle truth. Each man can verify for himself the exactness of the great poet's description.

I myself can readily study the phenomena of dreams, since I never sleep without dreaming so vividly that I remember all the circ.u.mstances in the morning. I have used all sorts of artifices in order to trace the beginning of sleep and dreams, and always with the same result, so that I am certain of the accuracy of experiments which have been repeated a hundred times. I have examined other persons who have made the same observations, all of whom agree with me.

When repose, the herald of sleep and dreams, begins, my thoughts wander in an irregular and somewhat confused manner. As they are gradually subjected to the a.s.sociations to which they successively give rise, they are transformed into more vivid images, a vividness which is always in inverse proportion to the attention. This gradually produces the state which has been described by Maury and others as hypnagogic hallucination; that is, the images seem to be real, although the subject is still partly awake, and the voluntary exercise of thought is lost from time to time in this species of incipient chaos. It is at this point that images are really most intense, and that every idea a.s.sumes a body and form, every image a reality: finally, when the body and the brain have reached the physiological conditions of sleep, thoughts which had been changed into hypnagogic images in the intermediate stage between sleep and waking, are altogether transformed into the real images of dreams.

By an effort of will I have often been able to surprise myself in this intermediate stage, and the same thing has been done by others, and it always appears that this is the real moment of transition from wakefulness to dreaming, I have been able to verify the fact that the first dream is only the continuation of our last waking thoughts, which have now become dramatic and real I have also observed that this intermediate stage between waking and dreaming, during which the images are real and vivid, although we are still conscious of our real condition, goes on for a long while, sometimes for a whole night, with brief intervals of sleep. This has occurred to me when I was kept awake, either when travelling at night, or when I had taken a large draught of water before lying down (other liquids or food does not produce the phenomenon) or if I have been looking during the day at objects illuminated by dazzling sunshine. In all these circ.u.mstances the bright and vivid images appear reduced to an almost microscopic scale, although very distinct in form and colour; in ordinary cases, the images appear of the ordinary size, but not without a tendency to become smaller.

I believe that there is a physical cause for the reduction and attenuation of the images in the excessive excitement of the retina, or central encephalic organ in which images are formed in conscious concurrence with the cortical part of the hemispheres. Owing to the excitement caused by wakefulness, by fatigue, by sunshine, or in some cases by the condition of the nerves of the stomach, the objective projection on psychical s.p.a.ce, partly transmitted by heredity and gradually formed by a.s.sociations and local signs,[34] is arrested by the innate force of the image on the organ, and it appears to be smaller and in proportion with the relative smallness of the image which is produced by minute vibrations and by the susceptibility of the cellule. This intermediate and persistent stage of hypnagogic images serves in every way to explain the physical genesis of involuntary hallucinations.

As a proof that the image physiologically a.s.sumes the form of a real appearance, I may mention the experience of myself and others. When suddenly awakened from a vivid dream I have sometimes, even when I was fully awake, seen for an instant the figures of my dream still moving, and projected on the wall. This fact shows that even the images of our waking state have, in the physiological conditions of the brain, a tendency to take real forms, so that they may be termed normal, or more properly, inchoate hallucinations, corrected by the conscious efforts of our waking state and external consciousness. So that it might be said that dreams are at first the transformation of our waking thoughts into normal images and hallucinations, and afterwards into those of dreams, properly so called.

If the hypnagogic phase actually affects the cerebral cellules in connection with the various senses of which they are the organs, the phases of sleep and dreams, strictly so called, have more general conditions. The idea, converted into an image presented to the senses, may thus be said to have three stages: that of the waking state, which depends as we have said on the intensity and vividness with which it is reproduced, aided by a momentary detachment from the real environment; secondly, the hypnagogic phase, in which there is the physiological action of the nervous centres, which produce the image, though still with the implicit consciousness of the waking state; and finally, the actual dream, in which this implicit consciousness is almost always wanting, and the psychical exercise of thought is completely transformed into visions and figures which are believed to be real. This in its turn depends upon the other two causes, and on the physiological relaxation of the body, which is to a great extent isolated, so that the effectual impulses of external nature are greatly attenuated.

In the waking state, the whole body and all its organs of relation and movement are in tension. The cerebro-spinal axis virtually excites the whole muscular and peripheral system in such a way that relaxation or relative repose becomes impossible. But the brain, with all its dependencies and appendices, is not only the organ of thought, but it stimulates and directs our whole system, as numerous experiments have shown. In the waking state both these functions are exercised equally, as far as the impulses and functions of the body are concerned, and as long as the psychical and organic characteristics of the waking state continue. But in sleep the exciting influence of the brain is diminished, and the brain transmits much less of the normal excitement and normal tension to the spinal axis with its ramifications in the afferent and efferent nerves; in the waking state an external impression is promptly conveyed to the centres, whence it returns in corresponding movements with the usual connection and rapidity, whether reflex or deliberate. Since in sleep the relative condition is flaccid and torpid, this action no longer takes place. For if the brain be affected by strong impressions, and these are followed by corresponding movements due to reflex action, as is often the case, even in sleep, the dreamer is only obscurely conscious of them, and they almost wholly depend on the spinal axis, and the peripheral ganglia.

As we have said, the function of the brain is duplex; it stimulates and directs, and it is also sentient and conscious, and this second function is persistent in dreams. Although the brain is no longer directed by a power which dictates psychical acts and phenomena, yet its automatic action is not destroyed, and to this the apparent reality of images seen is owing, since there is no longer any distraction from the external world, or, at all events, its impulses are so attenuated as to be un.o.bserved. In such conditions past images recur with an appearance of reality owing to the mnemonic and automatic action of the brain; such a tendency exists in the waking state, and the images are a.s.sociated and dissociated in a thousand ways, by means of a.n.a.logies, resemblances, former combinations of facts, and series of facts a.n.a.logous to those of the waking state, and are modified by suggestive impulses. We have experimental proof, to which I can add my own irrefragable witness, that the stimulating influence exerted by the brain in the waking state is dormant in sleep, and that only its automatic act of representation remains active, with the occasional exercise of an aroused and conscious will.

The following strange and unpleasant phenomenon generally occurs to me once or twice a year. All at once, in the midst of a deep sleep, I become wide awake; I am fully conscious of myself, of the place where I am, of my position and the like, and wish to move like a person who is fully awake. Yet for some time this is impossible; the psychical, cerebral faculty is perfectly awake, and master of itself, but not the stimulating faculty, so that the limbs do not respond to the first impulse of the will. All my efforts are unsuccessful; I only succeed in escaping from this unpleasant situation by uttering with great difficulty some inarticulate sound, which acts as a shock, and I thus obtain the mastery of my body, for the nerves of speech and the muscular movements of articulation also fail to answer to my will. If this occurs when I am alone, the struggle is severe, and there is a violent shock to the whole body before its equilibrium is restored and the motor function of the brain resumes its office.

It is therefore manifest that the stimulating function of the brain is dormant in sleep and dreams, but its automatic, psychical function persists; it sometimes happens that the stimulus of the will is awakened before the stimulus of motion, and that the brain may be aroused to consciousness for some moments before it has resumed its normal functions as a stimulating organ, which were attenuated and relaxed in sleep. The abnormal condition of paralysis proves and confirms this fact.

Let us now ascertain the cause of the various psychical and physiological conditions which aim at and often succeed in presenting to the mind a mere representative sign as a substantial and real image.

What is the cause of the apparent reality of dreams? The image is clearly a psychical phenomenon, containing a sensible element of which we are conscious; the fundamental faculty of the perception is exerted on it as on a real object, and the immediate results are precisely identical. The reader will remember that we have shown that a phenomenon involves the intuitive idea of an active subject, so that the image also, in accordance with the innate faculty of perception, must normally appear to the mind as such. When this is not the case, it is because the normal effect of natural phenomena, to which our attention is constantly directed, and our mental education and hereditary influence, have accustomed us to distinguish at once between the mere idea and the real object, and thus we discern the difference between the normal action of thought and sense, and illusions, hallucinations, and dreams. But since these psychical and physiological conditions lose their force when the habit and actions of our waking state are dormant, the primitive and innate entification of the image quickly recurs, as we can plainly see from the previous a.n.a.lysis.

This is so much the case, that some savage peoples even now find it hard to distinguish real events from those of dreams, and this is owing to a defect in their memory or to the imperfection of their language. In fact, all civilized and barbarous peoples in the world have without exception believed, and still believe, in the reality of images seen in dreams, and their personification has been the source of an immense number of myths. Even now, with all our civilization and advanced science, not only the common people, but many of those in fashionable and tolerably cultivated society, believe in the reality of dreams and in their hallucinations, and derive from them fears, hopes, and warnings for their future life.

I will give one instance in a thousand to prove the innate tendency even in the act of dreaming to transform the image into a real object. It appeared to me that I was in a large room filled with acquaintances and strangers, who discussed an event which had really occurred in the city a few days before. All at once I raised my eyes to the wall of the room, and saw a large picture, representing a landscape with distant mountains, streams, cottages, and animals. As I looked, the picture was gradually transformed into a real object, and I found myself, together with the company before mentioned, in the midst of the fields, on the bank of the river, and within one of the cottages.

In another dream, I appeared to be conversing with an old soldier on the sh.o.r.es of a lake; after some incoherent talk, he began to describe a b.l.o.o.d.y battle in which he had taken part; he had not gone far before the narrative was changed for an actual occurrence, and I was in the midst of a real battle, such as the soldier had undertaken to describe.

Another night I dreamed that I was reading a tragic poem, relating terrible deeds of blood and rapine, and suddenly I seemed to have become an actor or real spectator of that which I had at first read in a book.

In another strange dream I was going over a difficult pa.s.s in a hired carriage, and I seemed to see before me a friend from whom I had parted on the previous day, when he got into an omnibus to return to the country. I soon saw in the distance a large coach-builder's establishment, a vast enclosure with sheds and carriages, and in the _piazza_ I saw the manager, a man I knew, who had really some appointment in a carriage manufactory; the building recalled by a.s.sociation the familiar appearance of the high chimneys which rose above the roof, and while thinking of those chimneys with my eyes fixed on the manager, he appeared to me to be changed into a very high chimney, still bearing a human face. Finally, not to multiply examples, I remember a dream in which I was present at a popular disturbance, where one woman, more furious than the rest, came to blows with her husband, and called him a dog. Suddenly the scene changed, and I was transported to a courtyard in which there were poultry, pigs, and a fine dog of my acquaintance, called Lightning. Again the scene changed, and I found myself in a country district with some friends, exposed to a violent storm of thunder and lightning.

We clearly see from these facts that whatever may be presented to the imagination is transformed into a real object in the dream itself, so that it might be called a dream within a dream, and in the last instance the trans.m.u.tation pa.s.ses through three images and consecutive objects.

This trans.m.u.tation not only consists in the transition from our waking thoughts to the image of our dreams, but it takes place in the act of dreaming; such is the power of the faculty of perception, in which we find the first origin of myth in man, and its roots also in the animal kingdom. Thus the genesis of myth, as far as the entification of the image is concerned, is the same as that of dreams.

The normal illusions of the senses, which are believed to be real by primitive men, and by those ignorant of physical laws, have a similar origin. The objection of such phenomena as a mirage, or the tremulous effect produced in tropical regions by the refraction and reflection of light on trees, rocks, and mountains, so well described by Humboldt, is due to ignorance of the laws of nature, and this is in fact an entification of the phenomenon, occasioned by the innate tendency to animation which is proper to the perception. In this it is easy to trace the genesis both of myth and dreams. The fact of hallucination is more complex, even in its normal state, that is, in those general conditions of mind and body in which reason has complete command over us.

Without entering into any a.n.a.lysis of the various forms of hallucination of which many able psychologists and physicians of the insane have treated, let us turn to the more ordinary cases in which an image of the mind is projected on the external world so as to appear real. The roots of such a phenomenon are strictly organic, and belong to the centres in which the image is formed, as we have already observed; this image sometimes stands out in such vivid relief on the psychical s.p.a.ce that it seems to be an external, not, as it usually appears in less vivid form, an internal intuition. The hallucinations which Nicolai describes himself to have experienced may be taken as a cla.s.sical example. When Andral was returning from an autopsy, he clearly saw the corpse stretched before him as he entered his room. Goethe, Byron, and many others, have been affected in the same way. I myself have occasionally had hallucinations of the kind when in a perfectly healthy condition of mind and body; one, in particular, of a very vivid character, occurred when I awoke one morning and seemed to see a tall and venerable priest entering my chamber. It is needless to multiply examples; similar facts abound in cla.s.sic books in English, French, German, and other languages.

Let us rather study the phenomenon and trace its origin.

It is clear on the one side that the images of the hallucinations of sight or hearing appear to have a real existence, so that they may be observed and studied with ease; and it is also certain that this image has no external existence, and is simply a cerebral fact, due to the organs adapted for perception. Without considering the cause of the external projection, to which I have already alluded, since perhaps its physiological and psychical genesis is not yet fully understood, we must consider the image, so far as it is believed to be real.

In cases of normal hallucination the reason is intact, and the observer is conscious of the illusion, yet notwithstanding this positive judgment the image has an appearance of complete reality. The cause of this illusion is evidently the same as that of the illusions of dreams, and of the origin of myth; namely, that everywhere and always the mental or natural phenomenon and its image are respectively entified. In the normal waking state, habit and other causes on which we have touched render our ideas of things altogether immaterial, as merely psychical forms and representative signs, but when the excitement of the organs increases, so as to present them to the consciousness as objective images, then, owing to the interruption of the ordinary process, they are suddenly entified, and appear as an external phenomenon.

Hallucinations are therefore explained by our theory, and it is further confirmed by the hallucinations of animals, and especially by the delirium of dogs and other animals affected by hydrophobia, or by cerebral excitement artificially produced by alcoholic and exhilarating drugs.

If a man is habitually subject to many and various hallucinations, and his sane judgment esteems them to be such, they are undoubtedly unusual phenomena, but they do not in any way injure the rational exercise of the mind. It is only when he believes the images to be real that the abnormal state begins, termed delirium if it is of short duration, and madness if it is permanent. We must examine hallucination under these new conditions.

In the delirium of fever, or in various forms of disease, the cerebral excitement is so great that not only the deliberate exercise of reason, but the power of estimating external objects is lost, and the organs of the senses are so completely altered, that the perceptions themselves are exaggerated and confused. In this state hallucination reaches its highest point, and the patient sees, hears, and feels, directly or indirectly, strange and terrible things: wild beasts, enemies of all kind, torments; or again, pleasing and agreeable images. Independently of the alteration in various sensations produced by the morbid alteration of the special organs which induce them, the real cause of this phenomenon consists in the objection of mental sensations and images. Such an objection of images or sensations, considered in the act which transforms them into a reality, depends on the same cause as all other acts of perception; there is always an entification of the phenomenon, which in this case is a vivid internal image, appearing to be external and real.

The entification of images is still more direct and powerful because in this morbid crisis the necessary corrections made by reason cannot take place, since the sick man is for the time deprived of it, and he is in fact a dreamer, whose condition is intensified by abnormal excitement.

Entification is now displayed in its nude and native state, and serves to explain the constant mental process, and the true nature of the representations of the intellect. The transition is easy from delirium to madness, for although an insane person is not always delirious, but sometimes calm and composed, yet there is a fundamental resemblance to delirium in the change in his states of consciousness and its relative organs, which imply a constant hallucination. The most famous and acute physicians of the insane estimate that eighty out of a hundred insane persons are subject to hallucinations. The morbid condition which generates them is also produced by debility, by anaemia, and the senile decay of the cerebral organs, since they occur in dementia, idiocy, and old age, and the physiological and mental causes are the same; the power of fixing the attention and governing the thoughts is diminished, owing to the weakening of the vivid consciousness of the external world, produced by a torpidity of the afferent organs. In these cases the recollections which are not altogether lost sometimes reappear as hallucinations. The hallucinations of madness, in its various forms of dementia, idiocy, and dotage, are all, apart from their morbid and organic conditions, derived from the same source which produces myths, dreams, and normal hallucinations; the objective entification of images is due to the innate faculty of the perception, which leads to the immediate personification of any given phenomenon. We have shown that, given a sensation, there naturally arises the implicit notion of a subject and a cause, and this natural impulse is further developed by the influence of heredity; both in man and animals the constant and powerful sense of individual life is infused into the phenomenon perceived.

The various forms of madness throw a clearer light on this necessary and primitive fact of human and animal perception. The act of sensation may then be said to be under its own direction, and generates itself in the automatic exercise of the brain, as in dreams, without the explicit, disturbing, and modifying influence of reflection, and the habit of rational a.n.a.lysis. The act of sensation is spontaneously completed and developed in and with its own const.i.tuents, and since it is isolated from other modes and exercises of thought, its real nature appears. The hallucinations of madness, produced by the mental realization of images, either detached or in a.s.sociation, prove that all our mental images or ideas have a tendency in themselves to become real objects of consciousness; with this difference, that a sane man recognizes these mental entifications by their mobility and incessant alterations, which contrast with the fixity and permanence of external and cosmic phenomena.

The following considerations will confirm the truth of these facts. In our advanced state of civilization, thought may, after so many ages'

exercise, almost be said to have become part of the organism by the indisputable effect of heredity; and the phenomenon of the recurrence to memory of past facts and distant places is obvious and intelligible, since our judgment of them is never subject to illusion, or only in rare instances and in abnormal conditions. But this judgment is less obvious and easy in the case of primitive savages who have advanced little beyond the innate exercise of the intelligence. The rational a.n.a.lysis of the states of consciousness has not been made, and hence their special and general distinctions are seen with difficulty or not seen at all.

Consequently the primitive and natural amazement of man must have been great, when by day, and still more in the lonely silence of night, persons, places, and his own past acts recurred to his mind, and he was able to contemplate them as if they were actually present. He was incapable of giving an explanation of this marvellous fact in the rational and reflective manner which is possible to psychologists and to all civilized men. This revival of the past appeared to him as a fact in its simple and spontaneous reality; he made no attempt to explain it, but it was presented to his consciousness like all other natural facts.

The only explanation of the phenomenon appeared to him to be that these images did not recur to the mind by the necessary action of the brain, but that by their own spontaneous power they were recalled to take their part within his breast: he supposed the phenomenon to be objective, not subjective.

Prophecy, for instance, was often supposed to be a recollection, and some primitive accounts of the genesis of things, handed down by tradition, were reputed to be inspired, and objectively dictated to the mind. The Platonic theory of reminiscence relies on these conceptions.

The power which recalled the images to memory was supposed to be external, and identical with that which raises up the images of dreams; primitive man traced a fanciful ident.i.ty between the phenomena of memory and of dreams, and the distinction between them was not supposed to consist in the actual images, but in the modes of their appearance in the waking or sleeping state. The images a.s.sumed in the memory a relative reality, somewhat resembling those of dreams. In fact, some savages do not clearly distinguish between the images of these states, and see little difference between the spontaneous recollection of things, the fancy, and dreaming. This also occurs in children, who at a very early age often call by name absent persons and things which recur to their memory; and on the other hand they do not distinguish the facts of real life from those of dreams. I have observed this fact in several children.

Among primitive peoples it often happens that an object with which they are unfamiliar, but which has some a.n.a.logy with those with which they are acquainted, becomes a.s.sociated with the latter, and is const.i.tuted into a compound being, endowed with life. The Esquimaux believed the vessels commanded by Ross to be alive, since they moved without oars.

When Cook touched at New Zealand, the inhabitants supposed his ship to be a whale with sails. The Bosjesmanns ascribed life to a waggon, and imagined that it required the nourishment of gra.s.s. When an Arauco saw a compa.s.s, he believed that it was an animal; and the same belief has been held by savages of musical instruments, such as grinding organs, which play tunes mechanically. Herbert Spencer mentions similar behaviour in some men belonging to one of the hill tribes in India; when they saw Dr.

Hooker pull out a spring measuring tape, which went back into its case of itself, they were terrified and ran away, convinced that it was a snake. From these facts, which might be multiplied indefinitely, it not only appears that everything is spontaneously animated by man, but also that the images of his memory are fused with those which are actually present, since their respective factors are esteemed to be equally real.

This primitive objection of the images of the memory also occurs in the mythical representations of dreams, which, as the images of absent objects, have much in common with the images of the memory. In fact, all peoples, as we have seen, have believed in the reality of dreams.

The North American Indians believe in the existence of two souls, one of which remains in the body while the other wanders at pleasure during the dream. The New Zealander supposes that the dreamer's soul leaves his body, and that he meets the things of which he dreams in the course of his wanderings. The Dyak also believes that the soul is absent during sleep, and that the things seen in dreams really occur. Garcila.s.so a.s.serts that this was likewise the Peruvians' belief. A tribe in Java abstains from waking a sleeper, since his soul is absent in dreams. The Karens say that dreams are what the _la_ or soul sees during sleep. This theory is also found among more civilized peoples, as for instance in the Vedic philosophy and the Kabbala, and it has come down to our days among the common people, and even among those of some culture.

One belief connected with dreams, generally diffused among all savage and civilized peoples, is that of the appearance of dead men, or of their ghosts. Of this all the traditions and popular myths in the world are full. Such a belief, first excited by the vision of the dead in dreams, is easily aroused in the savage or uneducated mind, even when he recalls to memory while he is alone, and especially at night, the image of one whom he loved in life. Affection, and the lively emotion of sorrow and desire give such a life-like appearance to these images that they become objectively present to the mind, to console the mourner, or, on the other hand, to threaten the murderer. I have more than once heard persons of all cla.s.ses, after the death of children, of a husband or wife, whom they have injured or imagine that they have injured, either during life or by not fulfilling their last wishes, declare in all good faith that the form of the dead is often present to their memory and visible while they are awake; thus implying that the dead mercifully appear to comfort their mourning friends, or else to reproach them for not fulfilling their promises. In a word, these images did not seem to them to be subjective, and an ordinary phenomenon of the memory, but objective and personal apparitions within the soul. The cases are not rare in certain dispositions of mind, in which the projection of these images on the memory gradually produces madness. We must not forget that psychical phenomena in general are very differently regarded by the savage and the civilized man, since the latter is accustomed to a.n.a.lysis, and to the real distinctions of things. If this canon is forgotten we shall fall into grave errors in the attempt to interpret the evolution and primitive history of thought and of humanity.

We shall more readily understand the nature and genesis of all these hallucinations, and of normal and abnormal illusions, if we study another phenomenon of frequent occurrence which I myself have often had occasion to observe. I mean the illusion or hallucination which does not consist in the absolute projection of an internal image with an external semblance of reality, but which presents it in the twilight as an object of uncertain form, either in a room or out of doors. It often happens, as I and others have experienced from childhood, that a dress or other object lying by chance on a chair, or on the ground, or hanging on a piece of furniture or a peg, seen in connection with the other things near it, is transformed into a person or animal, in a sitting or standing posture or lying at full length, as if it had been a spectre or phantasm; somewhat like the figures which we all take pleasure in tracing in the strange and mobile forms of clouds. The fantastic figure sometimes appears instantaneously and at the first glance, sometimes it is only gradually made out; but in both cases, as we shall see, its genesis is the same. Although in the former case that which in the latter is gradually developed _appears_ to be developed all at once, yet in reality it pa.s.ses through the same stages.

Let us now consider the second mode; and in order to be perfectly accurate, I will describe one out of many apparitions which I saw so recently that its gradual formation is retained distinctly in my memory.

On a small three-legged table beside my bed there was a little oval mirror, on which hung a woman's cap, which fell partly over the gla.s.s: there was also an easy chair, on which I had thrown my shirt before going to bed, while my shoes were as usual on the floor. I awoke towards morning, and as I chanced to look round the large room, in the uncertain light of a night-light which was almost burnt out, my eyes fell upon the easy chair. Immediately I seemed to see a head above it, corresponding to the mirror, and a vague and confused image of a person seated there. As I am accustomed to do in similar cases, I closed my eyes for a little, and on reopening them I looked at the appearance with attention and interest; this time the person or phantasm had a less confused outline, although I did not see the form distinctly, nor the features, nor its precise position. Yet in this second observation, I obtained an idea of it as a whole, and in details.

On further examination the face and person stood out more clearly, and the features became more distinct, the longer I looked. Each accidental fold or shadow on the cap was transformed into bright eyes, strongly marked eyebrows, into the nose, mouth, hair, beard, and neck; so that as I went on I had before me a perfectly chiselled face corresponding to the type which had first flashed across my mind as the confused impression of a face conveyed by the cap and mirror. The same process of evolution was pursued with respect to the limbs, the breast, arms, legs, and feet; parts of the body which at first appeared to be vague and indeterminate gradually, and as if by enchantment issued distinctly from every fold of the shirt, from every shadow, angle, and line, so as to compose what Dante would call _una persona certa_. Finally I saw before me a man dressed in white, of an athletic form, sitting in the easy chair and looking fixedly at me: the whole body was in harmony with the head, which had first resulted from the rude resemblance to a human face. The image appeared to me so real and distinct that on rising from the bed and gradually approaching it, its form did not vanish, even when I was near enough to touch the object which produced it. An a.n.a.lysis showed that the features, limbs, and position corresponded in every point with the folds and relative position of the articles of dress which had formed it. A similar process, issuing in such apparitions, is a frequent cause of illusions, which in the case of ingenuous, superst.i.tious, and primitive peoples, may lead to the firm conviction that they have seen an apparition. This has certainly been the case in primitive and even in civilized times, and has given occasion to myths, legends, and the worship of tutelary deities and saints.

If we consider the causes of such a phenomenon, and a.n.a.lyze its elements and motives, we shall, I think, discover that it goes far to explain many normal and abnormal hallucinations.

In the first place, there is in man a deep sense of the a.n.a.logies of things, partly developed by the organic tendency to regard any given object of perception as subjective and causative, and to infuse into it our own animal life, a tendency confirmed by education and the practice of daily life. Such a.n.a.logies, which find their expression in metaphor, are very vivid and persistent in the vulgar and in those persons who approximate most closely to the primitive ingenuousness of the intelligence. The most frequent a.n.a.logies are between natural phenomena and objects and animal forms. a.n.a.logies are also found between the various forms of inanimate natural objects, but the former are more usual, and especially those which refer to the human form. There are numerous and familiar instances of the names of men or women given to mountains, rocks, and crags, because they have some remote resemblance to some human feature or limb. Every day we may be called upon to see a face in some mountain, stone, or trunk of a tree, in the outline of the landscape, a wreath of mist or cloud. We are told to observe the eyes, nose, mouth, the arms and legs, and so on.[35] Every one must remember to have often heard of such resemblances, even if he has not himself observed them. All the facts and laws which we have observed explain why the sudden appearance of some vague form in an uncertain light, reminding us in a confused way of the human figure, instantly causes us to trace a resemblance to man rather than to any thing else. It must be noted, as my experiment has already proved, that in this first sketch of a phantasm in human form, a general, though indefinite type of the whole figure has spontaneously arisen, to which it is made to correspond. This is the key to the ultimate perception of the phenomenon. What may be called the prophetic type of the figure which will afterwards appear to us in all its details, although it may seem to be produced by external resemblance, is in fact the product of the mind, which has been unconsciously exercised in its construction.

In fact, out of the immense variety in faces, and in the general form of persons, of gestures, fashions of dress, att.i.tudes in rest and motion, which are indelibly impressed on the memory, every one constructs general types for himself; types which are revealed in the allusions made in our daily conversation to the resemblances which we are continually observing. These remain in the memory, with all the manifold resemblances, as well as the ideal of certain types in which the numerous forms we have seen and compared are formulated. We know that when the memory has been dormant, which is often the case, it may be awakened by the stimulus of a.s.sociation, of a.n.a.logy, or of will, so as to reproduce the forgotten ideas and sensations which are thus again presented to the consciousness. When, therefore, one or more objects are seen in an uncertain light, so as to present a confused appearance of the human form, its general lineaments are unconsciously made by us to correspond with the human type already existing in the memory, and this type presides in the subsequent composition of the reproducing artist who observes the phantasm. The unconscious mental labour which is accomplished in the reproducing cellules of past impressions and ideas by the instantaneous creation of the type, gathers round this type the form and features corresponding with it, which had its earlier existence in our own experience. The external pose and indefinite modification of the objects appear to correspond with the gradual mnemonic revival of the typal form, and they reciprocally stimulate and react on each other.

For while a fold, shadow, or line of the objects seen appear to correspond with some feature of the mnemonic type, on the other hand, a fold, shadow, or outline of the object recalls a feature of the inward phantasm composed by the memory.

In this process the mnemonic details which are in accordance with the pre-existing type, and sometimes also in accordance with some remarkable face or person which was the first to present itself to the mind, serve as a model for the accidental form of the external object or objects which correspond to it; this in its turn recalls features which remain in the memory, and in this way the external form of this particular phantasm is gradually chiselled into full relief. The more intently we regard the object which is modified to suit the mental image, the more perfectly they agree together, and the apparition stands out with more vivid distinctness. This will be the experience of every one to whom such a phenomenon appears, and a dispa.s.sionate a.n.a.lysis of all the phases of this fact must fully confirm our theory.

Such a fact, which is implicitly included in the general law we have laid down for the origin of myth, will also as I think throw further light on the origin of many hallucinations, both in normal conditions of mind and in the abnormal state of nervous disorders. The different appearances of objects, animals, and men, the voices, words, songs, and conversations seen and heard in these hallucinations, are produced, by an internal impulse as well as by a stimulus from without; they are internal in the images and sensation already unconsciously impressed upon the memory, and they are external in the accidentally modified form in which they occur in sensible objects, so that they act reciprocally as an incentive and impulse to each other.