524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



changed into a leather strap with loops, but while he still endeavored to cbange 

 it into a bow the strap broke, the two ends were separated, but it happened that 

 an imaginary string connected them. This was the first concession of his auto- 

 matic chain of thoughts to his will. By a continued effort the bow came, and 

 then no difficulty was felt in converting it into the cross-bow and thus returning 

 to the starting-point. 



I have a sufficient variety of cases to prove the continuity between 

 all the forms of visualization, beginning with an almost total absence 

 of it, and ending with a complete hallucination. The continuity is, 

 how^ever, not simply that of varying degrees of intensity, but of varia- 

 tions in the character of the process itself, so that it is by no means 

 uncommon to find tw^o very different forms, of it concurrent in the 

 same person. There are some who visualize well and who also are 

 seers of visions, who declare that the vision is not a vivid visualization, 

 but altogether a different phenomenon. In short, if we please to call 

 all sensations due to external impressions " direct,'''' and all others " m- 

 diLced^'' then there are many channels through which the induction 

 may take place, and the channel of ordinary visualization in the per- 

 sons just mentioned is very different from that through which their 

 visions arise. 



The following is a good instance of this condition. A friend 

 writes : 



These visions often appear with startling vividness, and, so far from depend- 

 ing on any voluntary effort of the mind, they remain when I often wish them 

 very much to depart, and no effort of the imagination can call them up. I lately 

 saw a framed portrait of a face which seemed more lovely than any painting I 

 have ever seen, and again I often see fine landscapes which bear no resemblance 

 to any scenery I have ever looked upon. I find it difficult to define the difference 

 between a waking vision and a mental image, although the difference is very ap- 

 parent to myself. I think I can do it best in this way : If you go into a theatre 

 and look at a scene, say of a forest by moonlight, at the back part of the stage, 

 you see every object distinctly and sufficiently illuminated (being thus unlike a 

 mere act of memory), but it is nevertheless vague and shadowy, and you might 

 have difficulty in telling afterward all the objects you have seen. This resembles 

 a mental image in point of clearness. The waking vision is like what one sees in 

 the open street in broad daylight, when every object is distinctly impressed on 

 the memory. The two kinds of imagery differ also as regards voluntariness, the 

 image being entirely subservient to the will, the visions entirely independent of 

 it. They differ also in point of suddenness, the images being formed compara- 

 tively slowly as memory recalls each detail, and fading slowly as the mental 

 effort to retain them is relaxed ; the visions appearing and vanishing in an 

 instant. The waking visions seem quite close, filling as it were the whole head, 

 while the mental image seems farther away in some far-off recess of the mind. 



The number of persons who see visions no less distinctly than this 

 correspondent is much greater than I had any idea of when I began 

 this inquiry. I have in my possession the sketch of one, prefaced by 

 a description of it by Mrs. Haweis. She says : 



