THE VISIONS OF SANE PERSONS. 529 



composite portraits admitted of being made photographically * from a 

 large number of components. I suspect that the phantasmagoria may 

 be due to blended memories ; the number of possible combinations 

 would be practically endless, and each combination would give a new 

 face. There would thus be no limit to the dies in the coinage of the 

 brain. 



I have tried a modification of this process with but small success, 

 which will at least illustrate a cause of the tendency in many cases to 

 visualize grotesque forms. My object was to efface from a portrait 

 that which was common among persons of the same race, and therefore 

 too familiar to attract attention, and to leave whatever was peculiar 

 in it. I proceeded on the following principle : \Ye all know that the 

 photograi^hic negative is the converse (or nearly so) of the photo- 

 graphic positive, the one showing whites where the other shows blacks, 

 and vice versa. Hence the superposition of a negative upon a positive 

 transparency of the same portrait tends to create a uniform smudge. 

 By superposing a negative transparency of a composite portrait on a 

 positive of any one of the individual faces from which it was com- 

 posed, all that is common to the group ought to be smudged out, and 

 all that is personal and peculiar to that face ought to remain. 



I have found that the peculiarities of visualization, such as the ten- 

 dency to see Number-forms, and the still rarer tendency to associate 

 color with sound, is strongly hereditary, and I should infer, what facts 

 seem to confirm, that the tendency to be a seer of visions is equally 

 so. Under these circumstances we should expect that it would be 

 unequally developed in different races, and that a large natural gift of 

 the visionary faculty might become characteristic not only of certain 

 families, as among the second-sight seers of Scotland, but of certain 

 races, as that of the gypsies. 



It happens that the mere acts of fasting, of want of sleep, and of 

 solitary musing, are severally conducive to visions. I have myself 

 been told of cases in which persons accidentally long deprived of food 

 became subject to them. One was of a pleasure-party driven out to 

 sea, and not being able to reach the coast till nightfall, at a place 

 where they got shelter but nothing to eat. They were mentally at 

 ease and conscious of safety, but they were all troubled with visions, 

 half dreams and half hallucinations. The cases of visions following 

 protracted wakefulness are well known, and I also have collected a 

 few. As regards the effect of solitariness, it may be sufficient to allude 

 to the recosrnized advantao^es of social amusements in the treatment of 

 the insane. It follows that the spiritual discipline undergone for pur- 

 poses of self-control and self - mortification has also the incidental 

 effect of producing visions. It is to be expected that these should 

 often bear a close relation to the prevalent subjects of thought, and, 



* I have latterly much improved the process, and hope shortly to describe it else- 

 where. 



VOL. XIX. 34 



