HUMAN FACULTY 275 



omit many details, doubting the accuracy of my 

 own memory in those respects. There can be no 

 impropriety now in publishing the name hitherto 

 withheld. 



I gave in the lecture many examples of guiding 

 " stars" and the like, and referred to the fact that the 

 visionary temperament has manifested itself largely 

 at certain historical times, and under certain conditions 

 of national life, and endeavoured to account for this 

 by the following considerations : 



That the visionary tendency is much more common 

 among sane people than is generally suspected. 



In early life it seems to be a hard lesson for an 

 imaginative child to distinguish between the real and 

 the visionary world. If the fantasies are habitually 

 laughed at and otherwise discouraged, the child soon 

 acquires the power of distinguishing them ; any incon- 

 gruity or nonconformity is quickly noted, the fact of 

 its being a vision is found out ; it is discredited, and 

 no further attended to. In this way the natural 

 tendency to see visions is blunted by repression. 

 Therefore, when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact 

 kind, the seers of visions keep quiet ; they do not like 

 to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide their 

 experiences, which only come to light through inquiries 

 such as those I have been making. But let the tide 

 of opinion change and grow favourable to supernatur- 

 alism, then the seers of visions come to the front. It 

 is not that a faculty previously non-existent has been 

 suddenly evoked, but that a faculty long smothered in 

 secret has been suddenly allowed freedom to express 

 itself, and it may be to run into extravagance owing 

 to the removal of reasonable safeguards. 



