760 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



If we consider the expensiveness of the Delphian oracle and the 

 Loretto miracle-factory, the suras wasted on all kinds of amulets, from 

 a brickbat fetich to a marble cathedral, we must admit that supersti- 

 tions are costly luxuries. Dome-building, the most expensive phase 

 of the mania, culminated during the night of the middle ages, and 

 that night is certainly passing away, but many of its specters still 

 frequent their ancient haunts ; for supernaturalism is a Proteus, and 

 apt to assume shapes that can not be exorcised with daylight. Like 

 the poison-habit, the thirst for miracles satisfies its craving with a 

 variety of stimulants. Ex-Romanists revel in mysticism, as their an- 

 cestors fuddled with the Rosicrucian Gnostics, and afterward with 

 magic and astrology. Protestants often yield to the craving for 

 stronger stimulants and glut it with rectified spiritism, undiluted with 

 traditions and homilies. Mr. Kiddle's apocalypse is the confession of 

 a moral opium-eater. In France professional free-thinkers patronize 

 not less professional clairvoyants ; the pythoness Lenormand amassed 

 a fortune of two million francs, and was consulted by atheists and 

 philosophers, and twice even by the Emperor Napoleon, whose specu- 

 lative dogmas were limited to a few negative tenets. German non- 

 conformists are apt to contract a passion for ghost-stories. Their 

 publishers have regular sample-rooms of supernaturalism ; Arnim's 

 novels, a rock-and-rye mixture of romantic poetry and spook stories, 

 have become household works ; Jung Stirling's Geister-Jcunde (Spec- 

 trology), a sort of proof-spirits with a flavor of pietism, has still an 

 enormous circulation. Men who never enter a church, and treat all 

 sects with the tolerance of absolute indifference, procure their tipple 

 from a circulating library, like peace-loving topers who shun tavern- 

 brawls, but now and then purchase a quart of rum and take it home 

 in a pocket-flask. On the whole, it is a step in the right direction. 

 Their liquor is often as strong as anything sold across the bar, but 

 the effects of their inspiration are limited to the precincts of a pri- 

 vate sanctum, and they are less apt to force their poison upon their 

 neighbors. 



[Concluded.] 



-<-- 



PERCEPTIONAL INSANITIES* 



By W. A. HAMMOND, M. D. 



THE simplest forms of insanity are those which consist merely of 

 false perceptions, and they are not of such a character as to lessen 

 the responsibility of the individual. There are two forms of false 



* Abridged from advance sheets of Dr. Ilammond's forthcoming work on " Insanity 

 in its Medical Relations." 



