764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



instance, I cite the following case from Wigan. The painter referred 

 to is Blake : 



" A painter, who inherited much of the patronage of Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds, was so fully engaged that he told me he had painted three 

 hundred large and small portraits in one year. The fact appeared 

 physically impossible, hut the secret of his astonishing success was 

 this : he required but one sitting of his model. I begged him to de- 

 tail to me his method of procedure, and he related what follows : 

 ' When a sitter came, I looked attentively on him for half an hour, 

 sketching: from time to time on the canvas. I removed the canvas and 

 passed to another person. When I wished to continue the first por- 

 trait I recalled the man to my mind, and placed him on the chair. 

 Then I went on painting, occasionally stopping to examine the pos- 

 ture, as though the original were before me. This method made me 

 very popular, for the sitters were delighted that I spared them the an- 

 noying sittings of other painters. ' By degrees I began to lose all 

 distinction between the imaginary and the real figure ; then all be- 

 came confusion. I lost my reason, and remained for thirty years in 

 an asylum.' " 



It is related of Talma, the great actor, that he could cause the au- 

 dience to appear to him like skeletons, and that, when the hallucina- 

 tion was complete, his histrionic genius was at its height. 



Goethe states that he had the power of giving form to the images 

 passing before his mind, and, upon one occasion, saw his own figure 

 approaching him. 



Several like cases have come under my own observation. In one, 

 the power was directly the result of attendance at spiritual meetings, 

 and of the efforts made to become a good " medium." The patient, a 

 lady, at first thought very deeply of some particular person, whose 

 image she endeavored to form in her mind. Then she assumed that 

 the person was really present, and addressed conversation to him. At 

 this period she was not deceived, for she clearly recognized the fact 

 that the image was not present. 



One day, however, she was thinking very intently of her mother, 

 and, happening to raise her eyes, she saw her mother standing before 

 her exactly as she had imagined her. In a few moments the phantom 

 disappeared, but she soon found that she had the ability to recall it at 

 will. During the spiritualistic meetings she attended, she could thus 

 reproduce the image of any person upon whom she strongly concen- 

 trated her thoughts, and was for a long time sincere in her belief that 

 they were real appearances. At last she lost control of the operations, 

 and became constantly subject to hallucinations of sight and hearing. 



Although no one presumes to question the honesty of Jerome Car- 

 dan, or of Swedenborg, it is probable that their visions were also in- 

 duced by intense mental concentration. In some persons very slight 

 thought is sufficient to cause hallucinations of great distinctness. 



