THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND TEE INTELLECT. 



277 



peculiar character be the starting - point of a 

 nervous act of the same kind, but spontaneous, 

 which is then regularly conveyed through the rest 

 of the circuit. The confusion and irrationality 

 of dreams seem to support the argument of those 

 who maintain the recurrence of latent impres- 

 sions ; while hallucination, which is always logi- 

 cal, always mingled with realities of the world 

 without, seems to be better explained — if it may 

 be called explanation — by the theory of auto- 

 matic cerebral action. In hallucination, the per- 

 ception of the outer world is untouched, but an- 

 other perception combines with this — one quite 

 as real, so far as it is a perception — which does 

 not originate in the senses. The empty images 

 of a dream do not deceive us, while the victim 

 of hallucination is usually convinced of its truth. 

 It cannot be otherwise ; the spontaneous percep- 

 tive act, of which the optic layer is the seat, af- 

 fects our inner sense exactly in the same way as 

 the stimulated perceptive act. From habit and 

 by mistake we refer to our organs of sense, the 

 actual work done by a part of the brain. The 

 eye, the ear, true physical instruments, can re- 

 ceive no other than rigorously exact impressions 

 from the outer world ; the eye cannot be deceived 

 any more than a photographic plate can. If it 

 were the eye that saw, there would never be any 

 error in the sense of sight — it would be as infal- 

 lible as the surface of a mirror. The function 

 of the eye is simply to deliver to the brain a 

 rigorously exact copy of the outer world. This 

 copy the optic layer translates, either well or ill : 

 in the first case we see aright; in the second case 

 we are deceived, but we can see without it. Thus 

 we see in dreams, with the eyes shut. (Edipus, 

 who put out his eyes to shun the sight of his 

 crimes, will yet see again in sleep, and perhaps 

 in troubled watches, the face of his victims and 

 the bloody palace - floors of Thebes. We are 

 wrong in saying that the subject of hallucination 

 believes he sees or hears : he most l-eally does see 

 and hear ; and the Church, agreeing on this point 

 with physiologists against ignorant skepticism, 

 reasonably believes in the perfect sincerity of the 

 witnesses to certain miracles. Physiologists, for 

 instance, will believe, and firmly believe, that the 

 heroine of the miracle of Lourdes, little Berna- 

 dette, did see the "pretty lady" described by 

 her in her first stories. How can we doubt the 

 child's truthfulness ? There is nothing mysteri- 

 ous in her account ; for fifteen days she con- 

 stantly sees the apparition — not alone, in the 

 depth of some sanctuary, but before thousands 

 of spectators, in broad daylight, for the grotto 



is barely a hollow in the rock. Incredulity is 

 sometimes wrong even in accounting for these 

 visions by a state of disease. Brutus was at 

 most worn with fatigue when, at midnight, study- 

 ing by his lamp, he saw the awful spectre which 

 he had the courage to speak to enter his tent and 

 approach him. The Roman general and the ig- 

 norant country-girl, the scholar annotating Po- 

 lybius and the dyspeptic child in the Pyrenees, 

 experience the same cerebral phenomenon — spon- 

 taneous setting up of action by the perceptive 

 centres. The two apparitions even present a very 

 strange coincidence in an unusual point. Both 

 make an appointment — the Virgin promises Ber- 

 nadette to return, the spectre announces to Bru- 

 tus that he will meet him at Philippi. 



The marvelous in all these true stories de- 

 pends on the ignorance we usually are in as to 

 the most elementary biological ideas, which are 

 far too much overlooked in education. It is time 

 they were spread abroad by books like those 

 which of late years have popularized new acqui- 

 sitions in physics, astronomy, and natural his- 

 tory. England is far more advanced in this 

 respect than we are, and quite lately one of 

 her most distinguished scientists, Huxley, has 

 not disdained to write a little physiological 

 treatise for the use of laymen, and he does 

 not fail to devote a whole chapter to this ques- 

 tion of stimulated perceptions and automatic 

 perceptions ; he relates the pertinent story of an 

 educated and courageous woman, who was often 

 the subject of very singular spontaneous percep- 

 tions, which she succeeded, however, in controll- 

 ing. Several times she believed she saw, and did 

 really in this way see, her husband before her, 

 when she knew him to be absent, and saw him 

 so plainly that the phantom concealed the furni- 

 ture of the room when passing in front of it. 

 And, as Huxley adds, if this lady had not had 

 unusual courage, and a clear intellect, enabling 

 her to reason and convince herself of her delu- 

 sion, what an admirable subject was here for a 

 ghost-story of the most genuine and authentic 

 sort ! The conclusion drawn from these biologi- 

 cal facts by the English savant interests the mor- 

 alists in the highest degree ; they prove that the 

 most positive assertion of the most irreproach- 

 able witness may be wholly insufficient to estab- 

 lish the reality of a thing which the witness de- 

 clares he has seen, heard, or touched. 



Our organs of sense give us only a more or 

 less exact translation of the world about us. Our 

 perceptive centres have the power of spontane- 

 ously calling up another world, entirely imaginary ; 



