7 i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mixed origin. It can hardly be otherwise, seeing how intimate is the 

 structural and functional connection between the nerve-centres of 

 thought and sense, and how likely so closely' connected nerve-cen- 

 tres are to sympathize in suffering when the one or the other is dis- 

 ordered. 



No one pretends that a person who, laboring under hallucinations, 

 knows their true nature, as Nicolai did, is insane ; but it is often said 

 that he has passed the limits of sanity and must be accounted insane 

 when he does not recognize their real nature, and believes in them and 

 acts upon them. But the examples which I have given prove this to 

 be too absolute a statement. I should be very loath to say that either 

 Mohammed or Luther was mad. When the hallucination is the consist- 

 ent expression of an earnest and coherent belief, which is not itself the 

 product of insanity, it is no proof of insanity, although it may indicate 

 a somewhat unstable state of the brain, and warn a prudent man to 

 temper the ardor of his belief. When, however, a person has hallu- 

 cinations that are utterly inconsistent with the observation and com- 

 mon-sense of the rest of mankind; when he cannot correct the mistakes 

 of one sense by the evidence of another, although every opportunity is 

 afforded him to do so ; when he believes in them in spite of confuting 

 evidence, and when he suffers them to govern his conduct, then he must 

 certainly be accounted insane : he is so much out of harmony of thought 

 and feeling with his kind that we cannot divine his motives or reckon 

 upon his conduct, and are compelled to put him under restraint. Per- 

 sons of this class are apt to be troublesome and even dangerous ; be- 

 lieving that they are pursued by a conspiracy, hearing the threatening 

 voices of their persecutors wherever they go, seeing proofs everywhere 

 of their evil machinations, smelling poisonous fumes, feeling the torture 

 inflicted by concealed galvanic wires, they endeavor to protect them- 

 selves by all sorts of devices appeal to the magistrates and the police 

 for assistance, become public nuisances in courts of justice, are, per- 

 haps, driven at last, either from despair of getting redress, or by the 

 fury of the moment, to attack some one whom they believe to be an 

 agent in the persecution which they are undergoing. Some of them 

 hear voices commanding them peremptorily to do some act or other it 

 may be to kill themselves or others and they are not unlikely in the 

 end to obey the mysterious commands which they receive. 



Having said so much concerning the causation and character of hal- 

 lucinations, I ought, perhaps, before concluding, to say something 

 about the means of getting rid of them. Unfortunately, it is very 

 little that I can say, for, when once they have taken firm hold of a 

 person, they are seldom got rid of. When they occur during an acute 

 case of insanity, where there is much mental excitement, they cer- 

 tainly often disappear as the excitement passes off, or soon afterward, 

 just as they disappear when the delirium of fever subsides ; but, when 

 they have become chronic, they hold their ground in defiance of every 



