AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 67 



and, by its unequal reflection of the different parts of an object, 

 give to it a false and unreal aspect. The various kinds of insanity- 

 springing from superstition and fanaticism are all the result of this 

 diseased condition of the Imagination. A most curious instance il- 

 lustrative of this is recorded, in the German Psycological Magazine, 

 of a gendarme, of Berlin, who, being disquieted in his mind, 

 sought alleviation in the perusal of religious books. In reading 

 The Bible, he was struck with the book of Daniel, and so much 

 pleased with it that it became his favourite study ; and from this 

 time the idea of miracles so strangely possessed his imagination, 

 that he began to believe he could perform them himself. " He 

 was persuaded, more especially, that if he were to plant an apple 

 tree with a view of its becoming a cherry tree, such was his power, 

 that it would bear cherries. He was discharged from the king's 

 service, and sent to the workhouse, where he conducted himself 

 calmly, orderly, and industriously for two years, never doing any 

 thing that betrayed insanity. He answered every question cor- 

 rectly, except when the subject concerned miracles, in regard to 

 which he maintained his old notions ; adding, however, at the same 

 time, that if he found on trial, after he was at home, that the event 

 did not correspond with his expectation, he would readily relin- 

 quish the thought, and believe he had been mistaken. He confessed 

 that he had already removed one error from his mind in this way, 

 for there was an old woman whom he had, at one time, considered 

 to be a witch, but whom he afterwards discovered to be no such 

 thing."* 



* The same species of morbid Imagination constituting the insane state, 

 sometimes extends from one individual to many, to the whole inhabitants 

 of the same family, community, town, or nation ; as the history of some par- 

 ticular epidemics of this kind well illustrates. Of such character was the 

 dancing mania of the 16th century, (a complete notice of which has lately 

 been given us by Dr. Babington, from the German of Hecker), in which 

 both the disease and its cure, which was effected by music, were solely to be 

 traced to the workings of a diseased fancy. Affections of this kind have been 

 attributed, by Toville and others, to the simultaneous action of moral im- 

 pressions of the same character upon a number of individuals at once. 

 We cannot, however, conceive of moral impressions of a similar character 

 producing the same effects upon the inhabitants of a whole nation, or 

 spreading even further than this ; for the dancing mania extended over 

 the whole of central Europe. I am led rather to attribute it to the 

 faculty of imitation, or instinct of imitation, as it has been termed ; the 

 mental impression having primitively been made upon the few, or upon 

 one, and afterwards spreading from the exercise of this peculiar faculty 

 to many. The Imagination is commonly led captive through the credulity 



