1881. J on thfj Vii<!i)n8 of Sam' Prrsous. G55 



history, and so well known as a niotaplior in lan-^napjo, are a common 

 hallucination of the insane. I^riorrc do lioismont has a chapter on 

 the stars of great men. I cannot doubt tliat fantasies of this (lescrip- 

 tion were in some cases the basis of tliat lirm belief in astrology 

 which not a few persons of eminence formerly entertained. 



The hallucinations of great men may be accounted for in part by 

 their sharing a tendency which we have seen to be not uncommon in 

 the human race, and which, if it happens to bo natural to them, is 

 liable to be developed in their over- wrought brains by the isolation 

 of their lives. A man in the position of the first Napoleon could 

 have no intimate associates ; a great philosopher who explores ways of 

 thought far ahead of his contemi^oraries must have an inner world in 

 which he passes long and solitary hours. Great men may be evea 

 indebted to touches of madness for their greatness ; the ideas by 

 which they are haunted, and to whose pursuit they devote themselves, 

 and by which they rise to eminence, having much in common with the 

 monomania of insanity. Striking instances of great visionaries may 

 be mentioned, who had almost beyond doubt those very nervous 

 seizures with which the tendency to hallucinations is intimately 

 connected. To take a single instance, Socrates, whose daimon was an 

 audible not a visual appearance, was, as has been often pointed out, 

 subject to cataleptic seizure, standing all night through in a rigid 

 attitude. 



It is remarkable how largely the visionary tem2)erament has mani- 

 fested itself in certain periods of history and epochs of national life. 

 My interpretation of the matter, to a certain extent, is this — That 

 the visionary tendency is much more common among sane people 

 than is generally suspected. In early life, it seems to be a hard 

 lesson to an imaginative child to distinguish between the real and 

 visionary world. If the fantasies are habitually laughed at and 

 otherwise discouraged, the child soon acquires the power of dis- 

 tinguishing them; any incongruity or nonconformity is quickly 

 noted, the vision is found out and discredited, and is no further 

 attended to. In this way the natural tendency to see them is blunted 

 by repression. Therefore, when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact 

 kind, the seers of visions keep quiet ; they do not like to be thought 

 fanciful or mad, and they hide their experiences, which only come to 

 light through inquiries sucli as these that I have been making. But 

 let the tide of opinion change and grow favourable to superuaturalism, 

 then the seers of visions come to the front. It is not that a faculty 

 previously non-existent has been suddenly evoked, but that a faculty 

 long smothered in secret has been suddenly allowed freedom to 

 express itself, and it may be to run into extravagance owing to the 

 removal of reasonable safeguards. 



[F. G.] 



