1887.] on the Element of Truth in Popular Beliefs. 135 



and hallucinations as well as visions of ghosts and fairies may be 

 regarded as forms of waking dreams. 



The signs which were regarded in the Middle Ages as distinctive 

 of witchcraft are now looked upon as symptoms of hysteria, and the 

 condition of hysteria may perhaps be defined to be one in which 

 impressions originating within the body itself tend to overpower those 

 transmitted from without by the usual sensory channels. 

 _ Ihe phenomena of thought reading and of the divining rod may 

 in many cases be explained by the fact that sensory impressions 

 may be received and may lead to action without rising into complete 

 consciousness m the individual who receives them. 



[T. L. B.] 



