ix PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA 459 



from generalisations ; a right distinction must be made between 

 the mysticism founded on the beliefs and superstitious practices 

 that underlie all positive religions, and the noble mysticism of 

 spiritually and ideally minded philosophic thinkers. Reverence 

 is due to the great mystical personalities of whom ancient and 

 modern history give us classical examples, such as Socrates, 

 moralist, martyr of philosophy, and splendid personification of 

 human dignity. The legend that Socrates was or believed 

 himself to be inspired by a daemon or familiar genius has been 

 constantly repeated since the time of Plato; but there is no 

 direct evidence to show that he suffered from auditory or visual 

 hallucinations, or that he imagined that he held converse with a 

 spirit, as was too hastily assumed by Lelut and Moreau de Tour. 

 Modern critics have refuted this statement, as Morselli has well 

 brought out in a synthetic review of the question (1882). 



D'Eichthal, who made a profound study of the Memorabilia 

 of Xenophon, the most direct and faithful disciple of Socrates, 

 states that in every place in which the celebrated word Saipoviov 

 occurs, it has the meaning of #eo?, like the word Saifuov in Homer ; 

 while the Scu/xom of Hesiod are genii intermediate between man 

 and the divinity. The word Saifj,6viov is a neologism created by 

 Socrates, and not met with in any other Greek author before 

 Xenophon. Fouillee holds that Socrates intended it to signify 

 the analogy between his internal monitions, inspired by the 

 divinity, and the daemons of Greek mythology. This interpreta- 

 tion is too metaphysical. It is, however, certain that in 

 Xenophon there is no trace of the " demons " of popular super- 

 stition. According to d'Eichthal the true creator of daemon ology 

 was Plato, who perhaps interpreted his master (who, as we 

 know, left no written records and always taught by word of 

 mouth) more liberally and less faithfully than Xenophon. None 

 the less it seems to us reasonable to suppose with Hild that 

 Socrates though a monotheist believed in the existence of 

 genii intermediate between man and divinity, and that the legend 

 of the " familiar daemon " which inspired him had some foundation 

 in reality. 



What then are those daemonic monitions claimed by Socrates 

 (and admitted also by Schleiermacher, Cousin, R. Bonghi, 

 Decharme, Renouvier, Zeller, and others) if not the suggestions 

 of the subconscious, which in all mystics assume a special 

 activity presented to introspection under the form of a phantasm, 

 an extrinsic individuality, of which they are continually aware in 

 the recesses of their soul ? 



To us there seems no doubt that the familiar spirit which 

 inspired Socrates, who was proclaimed by the Oracle of Delphi 

 the wisest of men, indicates that in each normal individual in 

 whom the subconscious reaches a high degree of activity, as in 



