264 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



believes the images to be real that the abnormal state 

 begins, termed delirium if it is of short duration, and 

 madness if it is permanent. We must examine 

 hallucination under these new conditions. 



In the delirium of fever, or in various forms of 

 disease, the cerebral excitement is so great that not 

 only the deliberate exercise of reason, but the power 

 of estimating external objects is lost, and the organs 

 of the senses are so completely altered, that the 

 perceptions themselves are exaggerated and confused. 

 In this state hallucination reaches its highest point, 

 and the patient sees, hears, and feels, directly or 

 indirectly, strange and terrible things : wild beasts, 

 enemies of all kind, torments ; or again, pleasing and 

 agreeable images. Independently of the alteration in 

 various sensations produced by the morbid alteration 

 of the special organs which induce them, the real 

 cause of this phenomenon consists in the objection of 

 mental sensations and images. Such an objection of 

 images or sensations, considered in the act which 

 transforms them into a reality, depends on the same 

 cause as all other acts of perception ; there is always an 

 entification of the phenomenon, which in this case is a 

 vivid internal image, appearing to be external and real. 



The entification of images is still more direct and 

 powerful because in this morbid crisis the necessary 

 corrections made by reason cannot take place, since 

 the sick man is for the time deprived of it, and he is 

 in fact a dreamer, whose condition is intensified by 



