266 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



given phenomenon. We have shown that, given a 

 sensation, there naturally arises the implicit notion 

 of a subject and a cause, and this natural impulse is 

 further developed by the influence of heredity; both 

 in man and animals the constant and powerful sense 

 of individual life is infused into the phenomenon per- 

 ceived. 



The various forms of madness throw a clearer 

 light on this necessary and primitive fact of human 

 and animal perception. The act of sensation may 

 then be said to be under its own direction, and 

 generates itself in the automatic exercise of the brain, 

 as in dreams, without the explicit, disturbing, and 

 modifying influence of reflection, and the habit of 

 rational analysis. The act of sensation is spontane- 

 ously completed and developed in and with its own 

 constituents, and since it is isolated from other modes 

 and exercises of thought, its real nature appears. 

 The hallucinations of madness, produced by the 

 mental realization of images, either detached or in 

 association, prove that all our mental images or ideas 

 have a tendency in themselves to become real objects 

 of consciousness ; with this difference, that a sane 

 man recognizes these mental entifications by their 

 mobility and incessant alterations, which contrast 

 with the fixity and permanence of external and cosmic 

 phenomena. 



The following considerations will confirm the 

 truth of these facts. In our advanced state of 



