DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 275 



are very vivid and persistent in the vulgar and in 

 those persons who approximate most closely to the 

 primitive ingenuousness of the intelligence. The 

 most frequent analogies are between natural pheno- 

 mena and objects and animal forms. Analogies are 

 also found between the various forms of inanimate 

 natural objects, but the former are more usual, and 

 especially those which refer to the human form. 

 There are numerous and familiar instances of the 

 names of men or women given to mountains, rocks, 

 and crags, because they have some remote resemblance 

 to some human feature or limb. Every day we may 

 be called upon to see a face in some mountain, stone, 

 or trunk of a tree, in the outline of the landscape, 

 a wreath of mist or cloud. We are told to observe 

 the eyes, nose, mouth, the arms and legs, and so on.* 

 Every one must remember to have often heard of 

 such resemblances, even if he has not himself 

 observed them. All the facts and laws which we 

 have observed explain why the sudden appearance 

 of some vague form in an uncertain light, reminding 

 us in a confused way of the human figure, instantly 

 causes us to trace a resemblance to man rather 

 than to any thing else. It must be noted, as my 

 experiment has already proved, that in this first 



* Sometimes the name of a person, or of some part of the human 

 form, Las been bestowed on a natural object without reference to their 

 analogy, but in this case the epithet has the converse effect of leading 

 us to imagine that it possesses the features or limbs of the human 

 form. And this is of equal value for our present inquiry. 



