C '01. X 'AGES OF THE BRAIN. 



305 



tions" wherein that learned author declares that "apparitions are 

 nothing more than morbid symptoms which are indicative of intense 

 excitement of the renovated feelings of the mind " served to free 

 Mrs. A. from ideas of supernatural visitation, by which, it is not too 

 much to say, nine persons out of ten amongst ourselves would be apt 

 to explain the unwonted appearances. The physiological explanation 

 of cases of spectral illusions is, however, simple in the extreme when 

 the possibilities of morbid and deranged sensation are seen to relate 

 themselves in a very exact and plain fashion to the natural method 

 of receiving impressions. Those parts of Mrs. A. ; s brain, eye, and 

 ear, and of Nicolai's brain and organs of sense, which, under normal 

 conditions, would have been concerned in the reception of actual 

 sights and sounds, were made active and operated under some 

 internal cause to produce the unwonted phenomena. As we have 

 already noted, it is highly probable that in so acting the sensory 

 organs and brain are but reproducing from the background, and pro- 

 jecting into the foreground of consciousness, images of which the 

 conscious memory retains no impression, but which have been 

 received at some past epoch of the individual history, and which, 

 under unwonted stimulation, are evolved so as to appear part and 

 parcel of our own personality. 



That this latter conclusion namely, that of the act in question 

 being essentially one of memory is perfectly justifiable, is rendered 

 strikingly apparent by the case of Mrs. A., all of whose apparitions 

 were those of known persons, and thus were simple reproductions of 

 mental images, in one of which that of the deceased sister-in-law 

 a vivid description of a particular pattern of dress served to add to 

 the apparent reality of the illusion. In Nicolai's case, the strangers 

 who appeared to him were, in all probability, the images of persons 

 whom he had either seen in bygone days, and of whom he failed to 

 retain any recollection ; or were those of people with whose figures 

 or appearance he was familiar from reading. In our own experience, 

 we can readily recall to mind instances of the sudden recollection of 

 faces, figures, scenery, &c., the details of which may have long been 

 forgotten, but which may be revived by the application of an appro- 

 priate mental stimulus. Such a thought serves to suggest the impor- 

 tant part which what may be termed " unconscious memory " plays 

 in the regulation of mind-affairs and in human existence at large. 



This latter feature of the association with us as "ghosts" of 

 the figures of persons with whom we have been formerly familiar 

 even when the fact of this familiarity has been forgotten is very 

 aptly illustrated by the incident which is headed "An Antiquary's 

 Ghost Story/' I quote the interesting recital, signed " Augustus 

 Jessopp, D.D.," from the Athenceum, of date January 10, 1880 : 



"Little more than two months have passed since my own personal 



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