TOO LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



consciousness be not annihilated, others will mix with 

 these which are purely natural, and the thoughts or 

 pictures that the mind of the prophet produces and 

 produces, observe, wholly by its own activity must 

 contain a mixture of these two elements. We are thus 

 forced to the conclusion that, since the prophetic con 

 sciousness was continuous with the ordinary conscious 

 ness, the supernatural revelation was not independent of 

 the previous thoughts of the prophet but only supple 

 mented these thoughts so as to bring forth a new and 

 perfect revelation. The result of the whole process is 

 an image, visible or audible, if the process of mental 

 combination be carried on unconsciously ; a thought, if 

 the operation of the mind be conscious. In the first 

 case the whole process falls under the ordinary laws of 

 mental association, and may be regarded as fully explained 

 by psychologists. The process by which certain suc 

 cessions of feelings are interpreted into certain images, 

 sounds, etc., has in every one become by long habit 

 quite instinctive, requiring no conscious exertion of the 

 mind. Here the Divine action must, I think, be confined 

 to the production of certain of the ultimate subjective 

 elements thus to be combined. These elements would 

 be connected with the organs of sight or hearing according 

 as the object was to produce a vision or an internal 

 voice ; and as there is little doubt that such feelings are 

 invariably connected with excitation of the nerves of 

 sense, we may reasonably suppose that the point at which 

 the natural explanation fails us and the supernatural 

 must come in, is when we have traced back the prophetic 

 visions to an excitation of the nerves not explicable on 

 natural causes and not subject to any natural limitation. 

 But the capacity of the nerves themselves to conduct 

 certain definite excitations only will limit the range of 

 the feelings thus miraculously excited, to which may be 

 added the further limitation that only a feeling previously 

 experienced can form part of a visionary image that owes 



