1 8 7 o] PROPHECY AND PERSONALITY 101 



its formation to the laws of association. These restric 

 tions might be interesting in regard to such visions as 

 contain theophanies, but otherwise are of little import 

 ance. They do not seem to prevent almost any tableau 

 of a visionary kind being presented to the prophet, pro 

 vided only that tableau were of such a kind as to in 

 corporate the feelings which the continued natural action 

 of the mind would engender, and which would correspond 

 to the material excitations propagated by the cerebrum 

 through the nerve circles. Every mental operation has 

 for its counterpart a bodily phenomenon. Mental re 

 production is thus connected with the spontaneity of 

 the cerebrum propagating currents outwards through 

 the nerves of sense. By the dynamical principle of the 

 &quot; superposition of small motions &quot; these undulations 

 would produce their own effect in spite of the superadded 

 supernatural excitation. 



But this spontaneity of the cerebrum may flow out in 

 many different channels, and the supernatural stimulation 

 will serve in great measure to draw the spontaneous flow 

 into its own channel, if no strong emotion is present. 

 But strong emotion or a strong bias of character in any 

 direction has also a coercing power over the spontaneity, 

 strongly forcing it into a special course. The course of 

 these natural movements would more or less readily be 

 assimilated to those of the supernatural very much in 

 proportion to the harmony between the vision produced 

 and the general emotional and intellectual character of 

 the prophet. Now the prophets seem to have been 

 generally men of strong character, whose minds could 

 not readily have been forced out of their current course. 

 But at the same time that course was almost always, I 

 believe, the course that the revelation followed. The 

 strong productiveness of the prophet s mind became a 

 most important factor in the production of the divine 

 visions even where the prophet s personality was properly 

 not involved ; and these visions were generally built out 



