48 LETTEKS ON NATUKAL MAGIC. 



person having suffered severe pain by accident or 

 otherwise, occasionally produces acute twinges of 

 pain in the corresponding parts of her person. 

 The account, for example, of the amputation of 

 an arm will produce an instantaneous and severe 

 sense of pain in her own arm. She is subject to 

 talk in her sleep with great fluency, to repeat 

 long passages of poetry, particularly when she is 

 unwell, and even to cap verses for half an hour 

 together, never failing to quote lines beginning 

 with the final letter of the preceding one till her 

 memory is exhausted. 



Although it is not probable that we shall ever 

 be able to understand the actual manner in which 

 a person of sound mind beholds spectral appari- 

 tions in the broad light of day, yet we may arrive 

 at such a degree of knowledge on the subject as 

 to satisfy rational curiosity, and to strip the phe- 

 nomena of every attribute of the marvellous. 

 Even the vision of natural objects presents to us 

 insurmountable difficulties, if we seek to under- 

 stand the precise part which the mind performs 

 in perceiving them; but the philosopher consi- 

 ders that he has given a satisfactory explanation 

 of vision, when he demonstrates that distinct 

 pictures 'of external objects are painted on the 

 retina, and that this membrane communicates 

 with the brain by means of nerves of the same 

 substance as itself, and of which it is merely an 

 expansion. Here we reach the gulf which human 

 intelligence cannot pass ; and if the presump- 

 tuous mind of man shall dare to extend its 

 speculations farther, it will do it only to evince 

 its incapacity and mortify its pride. 



In his admirable work on this subject, Dr. 

 Hibbeft has shown that spectral apparitions are 



