278 MODEEN MYSTICISM AND MODEEN SCIENCE. 



ing hand of illness (and all who have not lack much of the 

 teaching most proper to make us know ourselves, our friends, 

 and the frailty of the tenure on which we hold our strength) 

 need only reflect, to be convinced, that it is almost impossible 

 for a patient to proclaim his case impartially to a physician. 

 Hope and despondency rival influences dispute for the 

 mastery. The patient either proclaims himself better than 

 the fact, or worse ; ever mystifying his ailments. The balance 

 of judgment is subverted ; chimeras abound. Likings and 

 dislikings, without reason, proclaim intellectual weakness. In 

 proportion as reason wanes, senses are distorted, and senti- 

 ments are exalted. Light is unbearable ; sound so agonising 

 that the veriest breathings cause anguish. Odours not per- 

 ceptible in health now become intolerable. Meanwhile Death 

 steps trippingly by ; marking with the fades Hippocratica the 

 growths he is soon to fell : as the woodman marks his trees. 



And 'after that a change ! The senses, so acute awhile 

 ago, fail one by one ; taste and smell the first. To one upon 

 whose features Death has impressed his signet-seal, as revealed 

 by the Hippocratic face, things mostly taste alike, and odours 

 are well-nigh odourless. As sounds of music on the strand 

 fall weaker and weaker upon the ship's crew departing, so 

 weaker and more weak fall mortal voices upon the death- 

 stricken ear. Touch, the only sense not ministered to exclu- 

 sively by some special organ, fails gradually onwards from 

 the extremities to the chest ; an icy coldness, unknown to the 

 dying, marking its departure. Then comes that craving for 

 more light, so sure a sign of speedy dissolution. Next the 

 gurgling and choking spasm and then the mystery. 



It would be hard indeed that a patient should drive from 

 his sick couch the antagonist influences, hope and despair, 

 both of them tending to make his natural dishonesty of judg- 

 ment still more dishonest. Small marvel that patients have 

 committed so many errors, not being aware of them : for 

 example, the following. No man of very highest special ac- 



