COINAGES OF THE BRAIN. 299 



the delusions of a hopeless case of insanity. On the other hand, the 

 sane man who sees and hears things he knows to be nonentities and 

 to represent merely the coinages of his brain, despite their vividness 

 and apparent reality, is a subject of physiological and not of medical 

 study ; and the brief chronicle of such a history enables us also to 

 explain scientifically the visions of the ghost-seer, and the beatific 

 spectacles which greet the exalted senses of the religious devotee. 



Through our study of sensation and its rationale we saw that 

 mental conceptions of outside objects, or of external sounds and 

 other material phenomena, were carried inwards to the brain and 

 there stored up for future use. We have likewise seen that in a day- 

 dream this formation of mental images or of objective sensations, as 

 we termed them appears to be superseded by another class of sen- 

 sations which may be appropriately named subjective^ since they are 

 produced by internal causes, by inward phases of mental action, and 

 are thus opposed to those sensations which are derived from the 

 outer world. Just as in ordinary nervous action the brain receiving, 

 as we have seen, an impression from the outer world, transfers that 

 impulse elsewhere, so we may conceive that sensations and ideas 

 which pass to the brain as a terminus may be reflected and returned 

 along the pathway by which they entered the kingdom of mind, and 

 thus give rise to impressions of the " subjective " class. Or, to quote 

 Fiske's happy remark, " Consciousness has a foreground as well as a 

 background." On the clear appreciation of this simple fact hangs the 

 explanation of a very grave and complex theme : for the illusions 

 of the visionary, and the waking dreams of the seer, are scientifically 

 explicable on the supposition of their " subjective " character. On 

 the belief that they represent images reflected outwardly from the 

 brain upon the organs of sense, we may well understand how things 

 not seen normally become realities to those who see them from 

 within. 



Every day may be said to bring to the healthy mind practical 

 instances of the occurrence of subjective sensations, such as in more 

 typical development constitute the " illusions " of the curious. To 

 select an example within the practical reach of all who may be 

 disposed to try the experiment, suppose we allow the head to depend 

 for some time as in the stooping posture, we hear noises in the ears, 

 sounds of "singing" or "ringing," as we popularly term them; 

 flashes of light before the eyes also beheld in cases of direct irrita- 

 tion of the organ of sight and we may also experience a variety of 

 other sensations which are truly " subjective," in that they are pro- 

 duced by no outward noises or sights, but by an internal cause, 

 most probably temporary congestion of the nerve-centres. That 

 there should exist a perfectly natural tendency to speak of the phe- 

 nomena just mentioned as "heard" and "seen" respectively is a 



