CHAP. 10. $2. SUPERSTITIONS, &c. 327 



have been the subjects of such deceptions, 

 Moreover, persons who are much endowed with 

 a poetic and mystical disposition of mind, are 

 most subject to these illusions. It has been 

 constantly observed by phrenologists, that those 

 parts of the brain considered to be the organs 

 of ideality and of supernaturality, but particu- 

 larly the latter, exercise an influence over the 

 intellectual organs, (in which the objects of 

 the external world are perceived) of such a 

 nature, as to induce those organs to act irregu- 

 larly, and thus to call up ideas of recollection 

 with a force and vividity seldom surpassed by 

 real impressions. By these means a spectrum 

 is produced, which, unless carefully compared 

 with real objects by which it may be surrounded, 

 is capable of deceiving the beholder into a 

 belief of its absolute existence. Novel com- 

 binations of form are sometimes produced in 

 this manner, by the internal activity of the 

 organs of the brain, and thus we occasionally 

 seem to behold figures which have no external 

 prototypes in the material world.* 



* It should be remembered, that we never see any external 

 objects in themselves, we only perceive the configurations of 

 our organs, which the impression of the objects create : and 

 this, in fact, must be continually kept in view, when we en- 



