USE OF INVERSE VISION. 415 



with their appearances, that, by fixing my mind on the consideration of 

 manuscript instead of printed type, the paper appeared, after a time, only 

 with manuscript writing ; and afterward, by the same process, instead of 

 being erect, they were all inverted, or appeared upside down." 



We can not fail to remark the close resemblance between these illu- 

 sions, arising from a fixed meditation on recollected scenery, E . , j j 

 and the phantoms which are witnessed after our gaze has izatkmofphan- 

 been steadily directed to some brightly-illuminated object, asms> 

 as a window, when we first awake. In both there is the same subdued 

 and uncertain brilliancy of effect ; in both the same gradual fading away ; 

 in both the mind does not refer the image it contemplates to an inward 

 point or place, but sets it forth outwardly, projecting it into the empty 

 or occupied region beyond. In inverse as in ordinary vision, the law of 

 the line of visible direction is enforced, and this reference of cerebral im- 

 ages to a definite point in outer space is a phenomenon of the same kind 

 as the appearance of the invisible coin on pouring water into a basin, the 

 lifting of ships into the air by atmospheric refraction, the appearance of 

 the sun and moon every day above the horizon before they have actu- 

 ally risen and after they have set, and many other optical illusions that 

 might be mentioned. 



Physiology, though full of teleological illustrations that is, examples 

 of the use of means for the accomplishment of an end has ,, 



^ Ine nervous 



none more worthy of our consideration than this of inverse mechanism con- 

 vision. Men in every part of the world, even among na- dkate e fheim" 

 tions the most abject and barbarous, have an abiding faith mortality of the 

 not only in the existence of a spirit that animates us, but 

 also in its immortality. Of these there are multitudes who have been 

 shut out from all communion with civilized countries, who have never 

 been enlightened by revelation, and who are mentally incapable of rea- 

 soning out for themselves arguments in support of those great truths. 

 Under such circumstances, it is not very likely that the uncertainties of 

 tradition derived from remote ages could be any guide to them, for tra- 

 ditions soon disappear except they be connected with the wants of daily 

 life. Can there be, in a philosophical view, any thing more interesting 

 than the manner in which these defects have been provided for, by im- 

 planting in the very organization of every man the means of constantly 

 admonishing him of these facts, of recalling them with an unexpected 

 vividness before him, even after they have become 'so faint as almost to 

 die out? Let him be as debased and benighted a savage as he may, 

 shut out from all communion with races whom Providence has placed in 

 happier circumstances, he has still the same organization, and is liable to 

 the same physiological incidents as ourselves. Like us, he sees in his 

 visions the fading forms of landscapes, which are, perhaps, connected with 



