Morbid Psychological Heredity. 123 



of the hallucination at all deceived. In the other case, the hallucina- 

 tion is complete, and then the patient believes in the objective 

 reality of his imaginary perceptions, and acts accordingly. Under 

 this form, hallucination is one of the first symptoms of insanity. 

 It is hereditary in both shapes. 



' We cannot establish by statistics,' says the author of one of the 

 best treatises on this subject, ' the power of heredity on hallucina- 

 tions, because they almost always exist with insanity. In order to 

 thoroughly appreciate this influence, it should be studied in indi- 

 viduals who have only simple hallucinations, and in those mono- 

 maniacs, subject to hallucination, who have a very decided form of 

 insanity. It is undeniable that they often occur in the sons of 

 those who have presented this double condition. 



' The father of Jerome Cardan used to see apparitions ; so also 

 did his son. Catherine de Medicis had an hallucination, as Pierre 

 de 1'Estoile relates ; and her son, Charles IX., had one the very 

 night of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew. '- 1 



Abercrombie cites a case of hereditary hallucination where the 

 reason remained intact ' I know a man,' says he, ' who all his 

 life has been subject to hallucination. This disposition is of such 

 a nature that if he meets a friend in the street, he cannot tell at 

 once whether it is an actual person or a phantasm. By dint of 

 attention he can make out a difference between the two. Usually 

 he connects the visual impressions by touch, or by listening for 

 the footfalls. This man is in the flower of his age, of sound mind, 

 in good health, and engaged in business. Another member of 

 his family has had the same affection, though in a less degree.' 



Here is a case no less curious. A young man of eighteen, 

 neither enthusiastic, nor superstitious, nor fanciful, lived at Rams- 

 gate. Happening one evening to enter a village church, he was 

 terror-stricken at seeing the ghost of his mother, who had died 

 some months before. Having witnessed this same apparition many 

 times, he fell sick, and returned to Paris, where his father lived. 

 He did not venture to speak to him of this apparition. 



Being obliged to sleep in the same room as his father, he was 

 surprised on seeing that, contrary to his former habit, the latter 



1 Brierre de Boismont, Des Hallucinations, p. 431. 



