BODILY ILLNESS AS A MENTAL STIMULANT. 255 



of the diversity in the causes to which they are due ; for the 

 hachisch- eater is happy, not like the gourmand or the 

 famished man when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary 

 in gratifying his amative desires, but like him who hears 

 idings which fill him with joy, like the miser counting his 

 treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the 

 ambitious man who is intoxicated with success/ 



My special object, however, in noting the effects of 

 opium and hachisch, is rather to note how the mental pro- 

 cesses or faculties observed during certain states of disease 

 may be produced artificially, than to enter into the consi- 

 derations discussed by Dr. Moreau. It is singular that 

 while the Mohamedan order of Hachischin (or Assassins) 

 bring about by the use of their favourite drug such visions as 

 accompany the progress of certain forms of disease, the Hindoo 

 devotees called the Yogi are able to produce artificially the 

 state of mind and body recognised in cataleptic patients. 

 The less-advanced Yogi can only enter the state of abstrac- 

 tion called reverie ; but the higher orders can simulate 

 absolute inanition, the heart apparently ceasing to beat, the 

 lungs to act, and the nerves to convey impressions to the 

 brain, even though the body be subjected to processes 

 which would cause extreme torture under ordinary condi- 

 tions. ' When in this state,' says Carpenter, * the Yogi are 

 supposed to be completely possessed by Brahma, "the 

 supreme soul," and to be incapable of sin in thought, word, 

 or deed.' It has been supposed that this was the state into 

 which those entered who in old times were resorted to as 

 oracles. But it has happened that in certain stages of disease 

 the power of assuming the death-like state has been possessed 

 for a time. Thus Colonel Townsend, who .died in 1797, we 

 read, had in his last sickness the extraordinary power of 

 apparently dying and returning to life again .at will. ' I 

 found his pulse sink gradually,' says Dr. Cheyne, who 

 attended him, ' so that I could not feel it by the most exact 

 or nice touch. Dr. Raymond could not detect the least 

 motion of the heart, nor Dr. Skrine the least soil of the 



