SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS. 129 



with the view of throwing light upon so curious a subject, 

 but for the purpose of ascertaining their connection with 

 the state of health under which they appeared. 



As the spectres seen by Nicolai and others had their 

 origin in bodily indisposition, it becomes interesting to 

 learn the state of Mrs. A.'s health when she was under 

 the influence of these illusions. During the six weeks 

 within which the three first illusions took place, she had 

 been considerably reduced and weakened by a troublesome 

 cough, and the weakness which this occasioned was in- 

 creased by her being prevented from taking a daily tonic. 

 Her general health had not been strong, and long experi- 

 ence has put it beyond a doubt, that her indisposition 

 arises from a disordered state of the digestive organs. 

 Mrs. A. has naturally a morbidly sensitive imagination, 

 which so painfully affects her corporeal impressions, that 

 the account of any person having suffered severe pain by 

 accident or otherwise occasionally produces acute twinges 

 of pain in the corresponding parts of her person. The 

 account, for example, of the amputation of an arm will 

 produce an instantaneous and severe sense of pain in her 

 own arm. She is subject to talk in her sleep with great 

 fluency, to repeat long passages of poetry, particularly 

 when she is unwell, and even to cap verses for half an 

 hour together, never failing to quote lines beginning with 

 the final letter of the preceding one till her memory is 

 exhausted. 



Although it is not probable that we shall ever be able 

 to understand the actual manner in which a person of 

 sound mind beholds spectral apparitions in the broad 

 light of day, yet we may arrive at such a degree of know- 

 ledge on the subject as to satisfy rational curiosity, and to 

 strip the phenomena of every attribute of the marvellous. 

 Even the vision of natural objects presents to us insur- 

 mountable difficulties, if we seek to understand the pre- 



