THE PERCEPTION OF REALfTT. 323 



saturated with the sort of stinging urgency which ordinarily only sensa- 

 tions bring. But I cannot yet persuade myself that the urgency in ques- 

 tion consists in coucomitaut emotional and motor impulses. The ' impres- 

 sion ' may come quite suddenly and depart quickly; it may carry no 

 emotional suggestions, and wake no motor consequences beyond those 

 involved in attending to it. Altogether, the matter is somewhat paradoxical, 

 and no conclusion can be come to until more definite data are obtained. 



Perhaps the most curious case of the sort which I have received is the 

 following. The subject of the observation, Mr. P., is an excepticially 

 intelligent witness, though the words of the narrative are his wife's. 



" Mr. P. has all his life been the occasional subject of rather singular 

 delusions or impressions of various kinds. If I had belief in the existence 

 of latent or embryo faculties, other than the live senses, I shov.d explain 

 them on that ground. Being totally blind, his other perceptions are 

 abuormallj^ keen and developed, and given the existence of a rudimentary 

 sixth sense, it would be only natural that this also should be more acute in 

 him than in others. One of the most interesting of his experiences in this 

 line was the frequent apparition of a corpse some years ago, which may be- 

 worth the attention of your Committee on that subject. At the time Mr. 

 P. had a music- room in Boston on Beacon Street, where he used to do 

 severe and protracted practice with little interruption. Now, all one season 

 it was a very familiar occurrence with him while in the midst of work to 

 feel p c-ld draft of air suddenly upon his face, with a prickling sensation 

 at the loots of his hair, when he would turn from the piano, and a tigure 

 which he knew to be dead would come sliding under the crack of the door 

 from without, flattening itself to squeeze through and rounding out agaia 

 to the human form. It was of a middle-aged man, and drew itself along 

 the carpet on hands and knees, but with head thrown back till it reached 

 the sofa, upon which it stretched itself. It remained some moments, but 

 vani.shed always if Mr. P. spoke or made a decided movement. The most 

 singular point in the occurrence was its frequent repetition. He might 

 expect it on any day between two and four o'clock, and it came always 

 heralded by the same sudden cold shiver, and was invariably the same fig- 

 uie which went through the same movements. He afterwards traced the 

 whole experience to strong tea. He was in the habit of taking cold tea, 

 which always stimulates him, for lunch, and on giving up this practice he 

 never saw this or any other apparition again. However, even allowing, as 

 is doubtless true, that the event was a delusion of nerves first fatigued by 

 overwork and then excited by this stimulant, there is one point which is 

 still wholly inexplicable and highly interesting to me. Mr. P. has no 

 memory whatever of sight, nor conception of it. It is impossible for him 

 to form any idea of what we mean by light or color, consequently he has 

 no cognizance of any object which does not reach his sense of hej^iing or 

 of touch, though these are so acute as to give a contrary impression some- 

 times to other people. When he becomes aware of the presence of a person 

 or an object, by means which seem mysterious to outsiders, he cai always 

 trace it naturally and legitimately to slight echoes, perceptible on'.y to his 

 keen ears, or to differences in atmospheric pressure, perceptible only to his 

 acute nerves of touch; but with the apparition described, for the only time 

 in his xperience, he was aware of presen'^e, size, and appearance, without 



