59 
HALLUCINATOEY MANIFESTATIONS. 
Br DE. EICHAEDSON, F.E.S. 
S ALVEETE, in liis remarkable work on the occult sciences, 
states that the principle by which he has been guided in 
all his researches is that which distinguishes two very different 
forms of civilisation : the fixed form, which in times past pre- 
vailed universally throughout the world, and the jp erf edible form, 
or that which prevails in communities that have become learned 
in letters, science, and art. The natural tendency of man is to 
love and seek the marvellous ; and as the love of the wonderful 
always prefers the most surprising to the most natural ac- 
counts, the natural is too frequently neglected. At the same 
time the most surprising phenomenon does not long continue 
potent to surprise even when it is real, while surprising un- 
realities pass away as fast as they come. “ Credulous man,” 
says this learned author, “ may be deceived once, or more fre- 
quently, but his credulity is not a sufficient instrument to 
govern his whole existence. The wonderful excites only a tran- 
sient admiration, for man is led by his passions, and chiefly b}^ 
hope and by fear.” 
The psychological argument thus adduced is an argument 
always to be remembered when we have before us the subject of 
natural as opposed to superng^tural readings of any class of 
phenomena, of which we become individually or collectively 
conversant ; and in overlooking this position, men of science, I 
venture to think, often err. They, disdaining the fixed prin- 
ciple of human thought and action, in their strain after the 
perfectible, treat as childish or even as idiotic all notions of 
phenomena that become marvellous by surprise, and unan- 
swerable by immediate illustration. This has been peculiarly 
the fact in respect to those manifestations which assume to be 
mental receptions derived from uncommon, unexplained, and 
unknown causes. 
I propose in this short and simple essay to avoid all pre- 
judice and reproach, acknowledging the ancient and fixed 
principle of belief as something worthy of deep regard ; as the 
