684 Analyse s of Books. [November, 
hallucinations cannot be suggested to it. One subjedt always 
saw at her left side a man dressed in scarlet : when this patient’s 
right eye was closed, and her left eye — which was colour-blind — 
alone remained open, the man in question appeared to her grey 
and enfolded in clouds. A prism placed before the more normal 
eye of a colour-blind person doubles the hallucinatory image, and 
makes one of the images undergo a deviation in conformity with 
the laws of optics. A spyglass removes or approximates the 
objedt precisely as if it were real. But the strangest fadt is that 
some — not all — of the hallucinations respond to Sir D. Brewster’s 
test. It is well known that if we look at any objedt placed before 
us, and at the same time apply mechanical pressure to the eye- 
ball, the objedt appears doubled. This method has been proposed 
as a means of discovering whether anything seen has an objedtive 
reality ; but according to M. Binet’s results it appears untrust- 
worthy. “ M.A. (Oxon) ” suggests that the patients should be 
got to look at their hallucinatory images through a double- 
refradting medium, and raises the question — Is thought a 
substance ? 
The same writer gives some interesting specimens of the 
alleged prophecies of the “ Seer of Brahan,” Coinneach Ore, 
who flourished about the time of the Great Rebellion. Several 
of these prophecies are described as having been fulfilled long 
afterwards, in the minutest details. The difficulty lies, of course, 
in ascertaining whether these prophecies were really uttered as 
alleged, or whether they have not been made to fit the events. 
The National Reformer, Radical Advocate, and Freethought 
Journal. Vol. XLIV., No. 16. 
There is very little in this paper upon which we have the right 
or the competence to sit in judgment, and either approve or 
disapprove. We note, however, the record of a fadt, curious, 
but by no means unexampled. One Mr. Holmes writes that in his 
boyhood he witnessed a successful instance of the “ Scare Cure 
“ A gentleman who had suffered for months from rheumatism 
in an aggravated form, and who was evidently unable to use his 
limbs, was one day placed in a reclining chair, supported by 
blankets and pillows, and was wheeled through two or three large 
rooms to one in which a large open fire was burning. Over this 
fire a kettle with two or three pails of water had been placed for 
heating. Suddenly the kettle was upset, and the water pouring 
into the adtive fire caused a cloud of steam and ashes to fill the 
room. Our invalid leaped from his chair, and made good time 
to his bed-room. In about ten minutes he arose and dressed, 
