mind, when the ideal presence converts us into visionaries; and their illusions were as strong as SEEDENBORG’S, who saw a terrestrial heaven in the glittering streets of his New Jerusalem; or JACOB BEHMEN’S, who listened to a celestial voice till he beheld the apparition of an angel; or CARDAN’S, when he so carefully observed a number of little armed men at his feet; or BENVENUTO CELLINI’S, whose vivid imagination and glorious egotism so frequently contemplated “a resplendent light hovering over his shadow.”

[Footnote A:  In his curious autobiography he has given the prayer he used, ending “I am not satisfied whether I shall publish this book de veritate; if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not I shall suppress it.”  His lordships adds, “I had no sooner spoken these words but a loud, though gentle noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon also I resolved to print my book.  This (how strange soever it may seem) I protest before the eternal God is true, neither am I any way superstitiously deceived therein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came.”—­ED.]

Such minds identified themselves with their visions!  If we pass them over by asserting that they were insane, we are only cutting the knot which we cannot untie.  We have no right to deny what some maintain, that a sympathy of the corporeal with the incorporeal nature of man, his imaginative with his physical existence, is an excitement which appears to have been experienced by persons of a peculiar organization, and which metaphysicians in despair must resign to the speculations of enthusiasts themselves, though metaphysicians reason about phenomena far removed from the perceptions of the eye.  The historian of the mind cannot omit this fact, unquestionable, however incomprehensible.  According to our own conceptions, this state must produce a strange mysterious personage:  a concentration of a human being within himself, endowed with inward eyes, ears which listen to interior sounds, and invisible hands touching impalpable objects, for whatever they act or however they are acted on, as far as respects themselves all must have passed within their own minds.  The Platonic Dr. MORE flattered himself that he was an enthusiast without enthusiasm, which seems but a suspicious state of convalescence.  “I must ingenuously confess,” he says, “that I have a natural touch of enthusiasm, in my complexion, but such as I thank God was ever governable enough, and have found at length perfectly subduable.  In virtue of which victory I know better what is in enthusiasts than they themselves; and therefore was able to write with life and judgment, and shall, I hope, contribute not a little to the