is familiar with subjective sensations such as flying spots, phosphenes, ringing in the ears, few fall into the error of seeing or hearing distinct recognizable objects in the absence of all external impressions.  In the lives of eminent men we read of such phenomena as very occasional events.  Malebranche, for example, is said to have heard the voice of God calling him.  Descartes says that, after a long confinement, he was followed by an invisible person, calling him to pursue his search for truth.  Dr. Johnson narrates that he once heard his absent mother calling him.  Byron tells us that he was sometimes visited by spectres.  Goethe records that he once saw an exact counterpart of himself coming towards him.  Sir Walter Scott is said to have seen a phantom of the dead Byron.  It is possible that all of us are liable to momentary hallucinations at times of exceptional nervous exhaustion, though they are too fugitive to excite our attention.

When not brought on by exhaustion or artificial means, the hallucinations of the sane have their origin in a preternatural power of imagination.  It is well known that this power can be greatly improved by attention and cultivation.  Goethe used to exercise himself in watching for ocular spectra, and could at will transform these subjective sensations into definite forms, such as flowers; and Johannes Mueller found he had the same power.[59] Stories are told of portrait painters who could summon visual images of their sitters with a vividness equal to that of reality, and serving all the purposes of their art.  Mr. Galton’s interesting inquiries into the power of “visualizing” would appear to prove that many people can at will sport on the confines of the phantom world of hallucination.  There is good reason to think that imaginative children tend to confuse mental images and percepts.[60]

The Hallucinations of Insanity.

The hallucinations of the insane are but a fuller manifestation of forces that we see at work in normal life.  Their characteristic is that they simulate the form of distinctly present objects, the existence of which is not instantly contradicted by the actual surroundings of the moment.[61] The hallucinations have their origin partly in subjective sensations, which are probably connected with peripheral disturbances, partly and principally in central derangements.[62] These include profound emotional changes, which affect the ruling mental tone, and exert a powerful influence on the course of the mental images.  The hallucinations of insanity are due to a projection of mental images which have, owing to certain circumstances, gained a preternatural persistence and vividness.  Sometimes it is the images that have been dwelt on with passionate longing before the disease, sometimes those which have grown most habitual through the mode of daily occupation,[63] and sometimes those connected with some incident at or near the time of the commencement of the disease.