, 1897-04-06
HALLUCINATIONS.
SOME OF THE CURIOUS EXAMPLES
RECORDED IN HISTORY.
The Lives Of Many Great Men Have Been
Influenced by Visions They
Have Been Prophetic; At Other Times
They Have Caused Tragedies.

uouiuoHt haliuclnatlOns Ill the history
Of the world can scarcely be overrated.
Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Soc
rates, Luther, Ignatius Loyola, are but
q few of the great men whose lives were
intimately entwined with ruling delu-
sions. In these cases the illusions seem
to have been persistent and not to have
been produced by any voluntary effort
OH h part Of the seer. On the other
hand, Talna could walk on to the stage
and after staring at the brilliant and
applauding audience for u few seconds
would see nothing but rUws of grinning
skeletons. In this he seems to have fore
stalled Herr Roentgen, for the skeletons
were in the exact positions of the MEM
bers Of the audience and changed their
pastures with every variation of their
positions. 1t was to this grisly ''house''
that the great actor delivered some of
his grandest histrionic efforts.
Goethe, as might be expected, called
up pleasanter and more peaceful visions.
At will he could see u flower in the cen
ter of his visual field. He thus described
it: "This flower does not for a moment
preserve its form; it is generally decom-
posed, and from its interior are bor1,
other flowers with colored, or sometimes
green, petals. These are not natural
flowers, but fantastic, nevertheless regu-
lar, figures, such us the roses of sculp-
tors"
The capacity for thus producing at
will n lovely object had, however, the
disadvantage described by A~bercrombie
in his famous Inquiry Concerning Tic
Intellectual Powers that they were
not as n rule dismissible at pleasure.
Blake, after studying a model seated in
achair, could continue seeing her clearly
when the chair was empty. This must
have been an economical way CT hiring
q subject by the hour ard would lie an
acceptable talent in these days of highly
feed models. The CHASTITY case described
by Sir Walter Scott of the man who
knew that he was dying, and knew
equally we'll that there was nothing
whatever the matter with him, is per-
haps too familiar TO need more than
| passing mention. The black cat that
this luckless man saw was, to use his
own words, mo household cat, but q
bubble CT the elements which has no
existence" This animal was as COM
pick in form as h seer's metaphor, for
it would turn suddenly into Il court
usher, md the usher in his turn would
become Il skeleton. This man showed 10
symptoms of insanity and was fully
aware Of the unrcality of what he saw,
which must greatly have added to the
persistent misery of his condition.
An old gentleman described by the
late DR.. Elan had u power Of conjuring
up, often without voluntary effort, two
or more charming dancing girls, and the
antics of these nymphs continued until
sleep came to the rescue. The old fellow
was of u particularly pious and proper
turn Of mind, so that their %gratuitous
ballet was presumably wasted OH him.
Nicolai Of Berlin, a very level headed
savant, was troubled for two months
with the vision of n corpse. The hallu-
cination lasted us a rule exactly eight
minutes, and the body was apparently
always steady ut a uniform distance Of
about ten feet from the observer.
This trouble supervened suddenly
after q violent quarrel in which Nicolai
had been engaged. Ultimately the
corpse and all the poor mans other de-
lusions were driven back to their own
sphere by the proseic attacks Of leeches
Oh the temples. This treatment was
also most effective in dispelling the vi
sions of n certain clergyman in Hamp-
shire late in the last century. He habit
ually engaged in personal encounters
with the devil, until the leeches drove
the foul fiend out of his visual field.
Dr.. Bostock, the psychologist, saw the
heads Of his friends ''in relief, like
medallions." Curiously enough, he
could never c~onjure up their bodies.
The great Napoleon was, as is gen.
orally known, invariably attended by a
star. This story was implicitly believed
at the time, and it is said to have been
first related by General Rapp. who. on
visiting the monarch's tent at night,
found Bonaparte excitedly pointing to
q corner Of the tent, crying: "Do you
see that-my star? 1t is shining there
before you'll At the period of the ref
ormation wrestling with the evil one
in propria persona was by no means an
uncommon exercise. Luther several
times INDUCED i'll these combats. Mr..
Lecky tells us Of the young monk who
rushed up to SITS. Pachonius and
Palamon in the desert and told them
excitcdly of the beautiful woman who
had tempted him i'll his cell and, ''hav-
ing worked her purpose had vanished
miraculously in the air, leaving him
half dead upon the ground. The story
goes on to say that the young monk,
with o wild shrek, broke away from
his sanity listeners and rushed
across the desert till he arrived at the
next village and there leaped into the
open furnace of tho public baths and
persisted in the flames"
Gazette was reported to have habit.
ually dreamed with his eyes open, so
that at the dinner party when he sud-
denly said that he saw Condorcet, who
was one Of the guests, in prison and
taking poison to avoid the headsman's
az nobody paid much attention. The
event, however, happened within two
years under the precise circumstance
Observation-Disclosures Standard.
The New Yorker Of the present day
is inclined to smile when he reads that
ON the Fourth of July, 1875, the parade
Of soldiers in that city numbered 900
men. Their route was from the Battery
M Broadway to the e Presbyterian
----As.- T-1-