* Buchon, Analyse raisonie des documents sur la Pacello, p. 196-198.

The violent manner in which our doctrine of the coexistence of hallucinations with reason has been attacked, makes it but fair on our part to quote such authors as view the matter in the same light with ourselves.

We have never professed to think that persons having hallucinations were in a usual state. We have sought for an explanation of these phenomenon, formerly so frequent, and even still of occasional occurrence, in enthusiasm, the offspring of strong belief, and favored by those peculiar circumstances in the midst of which they were produced.

We shall see that this explanation, which agrees with that of a distinguished writer, M. Ch. Louandre, is as ingenious, much more probable, and bears a philosophic and historic weight very much differing from that which imputes them to diseases of the organs.

Let us return to the case, so thrilling in interest, of the heroic Joan of Arc, of which M. Quicherat has published important documents, and on which M. Michelet has delivered a remarkable verdict.

In the Middle Ages, it was a Christian belief, in other words, a traditional dogma, that God honored France with special protection, and that he had selected it for his kingdom on earth. This creed appears startlingly prominent in the interpretation of historic facts, and is reduced into many marvellous legends. God sends the oil for the coronation, to the cathedral at Rheims, by the dove, which conveys celestial messages. But whatever may be the fact of the St. Ampoule, † there is no doubt that this legend exercised a powerful influence on the destinies of French royalty, and, through that source, on the destinies of the country. The coronation of our kings is not a vain ceremony. It is a mystic solemnity in which God confers especial grace, the spirit of justice and the gift of miracles. Here then is a source which, ever since its origin, has presented an inexhaustible number of marvellous facts in the ages of faith.

* A. Brierre de Boismont, Recherches bibliograpkiques et cliniques sur la menstruation. Annal. Med-psychol. Oct. 1851.

† The phial containing the sacred oil used at the coronation of the kings of France.

Without doubt, the belief in divine interposition and traditions, everywhere spread abroad, had reached Joan, and, when we look back into former times, we can comprehend how, in questioning her courage and her faith, in listening to those mysterious voices which spoke to her during her ecstasy, she recognized in herself the angel announced for the salvation of France.

In order to overcome all obstacles, it sufficed this noble girl to have a glimpse of her sacred mission; it sufficed her that she had placed her foot on that mystic ladder which leads, by visions, to the threshold of eternity.

Joan of Arc is of the same family with Hildegarde and Saint Catherine of Sienna. Like these two saints, she obeyed that superior faculty of enthusiasm, illuminism, and ecstasy which, beyond the bounds of all analysis, approaches the most profound mysteries of being, but which is no less an actual fact, permanent in history, and inherent in human nature.

In this internal disturbance of ecstasy, the mind, powerfully over-excited, demands of imagination the realization of the phantoms of its dreams; and imagination, despite of the resistance of reason, endues them with form and substance. The mind embraces new horizons; the external world is no longer seen under ordinary circumstances; it no longer succumbs to probability, and the mirage rises on all sides with features and authority so grand that mystics have established the superiority of the internal over the external sense. "This internal sight, this ubiquitous vision," as Hugues said to Saint Victor, "sees God and all that is in God; when enlightened by faith, the appearance of intangibility is attained, and, through faith, that is seen which would escape the senses in the world of matter.

Hallucinations are not confined to individuals; they exist also in communities; visions become contagious.

Besides, Joan and her contemporaries would discover in Christian tradition the logic of these hallucinations. Angels appeared to Abraham, Moses, and Joshua. The ecclesiastical writers of the early ages said, that when two nations went to war, the celestial spirits, stationed on the limits of the two kingdoms, also waged a terrible warfare, which explains the propensity of men, in the Middle Ages, to see armies engaging in battle in the clouds. The spectators, who witnessed the execution of the heroic Joan of Arc related that they saw the sacred name of Jesus, the last which she pronounced, written in the flames.

The real explanation of the glorious destiny of Joan of Arc, may be called patriotism and military genius, exalted by faith to the highest limits of inspiration. This is all that modern reason can admit.

M. Michelet, who has dived deeply into the belief of the Middle Ages, recognizes religious inspiration as doing homage to the sentiments which form heroes and martyrs, namely, a sincere faith and strong patriotism; he shows, towering above human acts, the mysterious influence of Providence on great events, and the divine ray which proceeds from the Infinite on that elected soul, in order to arouse in it the silent poetry of sentiment.*

The learned Dr. Ideler, physician to a lunatic hospital in Berlin, after having quoted many passages of my work, thus expresses himself: "The importance of these considerations, which may serve as a criterion by which to distinguish real insanity from the separate phenomena of genius and moral exaltation, and which should guide us through our researches, is still more evident in the application which the French physician makes of the higher principles exhibited by celebrated personages. I borrow the beautiful picture which he draws of the Maid of Orleans."†