Amongst other objections which have been addressed to me, it has been said: "You have not decided whether hallucination is or is not a disease. A phenomenon either is or is not normal. There is in hallucination something more than a mental error, there is a fact."

*De la Folie, considered sur le point de vue pathologique, philosophique, historique, et judiciaire, 2 vols. Paris, 1845.

† Al. Maury, De l'hallucination envisaged au point de vue philosophique et historique, ou Examen critique de l'opinion emise par M. Brierre de Boismont touchant les caracteres auxquelles on doit reconnaitre l'hallucina-tion ches certains personages celebres de l'histoire. - Annal. Med, Psych. t. v. p. 317, 1845.

Calmeil, De la Folie considered sur la point de vue pathologique, philosophique, historique, et judiciaire, anal, par Al. Maury. - Annal. Med. Psych. t vii. p. 110,1846. 23

To those critics I reply, that they are mistaken in asserting that I have declined the question of how far this phenomenon is influenced by the state of health. This is evident by the division I have made of hallucinations into physiological and morbid. My opinion agrees with those of the able physicians whom I have quoted, that it is distinguished by the following characteristics, viz.: when the hallucination is recognized by the person affected as an error, when it exercises no evil influence on the conduct, and is only the effect of a rational idea, it cannot be considered as the act of a madman; but when it incites to murder, to suicide, to the performance of a culpable or ridiculous action, contrary to the eternal laws of good sense, it is evidently morbid.

The question of limit presents insurmountable difficulties. Who can say: "There reason ends and madness begins?" What naturalist is prepared to lay down the line of demarcation between the last link of the animal and the first of the vegetable kingdom? So it is with hallucinations. Let what we have said on reveries and dreams be remembered; also, what Meister has said on the intermediate state between sleeping and waking, and it will be seen that there are normal or almost normal hallucinations, as well as insane ones; but there is a period when it becomes almost impossible to separate them, although experience may distinguish the differences. Without doubt, there may be hallucination in a fact; but the mirage, the square tower which appears round, the stick which, when plunged into water appears broken, are also facts, and yet would any one dare to call those who see and believe in these phenomena, madmen?

Another observation need only be mentioned to be appreciated. Some say it is not surprising that the insane and monomaniacs perform great acts; they recognize no obstacles; they have neither doubt nor uncertainty; and follow unresistingly the realization of their thoughts, whilst men in their senses weigh all the difficulties of their position, and trust nothing to chance. In this view, Alexander, Christopher Columbus, and a host of others would be madmen. All the heroic traits with which history abounds, all those sublime actions which electrify us, all those sacrifices which move us to tears, would be but acts of folly, for there was no cold calculation in them; they were the result of enthusiasm, honor, and impulse. Assuredly, prudence often decides on human actions; but are not the highest of these actions frequently owing to extreme exaltation of mind, to an irresistible and unpremeditated transport?

The question ably sustained by the two writers whom we have named, is, after all, but the reproduction, under another form, of the old medical doctrine of prepotence (prepotema) of the organs, a doctrine which has latterly been renewed by ingenious researches on the subject of hereditary qualities.

Before we touched on this subject, many eminent writers had shown, how completely this systematical idea was opposed to facts and history; and, to give but one example, several illustrious recluses of Port Royal enjoyed the finest health, whilst they at the same time professed doctrines exactly similar to those of the immortal author of the Pensees. The supremacy of mind over matter has been noticed in a number of cases. A renowned Asiatic conqueror was informed, in his dying hour, that his army was on the point of being vanquished; he gave orders to be placed in his palanquin, with the curtains hermetically closed, to be borne to the most exposed parts of the field, and his death not revealed until the enemy was vanquished. At sight of the imperial palanquin, the courage of the soldiers revived; the enemy was defeated, and fled; but on opening the curtains of the palanquin, it was discovered that the emperor had ceased to exist for several hours. Sir Thomas More, weakened by illness, and a mark for moral persecution of every kind, laid his head courageously on the block in witness to his religious faith. Molifere, so great in mind, so profound in observation, was sickly and melancholy, yet no dramatist will ever equal the richness, truth, and boldness of the comic sallies in his immortal works. Does Scarron, twisted by rheumatism into the form of a Z, exhibit in his works any trace of his physical state? Fetter not then the mind - that active agent which rather governs our organization than is governed by it - by the humiliating yoke of organs and their morbid conditions. Finally, has not the illustrious Pascal himself, whose sufferings may be considered the moving spring of his actions, given the most convincing proof of the superiority of mind over the organs, in the following fact mentioned by M. Lelut: "This great man had a severe toothache, the commencement of the second stage of those infirmities, which were destined soon to bear him to the grave. His friend and admirer, the Duke of Roannez, left him one night suffering greatly from that neuralgic affection; on the following day, finding him cured, he inquired how it had been effected. Pascal told him, without appearing to attach any importance to it, and, as though he had used an ordinary remedy, that he had solved the problems of the cycloid curve or wheel, and that, during his labor, the pain had disappeared." Without recurring to such elevated examples, there are few who have not witnessed a complete cessation of suffering under the influence of study, distraction, and conversation. We see daily, far removed from the eyes of the world, virtuous minds exhibiting the struggle of mind with suffering, whilst the former remains uninjured. Those who have watched the last hours of real Christians cannot forget their elevation of thought and serenity of soul. Indeed, the weakest bodies frequently possess the most unconquerable minds.