capacity, we must endeavor to possess soundness of body. In another and future state of being, where the connection which now exists will be broken and the spiritual will be divorced from the material, it is possible that mental philosophy may be predicated on other principles; but as matters now are, to attempt to explain the phenomena of the soul without a recognition of its relationship to the body is a violation of fact and an absurdity in reason. CHAPTER SECOND. EXCITED CONCEPTIONS OR APPARITIONS. §. 333. Of excited conceptions and of apparitions in general. HAVING prepared the way by what has been said on the connection existing between the mind and the body, we shall now proceed in the examination of the painfully interesting subject before us, by giving some instances and explanations of EXCITED CONCEPTIONS OR APPARITIONS. Conceptions, the considerations of which is to be resumed in the present chapter, are those ideas which we have of any absent object of perception. In their ordinary form they have already been considered in a former part of this Work. (See Chapter tenth, Part First.) But they are found to vary in a degree of strength; and hence, when they are at the highest intensity of which they are susceptible, they may be denominated vivified or EXCITED CONCEPTIONS. They are otherwise called, particularly when they have their origin in the sense of sight, APPARITIONS. Apparitions, therefore, are appearances, which seem to be external and real, but which in truth have merely an interior or subjective existence; they are merely vivid or excited conceptions. Accordingly there may be apparitions, not only of angels and departed spirits, which appear to figure more large in the history of apparitions than other objects of sight; but of landscapes, mountains, rivers, precipices, festivals, armies, funeral processions, temples; in a word, of all visual perceptions, which we are capable of recalling.Although there are excited conceptions both of the hearing and the touch, and sometimes though less frequently of the other senses, which succeed in reaching and controlling our belief with unreal intimations, those of the sight, in consequence of the great importance of that organ and the frequency of the deceptions connected with it, claim especial attention. §. 334. Of the less permanent excited conceptions of sight. Excited conceptions, which are not permanent but have merely a momentary, although a distinct and real existence, are not uncommon. In explanation of these, there are two things to be noticed.-I. They are sometimes the result of the natural and ordinary exercise of that power of forming conceptions, which all persons possess in a greater or less degree. We notice them particularly in children, in whom the conceptive or imaginative power, so far as it is employed in giving existence to creations that have outline and form, is generally more active than in later life. Children, it is well known, are almost constantly projecting their inward conceptions into outward space, and erecting the fanciful creations of the mind amid the realities and forms of matter, beholding houses, men, towers, flocks of sheep, clusters of trees, and varieties of landscape in the changing clouds, in the wreathed and driven snow, in the fairy work of frost, and in the embers and flickering flames of the hearth. This at least was the experience of the early life of Cowper, who has made it the subject of a fine passage in the poem of the Task, "Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, "Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers, Beattie too, after the termination of a winter's storm, places his young Minstrel on the shores of the Atlantic, to view the heavy clouds, that skirt the distant horizon; "Where, 'midst the changeful scenery ever new, "Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size, II. Again, excited conceptions, which are not permanent, are frequently called into existence in connection with some anxiety and grief of mind, or some other modification of mental excitement. A person, for instance, standing on the seashore, and anxiously expecting the approach of his vessel, will sometimes see the image of it, and will be certain for the moment, that he has the object of his anticipations in view, although in truth there is no vessel in sight. That is to say; the conception, idea, or image of the vessel which it is evidently in the power of every one to form, who has previously seen one, is rendered so intense by feelings of anxiety, as to be the same in effect, as if the real object were present, and the figure of it were actually pictured on the retina. -It is in connection with this view, that we may probably explain a remark in the narrative of Mrs. Howe's captivity, who in 1775 was taken prisoner, together with her seven children by the St. Francois Indians. In the course of her captivity, she was at a certain time informed by the Indians, that two of her children were no more; one having died a natural death, and the other being knocked on the head. "I did not utter many words, (says the mother,) but my heart was sorely pained within me, and my mind exceedingly troubled with strange and awful ideas, [meaning, conceptions or images.] I often imagined, for instance, that I plainly saw the naked carcases of my children hanging upon the limbs of trees, as the Indians are wont to hang the raw hides of those beasts, which they take in hunting." §. 335. Of the less permanent excited conceptions of sound. In regard to excited conceptions of sound, (we may remark incidentally, as we intend to confine ourselves chiefly to those of sight,) they are not, as was seen in a former part of this Work, (§. 114,) so easily called into existence and so vivid, as visual conceptions. Consequently we have grounds for making a distinction and for saying, that only one of the remarks made in reference to the less permanent excited conceptions of sight will apply to those of sound. In other words, excited conceptions of sound, (those which appear and depart suddenly without any permanent inconvenience to the subject of them,) originate in connection with a greater or less degree of mental excitement.-Persons, for instance, sitting alone in a room, are sometimes interrupted by the supposed hearing of a voice, which calls to them. But in truth it is only their own internal conception of that particular sound, which, in consequence of some peculiar mental state, happens at the moment to be so distinct, as to control their belief and impose itself upon them for a reality. This is probably the whole mystery. of what Boswell has related as a singular incident in the life of Dr. Johnson, that while at Oxford he distinctly heard his mother call him by his given name, although she was at the very time in Litchfield. -The same principle explains also what is related of Napoleon. Previously to his Russian expedition, he was frequently discovered half-reclined on a sofa, where he remained several hours, plunged in profound meditation. Sometimes he started up, convulsively, and with an ejaculation. Fancying he heard his name, he would exclaim, Who calls me? These are the sounds susceptible of being heard at any time, in the desert air, which started Robinson Crusoe from his sleep, when there was no one on his solitary island but himself; "The airy tongues that syllable men's names, §. 336. First cause of permanently vivid conceptions or apparitions. Morbid sensibility of the retina of the eye. We have been led to see, particularly in a former chapter, (§. 118,) as well as in the preceding part of this, that our conceptions or renovated ideas may be so vivid, as to affect our belief for a short time hardly less powerfully than the original perceptions. But as in the cases referred to, there was not supposed to be an unsound or disordered state of the body, this extreme vividness of conception was exceedingly transitory. There are other cases of a comparatively perma nent character, which are deserving of a more particular notice in the history of our mental nature. These last always imply a disordered state of the body, which we were led to see in the last chapter is often attended with very marked effects on the mind. In attempting to give an explanation of the origin of permanently vivid conceptions, the first ground or cause of them, which we shall notice, is an unnatural and morbid sensibility of the retina of the eye, either the whole of the retina or only a part. This cause, it is true, is in some degree conjectural, in consequence of the retina being so situated as to render it difficult to make it a subject of observation and experiment. But knowing as we do that the nervous system generally is liable to be diseased, and that the disease of a particular portion is commonly productive of results having relation to the object or uses of that portion, we may for this reason as well as for what we know directly and positively of the occasionally disordered affections of the optic nerve, give it a place in the explanations of the subject before us. In order to understand the applicability of this cause of permanently vivid conceptions or apparitions, it is necessary to keep in mind, that, in conceptions of visible objects, there is probably always a slight sympathetic affection of the retina of the eye, analogous to what exists when the visible object is actually present. In a perfectly healthy state of the body, including the organ of visual sense, this affection of the retina is of course very slight. But under the influence of a morbid sensibility, the mere conceptions of the mind may at times impart such an increased activity to the whole or a part of the retina as to give existence to visual or spectral illusions. There is an account given in a foreign Medical Journal, (the Medico-chirurgical Repertory of Piedmont,) of a young lady, who attended for the first time the music of an orchestra, with which she was exceedingly pleased. She continued to hear the sounds distinctly in their order for weeks and months afterwards, till, her whole system becoming disordered in consequence of it, she died. Now we naturally suppose in this case, that the nerve of the tympanum of the ear, which both in a physiological point of view and in its |