OF DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HALLUCINATIONS, DELIRIUM, AND
MADNESS--CONCLUSION.
In the preceding chapters, I have shown, as I believe, the genesis of
myth, the fundamental faculty in which it necessarily originates, and
its evolution in man, particularly in the Aryan and Semitic races. We
have seen that the primitive and universal fact consists in the
immediate and spontaneous entification of natural phenomena and of the
ideas themselves; and we have resolved this fact into its elements, from
which all the generating sources of myth issue, that is, from the
immediate effects of the perception. Putting man out of the question, we
ascertained that the same innate necessity was common to the animal
kingdom.
In order to complete the theory, we must consider some other facts and
psychical phenomena, both normal and abnormal, so as to ascertain
whether these are not due to the same cause, as far as respects their
intrinsic forms; namely, the belief in the reality of images seen in
dreams, as well as in those which appear in illusions, in normal
hallucinations of the senses, and in those which are abnormal, in
ecstasy, in delirium, in madness, in idiocy, and dementia. In all these
mental conditions, we ascribe a body and material existence to images
which for various causes appear to be really presented to our senses.
If we are able to show that all such appearances are believed to have a
real existence in virtue of the same law and faculty of perception which
generated myth in its earliest manifestation, we shall have succeeded in
establishing a common genesis for all these various psychical phenomena,
thus affording no contemptible contribution to psychology in general,
and to the science of human thought.
To dream is not merely a normal act of man, but, as it appears from many
witnesses, it is common to all animals. In dreams the ordinary laws of
time and space are strangely modified, and images of all kinds appear,
sometimes confusedly, sometimes in a rational order, often in accordance
with the laws of association, while the voluntary exercise of thought
may be said to be dormant. This is, speaking generally, the condition
and nature of dreams, which we must presently consider adequately with
more subtle and exact analysis.
Before we trace the cause of the apparent reality of these images, and
the laws which govern it, let us consider man in his waking condition,
so as to ascertain at once the likeness and the difference between
these two states. We must first inquire whether the waking is absolutely
distinct from the dreaming state as far as the appearance of the images,
their nature, and mode of action are concerned. It has been observed by
many psychologists and physiologists that in the waking state, when
images do not arise from the immediate presence of objects, or are not
directed by the will to a definite aim, they appear, group themselves,
and disperse by the immediate association of ideas, and the measurements
of time and space are modified just as they are in dreams. These
observations are correct, and the phenomena may be verified by every one
for himself.
In this waking state, which really resembles that of dreams, only the
analogy of form has been perceived; the ideas of the objects present to
the mind have resembled those of images seen in dreams, but they have
continued to be mere ideas, presented to the imagination, whereas in
dreams the things seen have been supposed to have a real existence. In
this respect the analysis is partly true and partly false; it is not, as
we shall see, perfect and exact.
It sometimes happens, owing to special circumstances and conditions of
mind, or to peculiar temperaments, that the ideas of things do not
remain as mere _thoughts_ in the thinker's mind, but that they become so
intense that they are for the moment held to be real, precisely as in a
dream.
I do not here speak of abnormal or pathological conditions, or of
extraordinary phenomena, but of a normal and common condition. If there
is any novelty in the assertion, it is owing to a want of observation
and reflection, and to not attempting to trace the real nature of the
phenomena in which we take part, and which occur every day. The habitual
inaccuracy of observation has led to the use of many proverbs and
aphorisms in the interpretation of things which have been transmitted
from one generation to another, and are now accepted as indubitable
axioms. These are to be found in every branch of knowledge, and we have
an instance in the popular and scientific aphorism that in dreams images
appear to be real, and that in the waking state they always continue to
be mere thoughts and ideas.
This is not the fact, since, putting illusions and hallucinations out of
the question, thoughts and ideas sometimes assume the character and
nature of real objects, just as they do in dreams. This fact constitutes
the link and gradual assimilation of the two states, since in no series
of phenomena _natura facit saltum_.
When, for instance, as often happens, we abandon ourselves to a train of
thought, and our perception of surrounding objects is weakened by
inattention, we become as it were unconscious, and are only intent on
the thoughts and ideas which move us. Since no definite object
constrains the will to rule and guide these thoughts and ideas, that
condition of mind is established which we have shown to be identical in
form with the act of dreaming, for in this case also thoughts and ideas
have their origin in association alone. In this condition a phenomenon
peculiar to dreams may also occur which may be termed the suggestive
impulse; a sound or some sudden sensation produces an immediate
transformation of the image itself, and a new dream arises in conformity
with the nature of the new impression. Every one must, consciously or
unconsciously, have experienced such a phenomenon, and this special
characteristic of dreams may also take place in the waking condition
which I have described. I myself can bear witness to this fact, and will
mention one among several instances: I was once reading inattentively,
seated at my ease in a lounging chair, and my thoughts took quite
another direction, wandering vaguely from one thing to another. All at
once some people entered an adjoining room talking together; I heard
what they said indistinctly, but the word Florence reached my ears, and
I soon imagined myself to be in that city, and going on from one
association to another I continued for some time to see again the
places, monuments, and people I had known there. Yet I was fully awake,
and from time to time I brushed the flies from my face and glanced at
the clock on the chimney-piece, since I had to go out at three o'clock.
It appears from this fact, which will be confirmed by many of my
readers, that some waking states resemble those of dreams in form, and
moreover they are sometimes even alike in substance. Ideas and thoughts
in the conditions just indicated may not only be latent, active,
combined, or transformed by suggestive impulses, but ideas are
represented by images in such vivid relief that, until the observer
recollects himself, they are seen and felt by him with the same sense of
reality as in a dream. This mental transformation is however so
habitual, that the implicit conviction of being really awake, does not
allow us to observe what the actual nature of the phenomenon is, since
there is an immediate transition from an implicit perception of the
image as real to the habitual form of simple thought, without
distinguishing the difference between these two states of consciousness.
Any one who has long practised himself in the observation of such
distinctions will, however, be able to understand the psychical process
and to estimate its value.
It has often occurred to myself, in circumstances analogous to the
above, when thinking of persons or places at a distance, to see them
imaged before me in such vivid relief that I have been startled as if by
a morbid hallucination. Once, in passing through my chamber, my
attention was so strongly fixed on an absent person that I was not only
vividly conscious of his form, but also of his voice and gestures, so
that I was amazed by the lively image brought before me. I could adduce
other instances from my own experience and that of others to show that
in a waking and altogether normal state we may believe in the reality of
the image as we do in dreams.
This vivid and momentary realization of images is very common in the
lower classes, who often talk to themselves, and use gestures which show
that they are conversing at the moment with imaginary persons, who stand
before them, as if they were really there, in the same manner as in
dreams. Indeed, every one has experienced this phenomenon for himself,
especially when strongly excited by anger, sorrow, or hope. If it were
possible to reflect on the process of thought at the time we should
distinctly understand that we were dreaming while still awake.
The vivid imagination of artists is well known, so that they are able to
see and represent things and persons, either in words, with the pencil,
or the chisel, just as if they were actually present. The image so
vividly realized is a necessary condition of the exercise of their
respective arts. When great poets, such as Dante, Ariosto, Milton, and
Goethe, conceived and idealized their thoughts with every detail of
circumstances, persons, actions, expressions, and movements, no one can
deny that the images were vividly present to their minds, and that while
in the act of composition these were unconsciously regarded as having a
real existence. If these poetic descriptions are presented to the
attentive reader in such a vivid form as to transport him into a real
world, much more must the authors of these marvellous creations have
looked upon them as real at the moment of composition. The impression of
truthfulness is indeed produced by the fact that the writers saw these
things as though they were real. I speak of states of consciousness, not
of reflex observation, of intense moments of sensation and imagination,
which are unnoticed by the man who experiences them in his waking
moments. Such is the reader of a poem, a romance, or history, the
spectator of a picture, who is able for the time to abstract himself
from surrounding objects, and who implicitly believes that he sees those
places and persons, or whatever the book or painter has described or
represented. If suddenly interrupted, he rouses himself, and may be said
to awake to the present reality of things, as if startled from a dream.
Wigan relates that a celebrated portrait painter worked with such
quickness and facility that he painted more than three hundred portraits
in a year. When he was asked the secret of his rapid execution and of
the faithfulness of the likeness, he replied, "When any one proposes to
have his portrait taken, I look at him attentively for half an hour,
while sketching his features on the canvas; I then lay the canvas aside
and pursue the same method with another portrait, and so on. When I wish
to return to the first, I take his person into my mind and place it
before me as distinctly as if he were actually present. I set to work,
looking at the sitter from time to time, since I am able to see him
whenever I look that way." Talma asserted that when he was on the stage,
he was able by mere force of will to transform his audience into
skeletons, which affected him with such emotion as to add force and
energy to his action. Abercromby speaks of a man who had the faculty of
calling up visions with all the vividness of reality whenever he
pleased, by strongly fixing his attention on mental conceptions which
corresponded to them. Yet he was a sane man, in the prime of life,
perfectly intelligent, and versed in practical affairs.
A very slight withdrawal of the attention from surrounding objects is
all that is necessary to enable artists and some other persons to call
up these images with vivid distinctness, since even in the waking state
the image may for the moment appear to be actually before them. Any one
might attain to the same power of verification if the transition from
the real to the merely ideal image were not in the waking state so
instantaneous and easy; whereas in a dream the state of illusion is
uninterrupted, and it is physiologically impossible for the mind to pass
immediately from the image, which is believed to be real, to the simply
representative idea of the thing.
Even in the waking state, the image and representative idea of the thing
naturally tend to become, or to appear to be, actual realities, even in
a strictly normal condition of mind and body. Nor do they only
implicitly tend to become such by the innate impulse of the mind, but
they actually become so in fugitive moments of which man is scarcely
conscious, and they appear to him exactly as they do in dreams. Hence it
follows that there is no hard and fast line between the sleeping and
waking states, so far as the nature of images, their source, action, and
combinations are concerned, when men are distracted in mind, and the
course of their thoughts is not voluntarily directed to some definite
object; so that by a psychological process the phenomena of the waking
state may be partly transformed into those of dreams. The vivid
character of the image, presented to the senses as if actually there, is
common to both phenomena. The way in which we begin to dream shows how,
owing to our physiological conditions, we pass through regular stages
from the waking state into that of sleep.
"Nuovo pensiero dentro a me si mise,
Dal qual piu altri nacquero e diversi;
E tanto di uno in altro vaneggiai
Che gli occhi per vaghezza ricopersi,
E il pensamento in sogno trasmutai."[33]
So Dante writes in the "Purgatorio" with deep and subtle truth. Each man
can verify for himself the exactness of the great poet's description.
I myself can readily study the phenomena of dreams, since I never sleep
without dreaming so vividly that I remember all the circumstances in the
morning. I have used all sorts of artifices in order to trace the
beginning of sleep and dreams, and always with the same result, so that
I am certain of the accuracy of experiments which have been repeated a
hundred times. I have examined other persons who have made the same
observations, all of whom agree with me.
When repose, the herald of sleep and dreams, begins, my thoughts wander
in an irregular and somewhat confused manner. As they are gradually
subjected to the associations to which they successively give rise, they
are transformed into more vivid images, a vividness which is always in
inverse proportion to the attention. This gradually produces the state
which has been described by Maury and others as hypnagogic
hallucination; that is, the images seem to be real, although the subject
is still partly awake, and the voluntary exercise of thought is lost
from time to time in this species of incipient chaos. It is at this
point that images are really most intense, and that every idea assumes a
body and form, every image a reality: finally, when the body and the
brain have reached the physiological conditions of sleep, thoughts which
had been changed into hypnagogic images in the intermediate stage
between sleep and waking, are altogether transformed into the real
images of dreams.
By an effort of will I have often been able to surprise myself in this
intermediate stage, and the same thing has been done by others, and it
always appears that this is the real moment of transition from
wakefulness to dreaming, I have been able to verify the fact that the
first dream is only the continuation of our last waking thoughts, which
have now become dramatic and real I have also observed that this
intermediate stage between waking and dreaming, during which the images
are real and vivid, although we are still conscious of our real
condition, goes on for a long while, sometimes for a whole night, with
brief intervals of sleep. This has occurred to me when I was kept awake,
either when travelling at night, or when I had taken a large draught of
water before lying down (other liquids or food does not produce the
phenomenon) or if I have been looking during the day at objects
illuminated by dazzling sunshine. In all these circumstances the bright
and vivid images appear reduced to an almost microscopic scale, although
very distinct in form and colour; in ordinary cases, the images appear
of the ordinary size, but not without a tendency to become smaller.
I believe that there is a physical cause for the reduction and
attenuation of the images in the excessive excitement of the retina, or
central encephalic organ in which images are formed in conscious
concurrence with the cortical part of the hemispheres. Owing to the
excitement caused by wakefulness, by fatigue, by sunshine, or in some
cases by the condition of the nerves of the stomach, the objective
projection on psychical space, partly transmitted by heredity and
gradually formed by associations and local signs,[34] is arrested by the
innate force of the image on the organ, and it appears to be smaller and
in proportion with the relative smallness of the image which is produced
by minute vibrations and by the susceptibility of the cellule. This
intermediate and persistent stage of hypnagogic images serves in every
way to explain the physical genesis of involuntary hallucinations.
As a proof that the image physiologically assumes the form of a real
appearance, I may mention the experience of myself and others. When
suddenly awakened from a vivid dream I have sometimes, even when I was
fully awake, seen for an instant the figures of my dream still moving,
and projected on the wall. This fact shows that even the images of our
waking state have, in the physiological conditions of the brain, a
tendency to take real forms, so that they may be termed normal, or more
properly, inchoate hallucinations, corrected by the conscious efforts of
our waking state and external consciousness. So that it might be said
that dreams are at first the transformation of our waking thoughts into
normal images and hallucinations, and afterwards into those of dreams,
properly so called.
If the hypnagogic phase actually affects the cerebral cellules in
connection with the various senses of which they are the organs, the
phases of sleep and dreams, strictly so called, have more general
conditions. The idea, converted into an image presented to the senses,
may thus be said to have three stages: that of the waking state, which
depends as we have said on the intensity and vividness with which it is
reproduced, aided by a momentary detachment from the real environment;
secondly, the hypnagogic phase, in which there is the physiological
action of the nervous centres, which produce the image, though still
with the implicit consciousness of the waking state; and finally, the
actual dream, in which this implicit consciousness is almost always
wanting, and the psychical exercise of thought is completely transformed
into visions and figures which are believed to be real. This in its turn
depends upon the other two causes, and on the physiological relaxation
of the body, which is to a great extent isolated, so that the effectual
impulses of external nature are greatly attenuated.
In the waking state, the whole body and all its organs of relation and
movement are in tension. The cerebro-spinal axis virtually excites the
whole muscular and peripheral system in such a way that relaxation or
relative repose becomes impossible. But the brain, with all its
dependencies and appendices, is not only the organ of thought, but it
stimulates and directs our whole system, as numerous experiments have
shown. In the waking state both these functions are exercised equally,
as far as the impulses and functions of the body are concerned, and as
long as the psychical and organic characteristics of the waking state
continue. But in sleep the exciting influence of the brain is
diminished, and the brain transmits much less of the normal excitement
and normal tension to the spinal axis with its ramifications in the
afferent and efferent nerves; in the waking state an external impression
is promptly conveyed to the centres, whence it returns in corresponding
movements with the usual connection and rapidity, whether reflex or
deliberate. Since in sleep the relative condition is flaccid and torpid,
this action no longer takes place. For if the brain be affected by
strong impressions, and these are followed by corresponding movements
due to reflex action, as is often the case, even in sleep, the dreamer
is only obscurely conscious of them, and they almost wholly depend on
the spinal axis, and the peripheral ganglia.
As we have said, the function of the brain is duplex; it stimulates and
directs, and it is also sentient and conscious, and this second function
is persistent in dreams. Although the brain is no longer directed by a
power which dictates psychical acts and phenomena, yet its automatic
action is not destroyed, and to this the apparent reality of images
seen is owing, since there is no longer any distraction from the
external world, or, at all events, its impulses are so attenuated as to
be unobserved. In such conditions past images recur with an appearance
of reality owing to the mnemonic and automatic action of the brain; such
a tendency exists in the waking state, and the images are associated and
dissociated in a thousand ways, by means of analogies, resemblances,
former combinations of facts, and series of facts analogous to those of
the waking state, and are modified by suggestive impulses. We have
experimental proof, to which I can add my own irrefragable witness, that
the stimulating influence exerted by the brain in the waking state is
dormant in sleep, and that only its automatic act of representation
remains active, with the occasional exercise of an aroused and conscious
will.
The following strange and unpleasant phenomenon generally occurs to me
once or twice a year. All at once, in the midst of a deep sleep, I
become wide awake; I am fully conscious of myself, of the place where I
am, of my position and the like, and wish to move like a person who is
fully awake. Yet for some time this is impossible; the psychical,
cerebral faculty is perfectly awake, and master of itself, but not the
stimulating faculty, so that the limbs do not respond to the first
impulse of the will. All my efforts are unsuccessful; I only succeed in
escaping from this unpleasant situation by uttering with great
difficulty some inarticulate sound, which acts as a shock, and I thus
obtain the mastery of my body, for the nerves of speech and the muscular
movements of articulation also fail to answer to my will. If this occurs
when I am alone, the struggle is severe, and there is a violent shock to
the whole body before its equilibrium is restored and the motor function
of the brain resumes its office.
It is therefore manifest that the stimulating function of the brain is
dormant in sleep and dreams, but its automatic, psychical function
persists; it sometimes happens that the stimulus of the will is awakened
before the stimulus of motion, and that the brain may be aroused to
consciousness for some moments before it has resumed its normal
functions as a stimulating organ, which were attenuated and relaxed in
sleep. The abnormal condition of paralysis proves and confirms this
fact.
Let us now ascertain the cause of the various psychical and
physiological conditions which aim at and often succeed in presenting to
the mind a mere representative sign as a substantial and real image.
What is the cause of the apparent reality of dreams? The image is
clearly a psychical phenomenon, containing a sensible element of which
we are conscious; the fundamental faculty of the perception is exerted
on it as on a real object, and the immediate results are precisely
identical. The reader will remember that we have shown that a
phenomenon involves the intuitive idea of an active subject, so that the
image also, in accordance with the innate faculty of perception, must
normally appear to the mind as such. When this is not the case, it is
because the normal effect of natural phenomena, to which our attention
is constantly directed, and our mental education and hereditary
influence, have accustomed us to distinguish at once between the mere
idea and the real object, and thus we discern the difference between the
normal action of thought and sense, and illusions, hallucinations, and
dreams. But since these psychical and physiological conditions lose
their force when the habit and actions of our waking state are dormant,
the primitive and innate entification of the image quickly recurs, as we
can plainly see from the previous analysis.
This is so much the case, that some savage peoples even now find it hard
to distinguish real events from those of dreams, and this is owing to a
defect in their memory or to the imperfection of their language. In
fact, all civilized and barbarous peoples in the world have without
exception believed, and still believe, in the reality of images seen in
dreams, and their personification has been the source of an immense
number of myths. Even now, with all our civilization and advanced
science, not only the common people, but many of those in fashionable
and tolerably cultivated society, believe in the reality of dreams and
in their hallucinations, and derive from them fears, hopes, and warnings
for their future life.
I will give one instance in a thousand to prove the innate tendency even
in the act of dreaming to transform the image into a real object. It
appeared to me that I was in a large room filled with acquaintances and
strangers, who discussed an event which had really occurred in the city
a few days before. All at once I raised my eyes to the wall of the room,
and saw a large picture, representing a landscape with distant
mountains, streams, cottages, and animals. As I looked, the picture was
gradually transformed into a real object, and I found myself, together
with the company before mentioned, in the midst of the fields, on the
bank of the river, and within one of the cottages.
In another dream, I appeared to be conversing with an old soldier on the
shores of a lake; after some incoherent talk, he began to describe a
bloody battle in which he had taken part; he had not gone far before the
narrative was changed for an actual occurrence, and I was in the midst
of a real battle, such as the soldier had undertaken to describe.
Another night I dreamed that I was reading a tragic poem, relating
terrible deeds of blood and rapine, and suddenly I seemed to have become
an actor or real spectator of that which I had at first read in a book.
In another strange dream I was going over a difficult pass in a hired
carriage, and I seemed to see before me a friend from whom I had parted
on the previous day, when he got into an omnibus to return to the
country. I soon saw in the distance a large coach-builder's
establishment, a vast enclosure with sheds and carriages, and in the
_piazza_ I saw the manager, a man I knew, who had really some
appointment in a carriage manufactory; the building recalled by
association the familiar appearance of the high chimneys which rose
above the roof, and while thinking of those chimneys with my eyes fixed
on the manager, he appeared to me to be changed into a very high
chimney, still bearing a human face. Finally, not to multiply examples,
I remember a dream in which I was present at a popular disturbance,
where one woman, more furious than the rest, came to blows with her
husband, and called him a dog. Suddenly the scene changed, and I was
transported to a courtyard in which there were poultry, pigs, and a fine
dog of my acquaintance, called Lightning. Again the scene changed, and I
found myself in a country district with some friends, exposed to a
violent storm of thunder and lightning.
We clearly see from these facts that whatever may be presented to the
imagination is transformed into a real object in the dream itself, so
that it might be called a dream within a dream, and in the last instance
the transmutation passes through three images and consecutive objects.
This transmutation not only consists in the transition from our waking
thoughts to the image of our dreams, but it takes place in the act of
dreaming; such is the power of the faculty of perception, in which we
find the first origin of myth in man, and its roots also in the animal
kingdom. Thus the genesis of myth, as far as the entification of the
image is concerned, is the same as that of dreams.
The normal illusions of the senses, which are believed to be real by
primitive men, and by those ignorant of physical laws, have a similar
origin. The objection of such phenomena as a mirage, or the tremulous
effect produced in tropical regions by the refraction and reflection of
light on trees, rocks, and mountains, so well described by Humboldt, is
due to ignorance of the laws of nature, and this is in fact an
entification of the phenomenon, occasioned by the innate tendency to
animation which is proper to the perception. In this it is easy to trace
the genesis both of myth and dreams. The fact of hallucination is more
complex, even in its normal state, that is, in those general conditions
of mind and body in which reason has complete command over us.
Without entering into any analysis of the various forms of hallucination
of which many able psychologists and physicians of the insane have
treated, let us turn to the more ordinary cases in which an image of the
mind is projected on the external world so as to appear real. The roots
of such a phenomenon are strictly organic, and belong to the centres in
which the image is formed, as we have already observed; this image
sometimes stands out in such vivid relief on the psychical space that it
seems to be an external, not, as it usually appears in less vivid form,
an internal intuition. The hallucinations which Nicolai describes
himself to have experienced may be taken as a classical example. When
Andral was returning from an autopsy, he clearly saw the corpse
stretched before him as he entered his room. Goethe, Byron, and many
others, have been affected in the same way. I myself have occasionally
had hallucinations of the kind when in a perfectly healthy condition of
mind and body; one, in particular, of a very vivid character, occurred
when I awoke one morning and seemed to see a tall and venerable priest
entering my chamber. It is needless to multiply examples; similar facts
abound in classic books in English, French, German, and other languages.
Let us rather study the phenomenon and trace its origin.
It is clear on the one side that the images of the hallucinations of
sight or hearing appear to have a real existence, so that they may be
observed and studied with ease; and it is also certain that this image
has no external existence, and is simply a cerebral fact, due to the
organs adapted for perception. Without considering the cause of the
external projection, to which I have already alluded, since perhaps its
physiological and psychical genesis is not yet fully understood, we
must consider the image, so far as it is believed to be real.
In cases of normal hallucination the reason is intact, and the observer
is conscious of the illusion, yet notwithstanding this positive judgment
the image has an appearance of complete reality. The cause of this
illusion is evidently the same as that of the illusions of dreams, and
of the origin of myth; namely, that everywhere and always the mental or
natural phenomenon and its image are respectively entified. In the
normal waking state, habit and other causes on which we have touched
render our ideas of things altogether immaterial, as merely psychical
forms and representative signs, but when the excitement of the organs
increases, so as to present them to the consciousness as objective
images, then, owing to the interruption of the ordinary process, they
are suddenly entified, and appear as an external phenomenon.
Hallucinations are therefore explained by our theory, and it is further
confirmed by the hallucinations of animals, and especially by the
delirium of dogs and other animals affected by hydrophobia, or by
cerebral excitement artificially produced by alcoholic and exhilarating
drugs.
If a man is habitually subject to many and various hallucinations, and
his sane judgment esteems them to be such, they are undoubtedly unusual
phenomena, but they do not in any way injure the rational exercise of
the mind. It is only when he believes the images to be real that the
abnormal state begins, termed delirium if it is of short duration, and
madness if it is permanent. We must examine hallucination under these
new conditions.
In the delirium of fever, or in various forms of disease, the cerebral
excitement is so great that not only the deliberate exercise of reason,
but the power of estimating external objects is lost, and the organs of
the senses are so completely altered, that the perceptions themselves
are exaggerated and confused. In this state hallucination reaches its
highest point, and the patient sees, hears, and feels, directly or
indirectly, strange and terrible things: wild beasts, enemies of all
kind, torments; or again, pleasing and agreeable images. Independently
of the alteration in various sensations produced by the morbid
alteration of the special organs which induce them, the real cause of
this phenomenon consists in the objection of mental sensations and
images. Such an objection of images or sensations, considered in the act
which transforms them into a reality, depends on the same cause as all
other acts of perception; there is always an entification of the
phenomenon, which in this case is a vivid internal image, appearing to
be external and real.
The entification of images is still more direct and powerful because in
this morbid crisis the necessary corrections made by reason cannot take
place, since the sick man is for the time deprived of it, and he is in
fact a dreamer, whose condition is intensified by abnormal excitement.
Entification is now displayed in its nude and native state, and serves
to explain the constant mental process, and the true nature of the
representations of the intellect. The transition is easy from delirium
to madness, for although an insane person is not always delirious, but
sometimes calm and composed, yet there is a fundamental resemblance to
delirium in the change in his states of consciousness and its relative
organs, which imply a constant hallucination. The most famous and acute
physicians of the insane estimate that eighty out of a hundred insane
persons are subject to hallucinations. The morbid condition which
generates them is also produced by debility, by anaemia, and the senile
decay of the cerebral organs, since they occur in dementia, idiocy, and
old age, and the physiological and mental causes are the same; the power
of fixing the attention and governing the thoughts is diminished, owing
to the weakening of the vivid consciousness of the external world,
produced by a torpidity of the afferent organs. In these cases the
recollections which are not altogether lost sometimes reappear as
hallucinations. The hallucinations of madness, in its various forms of
dementia, idiocy, and dotage, are all, apart from their morbid and
organic conditions, derived from the same source which produces myths,
dreams, and normal hallucinations; the objective entification of images
is due to the innate faculty of the perception, which leads to the
immediate personification of any given phenomenon. We have shown that,
given a sensation, there naturally arises the implicit notion of a
subject and a cause, and this natural impulse is further developed by
the influence of heredity; both in man and animals the constant and
powerful sense of individual life is infused into the phenomenon
perceived.
The various forms of madness throw a clearer light on this necessary and
primitive fact of human and animal perception. The act of sensation may
then be said to be under its own direction, and generates itself in the
automatic exercise of the brain, as in dreams, without the explicit,
disturbing, and modifying influence of reflection, and the habit of
rational analysis. The act of sensation is spontaneously completed and
developed in and with its own constituents, and since it is isolated
from other modes and exercises of thought, its real nature appears. The
hallucinations of madness, produced by the mental realization of images,
either detached or in association, prove that all our mental images or
ideas have a tendency in themselves to become real objects of
consciousness; with this difference, that a sane man recognizes these
mental entifications by their mobility and incessant alterations, which
contrast with the fixity and permanence of external and cosmic
phenomena.
The following considerations will confirm the truth of these facts. In
our advanced state of civilization, thought may, after so many ages'
exercise, almost be said to have become part of the organism by the
indisputable effect of heredity; and the phenomenon of the recurrence to
memory of past facts and distant places is obvious and intelligible,
since our judgment of them is never subject to illusion, or only in rare
instances and in abnormal conditions. But this judgment is less obvious
and easy in the case of primitive savages who have advanced little
beyond the innate exercise of the intelligence. The rational analysis of
the states of consciousness has not been made, and hence their special
and general distinctions are seen with difficulty or not seen at all.
Consequently the primitive and natural amazement of man must have been
great, when by day, and still more in the lonely silence of night,
persons, places, and his own past acts recurred to his mind, and he was
able to contemplate them as if they were actually present. He was
incapable of giving an explanation of this marvellous fact in the
rational and reflective manner which is possible to psychologists and to
all civilized men. This revival of the past appeared to him as a fact in
its simple and spontaneous reality; he made no attempt to explain it,
but it was presented to his consciousness like all other natural facts.
The only explanation of the phenomenon appeared to him to be that these
images did not recur to the mind by the necessary action of the brain,
but that by their own spontaneous power they were recalled to take
their part within his breast: he supposed the phenomenon to be
objective, not subjective.
Prophecy, for instance, was often supposed to be a recollection, and
some primitive accounts of the genesis of things, handed down by
tradition, were reputed to be inspired, and objectively dictated to the
mind. The Platonic theory of reminiscence relies on these conceptions.
The power which recalled the images to memory was supposed to be
external, and identical with that which raises up the images of dreams;
primitive man traced a fanciful identity between the phenomena of memory
and of dreams, and the distinction between them was not supposed to
consist in the actual images, but in the modes of their appearance in
the waking or sleeping state. The images assumed in the memory a
relative reality, somewhat resembling those of dreams. In fact, some
savages do not clearly distinguish between the images of these states,
and see little difference between the spontaneous recollection of
things, the fancy, and dreaming. This also occurs in children, who at a
very early age often call by name absent persons and things which recur
to their memory; and on the other hand they do not distinguish the facts
of real life from those of dreams. I have observed this fact in several
children.
Among primitive peoples it often happens that an object with which they
are unfamiliar, but which has some analogy with those with which they
are acquainted, becomes associated with the latter, and is constituted
into a compound being, endowed with life. The Esquimaux believed the
vessels commanded by Ross to be alive, since they moved without oars.
When Cook touched at New Zealand, the inhabitants supposed his ship to
be a whale with sails. The Bosjesmanns ascribed life to a waggon, and
imagined that it required the nourishment of grass. When an Arauco saw a
compass, he believed that it was an animal; and the same belief has been
held by savages of musical instruments, such as grinding organs, which
play tunes mechanically. Herbert Spencer mentions similar behaviour in
some men belonging to one of the hill tribes in India; when they saw Dr.
Hooker pull out a spring measuring tape, which went back into its case
of itself, they were terrified and ran away, convinced that it was a
snake. From these facts, which might be multiplied indefinitely, it not
only appears that everything is spontaneously animated by man, but also
that the images of his memory are fused with those which are actually
present, since their respective factors are esteemed to be equally real.
This primitive objection of the images of the memory also occurs in the
mythical representations of dreams, which, as the images of absent
objects, have much in common with the images of the memory. In fact, all
peoples, as we have seen, have believed in the reality of dreams.
The North American Indians believe in the existence of two souls, one of
which remains in the body while the other wanders at pleasure during
the dream. The New Zealander supposes that the dreamer's soul leaves his
body, and that he meets the things of which he dreams in the course of
his wanderings. The Dyak also believes that the soul is absent during
sleep, and that the things seen in dreams really occur. Garcilasso
asserts that this was likewise the Peruvians' belief. A tribe in Java
abstains from waking a sleeper, since his soul is absent in dreams. The
Karens say that dreams are what the _la_ or soul sees during sleep. This
theory is also found among more civilized peoples, as for instance in
the Vedic philosophy and the Kabbala, and it has come down to our days
among the common people, and even among those of some culture.
One belief connected with dreams, generally diffused among all savage
and civilized peoples, is that of the appearance of dead men, or of
their ghosts. Of this all the traditions and popular myths in the world
are full. Such a belief, first excited by the vision of the dead in
dreams, is easily aroused in the savage or uneducated mind, even when he
recalls to memory while he is alone, and especially at night, the image
of one whom he loved in life. Affection, and the lively emotion of
sorrow and desire give such a life-like appearance to these images that
they become objectively present to the mind, to console the mourner, or,
on the other hand, to threaten the murderer. I have more than once heard
persons of all classes, after the death of children, of a husband or
wife, whom they have injured or imagine that they have injured, either
during life or by not fulfilling their last wishes, declare in all good
faith that the form of the dead is often present to their memory and
visible while they are awake; thus implying that the dead mercifully
appear to comfort their mourning friends, or else to reproach them for
not fulfilling their promises. In a word, these images did not seem to
them to be subjective, and an ordinary phenomenon of the memory, but
objective and personal apparitions within the soul. The cases are not
rare in certain dispositions of mind, in which the projection of these
images on the memory gradually produces madness. We must not forget that
psychical phenomena in general are very differently regarded by the
savage and the civilized man, since the latter is accustomed to
analysis, and to the real distinctions of things. If this canon is
forgotten we shall fall into grave errors in the attempt to interpret
the evolution and primitive history of thought and of humanity.
We shall more readily understand the nature and genesis of all these
hallucinations, and of normal and abnormal illusions, if we study
another phenomenon of frequent occurrence which I myself have often had
occasion to observe. I mean the illusion or hallucination which does not
consist in the absolute projection of an internal image with an external
semblance of reality, but which presents it in the twilight as an
object of uncertain form, either in a room or out of doors. It often
happens, as I and others have experienced from childhood, that a dress
or other object lying by chance on a chair, or on the ground, or hanging
on a piece of furniture or a peg, seen in connection with the other
things near it, is transformed into a person or animal, in a sitting or
standing posture or lying at full length, as if it had been a spectre or
phantasm; somewhat like the figures which we all take pleasure in
tracing in the strange and mobile forms of clouds. The fantastic figure
sometimes appears instantaneously and at the first glance, sometimes it
is only gradually made out; but in both cases, as we shall see, its
genesis is the same. Although in the former case that which in the
latter is gradually developed _appears_ to be developed all at once, yet
in reality it passes through the same stages.
Let us now consider the second mode; and in order to be perfectly
accurate, I will describe one out of many apparitions which I saw so
recently that its gradual formation is retained distinctly in my memory.
On a small three-legged table beside my bed there was a little oval
mirror, on which hung a woman's cap, which fell partly over the glass:
there was also an easy chair, on which I had thrown my shirt before
going to bed, while my shoes were as usual on the floor. I awoke towards
morning, and as I chanced to look round the large room, in the uncertain
light of a night-light which was almost burnt out, my eyes fell upon
the easy chair. Immediately I seemed to see a head above it,
corresponding to the mirror, and a vague and confused image of a person
seated there. As I am accustomed to do in similar cases, I closed my
eyes for a little, and on reopening them I looked at the appearance with
attention and interest; this time the person or phantasm had a less
confused outline, although I did not see the form distinctly, nor the
features, nor its precise position. Yet in this second observation, I
obtained an idea of it as a whole, and in details.
On further examination the face and person stood out more clearly, and
the features became more distinct, the longer I looked. Each accidental
fold or shadow on the cap was transformed into bright eyes, strongly
marked eyebrows, into the nose, mouth, hair, beard, and neck; so that as
I went on I had before me a perfectly chiselled face corresponding to
the type which had first flashed across my mind as the confused
impression of a face conveyed by the cap and mirror. The same process of
evolution was pursued with respect to the limbs, the breast, arms, legs,
and feet; parts of the body which at first appeared to be vague and
indeterminate gradually, and as if by enchantment issued distinctly from
every fold of the shirt, from every shadow, angle, and line, so as to
compose what Dante would call _una persona certa_. Finally I saw before
me a man dressed in white, of an athletic form, sitting in the easy
chair and looking fixedly at me: the whole body was in harmony with the
head, which had first resulted from the rude resemblance to a human
face. The image appeared to me so real and distinct that on rising from
the bed and gradually approaching it, its form did not vanish, even when
I was near enough to touch the object which produced it. An analysis
showed that the features, limbs, and position corresponded in every
point with the folds and relative position of the articles of dress
which had formed it. A similar process, issuing in such apparitions, is
a frequent cause of illusions, which in the case of ingenuous,
superstitious, and primitive peoples, may lead to the firm conviction
that they have seen an apparition. This has certainly been the case in
primitive and even in civilized times, and has given occasion to myths,
legends, and the worship of tutelary deities and saints.
If we consider the causes of such a phenomenon, and analyze its elements
and motives, we shall, I think, discover that it goes far to explain
many normal and abnormal hallucinations.
In the first place, there is in man a deep sense of the analogies of
things, partly developed by the organic tendency to regard any given
object of perception as subjective and causative, and to infuse into it
our own animal life, a tendency confirmed by education and the practice
of daily life. Such analogies, which find their expression in metaphor,
are very vivid and persistent in the vulgar and in those persons who
approximate most closely to the primitive ingenuousness of the
intelligence. The most frequent analogies are between natural phenomena
and objects and animal forms. Analogies are also found between the
various forms of inanimate natural objects, but the former are more
usual, and especially those which refer to the human form. There are
numerous and familiar instances of the names of men or women given to
mountains, rocks, and crags, because they have some remote resemblance
to some human feature or limb. Every day we may be called upon to see a
face in some mountain, stone, or trunk of a tree, in the outline of the
landscape, a wreath of mist or cloud. We are told to observe the eyes,
nose, mouth, the arms and legs, and so on.[35] Every one must remember
to have often heard of such resemblances, even if he has not himself
observed them. All the facts and laws which we have observed explain why
the sudden appearance of some vague form in an uncertain light,
reminding us in a confused way of the human figure, instantly causes us
to trace a resemblance to man rather than to any thing else. It must be
noted, as my experiment has already proved, that in this first sketch
of a phantasm in human form, a general, though indefinite type of the
whole figure has spontaneously arisen, to which it is made to
correspond. This is the key to the ultimate perception of the
phenomenon. What may be called the prophetic type of the figure which
will afterwards appear to us in all its details, although it may seem to
be produced by external resemblance, is in fact the product of the mind,
which has been unconsciously exercised in its construction.
In fact, out of the immense variety in faces, and in the general form of
persons, of gestures, fashions of dress, attitudes in rest and motion,
which are indelibly impressed on the memory, every one constructs
general types for himself; types which are revealed in the allusions
made in our daily conversation to the resemblances which we are
continually observing. These remain in the memory, with all the manifold
resemblances, as well as the ideal of certain types in which the
numerous forms we have seen and compared are formulated. We know that
when the memory has been dormant, which is often the case, it may be
awakened by the stimulus of association, of analogy, or of will, so as
to reproduce the forgotten ideas and sensations which are thus again
presented to the consciousness. When, therefore, one or more objects are
seen in an uncertain light, so as to present a confused appearance of
the human form, its general lineaments are unconsciously made by us to
correspond with the human type already existing in the memory, and this
type presides in the subsequent composition of the reproducing artist
who observes the phantasm. The unconscious mental labour which is
accomplished in the reproducing cellules of past impressions and ideas
by the instantaneous creation of the type, gathers round this type the
form and features corresponding with it, which had its earlier existence
in our own experience. The external pose and indefinite modification of
the objects appear to correspond with the gradual mnemonic revival of
the typal form, and they reciprocally stimulate and react on each other.
For while a fold, shadow, or line of the objects seen appear to
correspond with some feature of the mnemonic type, on the other hand, a
fold, shadow, or outline of the object recalls a feature of the inward
phantasm composed by the memory.
In this process the mnemonic details which are in accordance with the
pre-existing type, and sometimes also in accordance with some remarkable
face or person which was the first to present itself to the mind, serve
as a model for the accidental form of the external object or objects
which correspond to it; this in its turn recalls features which remain
in the memory, and in this way the external form of this particular
phantasm is gradually chiselled into full relief. The more intently we
regard the object which is modified to suit the mental image, the more
perfectly they agree together, and the apparition stands out with more
vivid distinctness. This will be the experience of every one to whom
such a phenomenon appears, and a dispassionate analysis of all the
phases of this fact must fully confirm our theory.
Such a fact, which is implicitly included in the general law we have
laid down for the origin of myth, will also as I think throw further
light on the origin of many hallucinations, both in normal conditions of
mind and in the abnormal state of nervous disorders. The different
appearances of objects, animals, and men, the voices, words, songs, and
conversations seen and heard in these hallucinations, are produced, by
an internal impulse as well as by a stimulus from without; they are
internal in the images and sensation already unconsciously impressed
upon the memory, and they are external in the accidentally modified form
in which they occur in sensible objects, so that they act reciprocally
as an incentive and impulse to each other.
If in normal hallucinations the vividness of the internal image is in
certain physiological conditions projected outwardly, the configuration
and accidental form of the external objects contribute to complete the
composition in accordance with the nature and design of this internal
image. Sometimes the physiological conditions of hallucination are so
powerful that it is at once produced by the appearance of an object
which has some analogy with the mental image. Whatever may be the
genesis and primitive character of the idea of space, and its psychical
and physiological relations to actual space--a question which has been
the theme of so much discussion in our time--it is certain that first
habit and then hereditary influence cause us to have the sensation and
apprehension of a psychical space, which may be termed artificial and
congenital, and upon which the various impressions of the senses are
spontaneously projected. Of this there is an evident proof in the fact
that if we look at the sun or any bright object, such as the windows of
a room in the day time, and then close our eyes, so as to make the
vision of external space impossible, the image of the sun, sometimes of
a different colour, or of the window, is projected into the darkness at
some distance from us, and moves about this psychical space. This
phenomenon also occurs in the subjective sensations of hearing, since
the sounds do not appear to be close to the ear, but at a distance. We
are not here called upon to discuss the causes which generate the
appearance of this psychical space, but the fact is indisputable; so
that conversely it becomes intelligible how the internal image may be
projected in the same way, or may at least appear to be externally
projected in hallucinations. This surprising phenomenon is only a
modification of the ordinary exercise of the psychical and physiological
faculties in the projection of images; of which, after the idea of space
has been formed by primitive experience, habit and education are the
chief factors.
Hallucinations, in the cases observed above, are due to an external
impulse; and this is especially the case in madness and other nervous
disorders; since a critical observation and clear discernment of things
is wanting, some object of vision, a voice, phrases, or sounds are much
more apt to act as a stimulus to a vast field of visual hallucinations,
or to a long succession of sentences and speeches. It is not, therefore,
wonderful that in an ecstasy, for instance, in which all the faculties
are concentrated on very few ideas and images, or perhaps on one only,
every external sign, whether obvious to sight or hearing, combined with
the mnemonic effort already explained, is modified to correspond with
these vivid and exalted images; thus constituting the wonderful
phenomenon of ecstasy. In such a case the ecstatic phenomenon in persons
subject to these nervous affections is often invested with fresh wonders
by the additional sensations of light and subjective colours; this is
not uncommon even in persons of a sane mind and body, but undoubtedly it
is more frequently the case in those whose mental and physical
conditions are abnormal. It is not rare to hear an ecstatic person
recount divine visions, suffused with extraordinary light and glory.
In order to contribute to the researches of others into the nature of
this phenomenon, I must be permitted--not from vanity, but from a
desire that my own imperfections may serve the cause of science however
slightly--to relate some facts, personal to myself, which bear upon the
question, facts of very general experience. From my childhood I have
had, both by day and night, various subjective sensations of light which
I was, as a person of perfectly sane mind, able to observe
dispassionately. After reading for a long while, or when fatigued by
sleeplessness, mental excitement, or some temporary gastric derangement,
I see clear flames circling before my eyes. These are in a small, oblong
form, arranged at brief intervals in concentric curves, and composing a
moving garland projected upon space, tinged with a yellowish light,
shading into vivid blue. Sometimes this figure is changed for stars,
twinkling in a vast and remote space, as in a firmament. In addition to
this phenomenon, I have about twenty times in the course of my life
experienced other subjective and more extraordinary sensations of light,
not unknown to others. This phenomenon occurs when I am in a normal
condition of health, and always begins with a confusion of sight, so
that I am unable to see objects and the faces of people distinctly;
after which everything within the range of vision becomes mobile and
tremulous. This state continues for ten minutes, and then clear and
distinct vision returns. Next a lucid circle, zig-zagged in acute
angles, appears close to the eyes, now on the right, now on the left.
It moves in a somewhat serpentine course, and is broken in the centre of
the lower half. It withdraws from the eye into subjective space, and the
shining band of which it is composed gradually loses its sharp angles,
and becomes wider and undulated, while still in motion.
Another remarkable sensation follows. The shining band, which has
dilated until it is withdrawn from the eyes, whether closed or open, to
an apparent distance of several yards, becomes tinted with all the
colours of the rainbow, standing out in such vivid splendour on the dark
background that I have never seen them equalled in nature. Indeed the
beauty of this phenomena is amazing. The band, inlaid with various
colours, now occupies the whole space, maintaining an equal distance
from the closed eyes, and moving continually with a rhythmic undulation,
while it constantly becomes more vivid. The moving circle continues to
dilate until it slowly fades, and at last completely disappears. From
its beginning to the end, the vision occupies from twenty to twenty-five
minutes.
Throughout the phenomenon I continue to be perfectly collected and free
in mind, so that I can observe it in all its details with perfect
calmness, and can also impart my observations to the persons with whom I
happen to be. Only when the subjective sensation has ceased, I feel an
obscure pain in the brow of the eye in which the phenomenon occurred.
This is readily explained by the well-known interlacing of the nerves,
and the action of the hemispheres.
Supposing that such phenomena occur, as they more readily do, in persons
predisposed to nervous affections, although not insane, in times and in
a society agitated by religious excitement, or in persons habitually
contemplative and occupied with spiritual images and thoughts; if in
moments of ecstatic emotion they should perceive, in addition to the
images proper to such conditions, these circling flames, which is very
likely to be the case, or the iridescent aureole we have described, they
would certainly accept and glorify the heavenly vision revealed to them.
The revolution of the bright stars or iridescent band, preceded by the
obscurity of vision which accompanies the ordinary ecstatic
hallucination, would certainly be ascribed to the saints or angels, and
would thus become more supernatural and consonant with the believer's
idea of heaven; and these very subjective sensations might often produce
the ecstatic vision, so ready to appear in the morbid conditions which
lead to hallucination.
According to the process previously described, by which the phenomenon
of natural hallucinations is produced by an external stimulus, these
luminous phenomena would revive the memory of angelic and saintly forms,
of which men were so profoundly conscious in times of religious
excitement, and would be regarded as their external signs, while they
would at the same time stimulate the appearance of such angelic
visions. Ultimately this would lead to the vast drama of celestial
hallucinations described for us in the accounts of many ecstatic
visions. They do not only occur in modern religions, but in those of the
old heathen, and in the rude and unformed beliefs of savages. The
ethnography of the most savage peoples of our time teaches us that the
origin of very many myths is to be found in normal and abnormal
hallucinations, and in the luminous visions which conform to their
mental conditions. Persons subject to nervous affections, from simple
epilepsy to madness and idiocy, were and still are supposed to be
inspired, and endowed with the power of prophesying and working
miracles; they are also venerated for relating the strange visions
presented to them in the crisis of their disorder. Africa, barbarous
Asia, America, Oceania, and the ignorant and superstitious people in
Europe itself, abound with such facts; they have occurred and are likely
to recur in civilized peoples of all times, including our own, as we
know only too well.
We have thus reduced the primitive origin of myth, of dreams, of all
illusions, of normal and abnormal hallucinations, to one unique fact and
genesis, to a fundamental principle; that is, to the primitive and
innate entification of the phenomenon, to whatever sensation it may be
referred. This fact is not exclusively human in its simple expression
and genesis, since it occurs in the lower animals; evidently in those
which are nearest to man, and by the necessary logic of induction in
all others, according to their sensations and modes of perception. In
the vast historic drama of opinions, beliefs, religions, mythical and
mytho-scientific theories which are developed in all peoples; and again,
in the infinite variety of dreams, illusions, mystic and nervous
hallucinations, all depend on the primitive and unique fact which is
also common to the animal kingdom, and identical with it; in man this is
also the condition of science and knowledge. I think that this
conclusion is not unworthy of the consideration of wise men and honest
critics, and that it will contribute to establish the definitive unity
of the general science of psychology, considered in the vast animal
kingdom as a whole, and in connection with the great theory of
evolution.
This primitive act of perception, the radical cause and genesis of all
mythical representations, and the physical and intellectual condition of
science itself, is also one of the factors and the aesthetic germ of all
the arts. The constraining power which generates the intentional
subjectivity of the phenomenon, and the entification of images, ideas,
and numerous normal and abnormal appearances, also unconsciously impels
man to project the image into a design, a sculpture, or a monument.
Since an idea or emotion naturally tends, as we have seen, to take an
external form in speech, gesture, or some other outward fact; so also it
tends to manifest itself materially and by means of various arts, and to
take the permanent form of some object. It is embodied in this way, as
it was embodied in fetishes in the way described in the foregoing
chapters. Owing to this innate cause, and by the instinct of imitation
which results from it, children as well as savages always attempt some
rude sketch of natural objects, or of the fanciful images to which they
have given rise. Drawings of animals and some other objects are found
among the lowest savages, such as the Tasmanians and Australians. Nor is
this fact peculiar to the lower historic races, and to those which are
still in existence, but it is also to be found in the dwellings and
remains of prehistoric man; carvings on stone of very ancient date have
been found, coeval with extinct and fossil animals, prior to the age of
our flora and fauna and to the present conformation of land and water.
There are many clear proofs of the extreme antiquity of the primitive
impulse to imitative arts. A stag's meta-tarsal bone, on which there was
a carving of two ruminants, was found in the cave of Savigny: in a cave
at Eyzies there was a fragmentary carving of two animals on two slabs of
schist; at La Madelaine there were found two so-called staves of office,
on which were representations of a horse, of reindeer, cattle, and other
animals; two outlines of men, one of a fore-arm, and one of a naked man
in a stooping position, with a short staff on his shoulder; there is
also the outline of a mammoth on a sheet of ivory; a statuette of a thin
woman without arms, found by M. Vibraye at Laugerie-Basse, and known by
the name of the immodest Venus; a drawing representing a man, or
so-called hunter, armed with a bow, and pursuing a male auroch, going
with its head down and of a fierce aspect; the man is perfectly naked,
and wears a pointed beard. Other designs of the chase and of animals
afford a clear proof of the remote period at which the primitive
instinct towards the imitative arts existed.
It is peculiar to man to portray things and animals, and to erect
monuments out of a superstitious feeling, or to glorify an individual or
the nation; the bower-birds and some cognate species may perhaps be
regarded as an exception, since they show a certain sense of beauty, and
an extrinsic satisfaction in gay colours, which indeed appears in many
animals. But art in the true sense and in its essential principle are
the act and product of man alone, of which I have demonstrated the cause
and comparative reasons in another work, so that it is unnecessary to
repeat them here. Some rare cases indicate an artistic construction
which is not an essential part of animal functions, and the sense of
form and colour occurs in some species. But this only shows that there
exist in the animal kingdom the roots of every art and sentiment
peculiar to man, subsequently perfected by him in an exclusive and
reflex manner, and this confirms the general truths of heredity and
evolution.
When primitive man draws or carves objects, he does not merely obey the
innate impulse to give an external form to the image already in his
mind, but while satisfying the aesthetic sentiment which actuates him, he
is conscious of some mysterious power and superstitious influence. This
sentiment is not only apparent in our own children, but among nearly all
savages, of which many instances might be given; some of them are even
afraid to look at a portrait, and shrink from it as from a living
person.
As time went on, a belief in spirits was developed from causes already
mentioned, the rude theory of incarnation followed as its corollary, and
this sentiment was naturally confirmed by incised and sculptured images;
for since they supposed a spirit to be present in every object whatever,
this was much more the case with incised or sculptured figures of men
and animals. In these figures the amulet, talisman, or _gris-gris_ of
savages especially consisted; portraits, however rude, of animals,
monsters, of the human form as a whole or in parts, as in the universal
phallic superstitions. The belief in spirits, resulting from the
personification of shadows, or of the image of a man's own soul which
was supposed to return from the tomb, had a mythical influence on the
mode and ceremonies of sepulture, on the position of corpses, on the
orientation of tombs, and their form. In fact, the mythical ideas of
spirits, and the fanciful place they took in the primitive idea of the
world, produced the custom of burying corpses in an upright, stooping,
or sitting position, and their situation with reference to the four
cardinal points. In America the cross which was placed in very early
times above the tombs is rightly supposed by Brinton to have been a
symbol of the four zones of the earth, relatively to the tomb itself and
to the human remains enclosed in it. One Australian tribe buries its
dead with their faces to the east; the Fijians are buried with the head
and feet to the west, and many of the North American Indians follow the
same custom. Others in South America double up the corpse, turning the
face to the east. The Peruvians place their mummies in a sitting
position, looking to the west; the natives of Jesso also turn the head
to the west. The modern Siamese never sleep with their faces turned to
the west, because this is the attitude in which they place their dead
before burning them on the funeral pile. Finally, the Greeks and all
other peoples, both civilized and barbarous, including ourselves, had
and continue to have special customs in burying their dead.
All the primitive artistic representations of the human form, the
orientation of tombs and temples and their peculiar form, were prompted
by these spiritualist and superstitious ideas; they expressed a
symbolism derived from mythical ideas of the constitution of the world,
of its organism, elements, and cosmic legends. This assertion might be
verified by all funereal, religious, and civil monuments, among all
peoples of the earth, in their most rudimentary form down to those of
our times, and above all in India, China, Central Asia, in Africa, and
particularly in Egypt, in America, in Europe, beginning with the Greeks
and passing through the Latins down to the Christianity of our day; nor
need we exclude the Oceanic races, and those of the two frigid zones.
Doubtless the purest aesthetic sentiment was gratified in the productions
of the plastic arts and of design in general when civilization was at
its highest perfection, among people peculiarly alive to this sentiment.
At the same time, for the great majority of peoples in early and
subsequent ages down to our own time, there was and is the consciousness
of a _numen_, in the proper meaning of the word, within the statue or
effigy, and these were unconsciously entified by the same law which
leads to the entification of natural phenomena; the august presence of
the gods and an artificial symbol of the living organism of the world
were contained in the material form. While this sentiment took a higher
development in art, and was gradually emancipated from its mythical
bonds, it never altogether disappeared in artistic creations; and there
are still many who would, like some uncultured peoples of early and
modern times, cover up their images when they are about to commit some
action which might be displeasing to these idols of the gods or saints.
If we were to gauge the sentiments which really animate a man of the
people, even when he; looks at the statue of a great man, we should
find that in addition to his aesthetic satisfaction, he unconsciously
imagines that the spirit of the dead man is infused into the image and
is able to enjoy the admiration of the observers.
The-worship of images in all times and places is essentially founded on
this belief in the incarnation of spirits and the _numen_ of fetishes.
There is indeed no real difference between the superstitious adoration
of a savage, addressed to his fetish, and the worship of images in many
religions of modern civilization. Although people of culture, and the
scholastic theory of religions, may distinguish indirect and respectful
veneration from direct worship, yet it cannot be denied that the
majority of the faithful directly adore the image. The general belief in
relics, consisting of bones, hair, clothes, etc., is plainly an
evolution of the amulets and _gris-gris_ of savages. This fetishtic and
idolatrous sentiment has by a gradual and necessary development been
infused even into speech and writing, for written forms have been hung
on plants as fetishes and idols, or placed in the temples as the symbol
of perpetual prayer, and the Buddhists even erect prayer-mills. We have
analogous instances among ourselves, when texts of Scripture or the
words of some saint are rolled up into a kind of amulet and worn round
the neck. The same sentiment is shown in the costly offering of lamps
kept constantly burning before images as the means of obtaining help and
favour; and in the visits made to a given number of churches, thus
transforming number into a mysterious, entified, and efficacious power,
in the same way that every ancient people, whether barbarous or
civilized, mythically venerated certain numbers; the Peruvians, for
instance, and some other American peoples regarded the number "four" as
sacred.
In addition to the cherished remembrance always inspired by portraits of
those we love, a breathing of life, as if the dead or absent person were
communicating with us in spirit, is perhaps unconsciously infused into
the picture while we look at it. These are transient states of
consciousness, of which we are scarcely aware, although they do not
escape the notice of careful observers. Any dishonour or insult offered
to images, whether sacred or profane, deeply moves both the learned and
unlearned, both barbarous and civilized peoples, not merely as a base
and sacrilegious act against the person represented, but from an
instinctive and spontaneous feeling that he is actually present in the
image. Any one who analyzes the matter will find it impossible to
separate these two sentiments, and many disgraceful and sanguinary
scenes which have led to the gallows or the stake have actually resulted
from the identification of the image with the thing represented.
Even when a man of high culture and refined taste for beauty stands
before the canvas or sculpture of some great ancient or modern artist,
his spiritual and aesthetic enjoyment of these wonderful works is, as he
will find from the observation of his inmost emotions, combined with the
animation and personification of what he sees; he is so far carried away
by the beauty and truth of the representation that the passions
represented affect him as if they were those of real persons. This
relative perfection of a work of art, either in the way the objects
stand out, in the varied diffusion of light and shade, in the movement
and expression of figures, in the effect of the whole in its details and
background, is all heightened and confirmed by the underlying
entification of images. The process we have before described by which a
confused group of objects appear to us as a human form or phantasm is
also effected in this case in a more subtle way and with less effort of
memory; it is all ultimately due to the primitive fact of animal
perception. Our imagination can supply the resemblance, the limbs,
colour, and design in a picture in which a face, figure, or landscape
are slightly sketched, or in a roughly chiselled statue. We often hear
the complaint that a work of art is too highly finished, and it wearies
and displeases us because it leaves nothing for the imagination to
supply. The remark reveals the fact, of which we are all implicitly
conscious, that we are ourselves in part the artificers of every
external phenomenon.