The influence of the imagination on the nervous system has on some
occasions produced effects bordering on a state of insanity. It
deprives the mind of all correct reasonings, perverts the
understanding with which we are endowed by our Creator to regulate our
belief, guide us in our pursuits, and enable us to trace effects to
their true causes. Instances are not wanting, in which the imagination
has been so highly excited as to produce fatal effects. We have on
record, among others, the story of a German student, who dreamed he
was to die at a certain hour the next day. He immediately made his
will, and prepared himself for the awful event. Every argument was
used to convince him that no dependence is to be put in dreams, but
without shaking his belief, and as the hour approached, he exhibited
the alarming signs of death. He watched the clock with the greatest
anxiety, till his attending physician contrived to place the hands of
the clock beyond the specified hour, when his mind was relieved from
the impression, and he was rejoiced to find that he might still
continue to live in despite of his dream. In another instance, a man
whose nervous system was impaired, and imagination excited, conceived
the extravagant idea, that his legs were made of glass, and would use
no exercise lest he should break them. He was prevailed on, however,
to ride, and the carriage was designedly overset, when he was soon
convinced that his legs were made of the substantial material intended
by nature. A few years since, Elijah Barns of Pennsylvania, killed a
rattlesnake in his field without any injury to himself, and
immediately after put on his son's waistcoat, mistaking it for his
own, both being of one color. He returned to his house, and on
attempting to button his waistcoat, he found to his astonishment that
it was much too small. His imagination was now wrought to a high
pitch, and he instantly conceived the idea that he had been bitten
imperceptibly by the snake, and was thus swollen from its poison. He
grew suddenly very ill, and took to his bed. The family in great alarm
and confusion summoned three physicians, and the usual remedies were
prescribed and administered. The patient, however, grew worse and
worse every minute, until at length his son came home with his
father's waistcoat dangling about him. The mystery was instantly
unfolded, and the patient being relieved from his imaginary
apprehensions, dismissed his physicians, and was restored to health.
The philosophy of mind is a study of peculiar interest, and after all
our powers of research are exhausted, numerous phenomena will remain
inexplicable. Indeed our mental faculties are continually overwhelmed
with things inexplicable. We too often embrace for substantial truths
mere phantoms, which vanish into air, and leave the mind to deplore
its own imbecility. While superstition weakens our moral virtues, and
the influence of imagination deludes our intellectual powers, the
passion of fear has a pernicious and even a hazardous tendency. It is
the passion, which most of all others, exerts its effects directly on
the heart; on some occasions, it produces instant death, and in
numerous instances, it lays a foundation for a chronic disease of that
vital organ, which, after a long duration of distressing complaints,
has a fatal termination. Not long since, an instance was published,
of a child having died of a disease of the heart, in consequence of a
fright received by being thrown upwards and caught in its fall for
amusement.
Few persons are aware of the extreme danger of sudden fright on timid
minds. The most melancholy consequences have on some occasions
resulted from stratagems with effigies, representing apparitions for
innocent and momentary amusement. Instances are not wanting of a total
loss of intellect during life, from such inexcusable folly. Parents
and nurses should carefully avoid imbuing the minds of children with
idle stories of ghosts and apparitions. The following facts, selected
from numerous others, will illustrate the effects of terror on the
mind. In a poor-house in Haerlem, a girl was seized with a convulsive
disorder, which returned in regular paroxysms; not long after, another
was taken, and others in succession, till all the boys and girls in
the house were affected in a similar manner. The medical prescriptions
failed to perform a cure. At length the celebrated Dr Boerhaave,
ascribing the occurrences to the habit of imitation, ordered several
furnaces to be placed in the chamber. Over the burning coals a number
of crooked irons were laid, and the doctor ordered his attendants to
burn the arm of the first child, who should be seized in a fit, even
to the bone. This alarming remedy produced the desired effect; their
imagination was overpowered by the force of fear, and not a case of
the kind again occurred. In a family of six children, one of them was
afflicted with convulsive affections; all the others exhibited the
symptoms of the same disorder, by imitation. No remedy could remove
the extraordinary affection, till the father placed a block and an axe
in their view, and declared that he would decapitate the first one who
should exhibit any more gestures, except the first one taken. By this
expedient, all imitation and imaginary feelings were overcome, and the
five last were happily delivered from the nervous agitations. With
respect to the appearance of ghosts and apparitions, it cannot be
doubted, but many of the reports found on record, or repeated by
tradition, were mere illusions of imagination, or fictions, contrived
solely to amuse, or to answer some particular purpose; and too many
have been the dupes of implicit faith, without examining the affair
with that jealous attention which it required. It is not improbable,
that in many instances, hobgoblin stories may be explained by the
deceptive powers of ventriloquism. We have had auricular demonstration
of the extraordinary powers of ventriloquists; they can counterfeit
the voices of animals and all imaginable noises, at pleasure, and
conjure up a ghost or witch on any occasion. Although ventriloquism
was not practised, as an art, in ancient times, it was not unknown,
and individuals possessing that faculty might have put it in
operation, on particular occasions, without suspicion. In most cases
of supposed apparitions and spectres, the reports originated with
timorous and credulous persons, or those of questionable character.
The scene is always exhibited in the night, when the eye is prepared
to see frightful spectres, and the imagination is awaked to magnify
every object, whether real or unreal.
'All things are full of horror and affright,
And dreadful even the silence of the night.'
The darkness of the night, the gloom and horror produced by the
report of haunted houses, or some disastrous occurrence, as murder or
robbery in a particular situation, and a state of mind naturally
depressed and melancholy, have doubtless contributed to give a
currency to many of those legendary stories which have been
credulously received and disseminated by the vulgar. Those,
especially, who are trembling with a guilty conscience, are liable to
deception; even the most intrepid have been alarmed, when in the
night, posts, trees, and other objects, have been presented in a
distorted form. We are familiar with the story of the frightened
person, who, on passing a church-yard in the night, conceited that he
saw a ghost clothed in white; but on examination it proved to be no
other than a white horse. A few years ago, Dr Stearns was travelling
from Boston to Salem in the evening, having a considerable sum of
money about him. He suffered himself to be strongly impressed with the
apprehension of being robbed. While his mind was wrought up to the
highest pitch, he imagined that a robber approached him with a club
suspended over his head, and demanded his money. He instantly took
out his pocket book and threw it on the ground, and in great affright
drove off with all speed. Having procured assistance and lights, they
visited the spot in search of the robber, when to their surprise they
found a pump standing near the road, having its handle turned upwards,
and the doctor's pocket book instead of being in the hands of a
robber, was found lying beside the pump.
Were all the supposed apparitions and spectres to be met with the
intrepidity displayed in the following instance, ghost stories would
seldom be repeated. About the latter part of the last century, a Mr
Blake, of Hingham, Massachusetts, was passing the church-yard in the
night, when he saw an object in human form, clothed in white, sitting
near an open tomb. Resolving to satisfy himself, he walked toward it.
The form moved as he approached, and endeavored to elude his pursuit;
when he ran, the object ran before him, and after turning in different
directions, descended into the tomb. Mr Blake followed, and there
found a woman, who was in a deranged state of mind, who had covered
herself with a sheet, and was roaming among the silent tombs.
The passion of fear is implanted in our nature for wise purposes. It
prompts us to self defence and the avoidance of evil. It is excited
into action by various causes, depending on the condition of the
nerves in different constitutions, or in the same at different times.
But when extended to imaginary objects of terror, fear becomes
superstition, as by a sort of instinct, and has a direct tendency to
cherish ignorance and credulity. Dr Franklin had no faith in
apparitions and spectres, but he proposed to a friend, that the one
which should die first, should return in spirit and visit the
survivor; his friend died first, but his spirit never returned. The
strong mind of Dr Samuel Johnson was not altogether free from
agitation and embarrassment, when contemplating the question of the
appearance of incorporeal spirits in our world. This great man said to
Mr Boswell, his biographer, 'it is wonderful that 5000 years have now
elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided
whether or not there has ever been an instance, in modern times, of
the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is
against it, but all belief is for it.' Boswell suggested, as an
objection, that if spirits are in a state of happiness, it would be a
punishment to them to return to this world; and if they are in a state
of misery, it would be giving them a respite. Johnson replied, that
'as the happiness or misery of spirits depends not upon place, but is
intellectual, we cannot say, that they are less happy or less
miserable, by appearing upon earth.' Johnson observed, that he makes a
distinction between what a man may experience by the mere strength of
his imagination, and what imagination cannot possibly produce. Thus,
said he, 'suppose I should think that I saw a form, and heard a voice
say, Johnson, you are a very wicked fellow, and unless you repent, you
will certainly be punished; my own unworthiness is so deeply impressed
upon my mind, that I might _imagine_ I thus saw and heard, and
therefore I should not believe that an external communication had been
made to me. But, if a form should appear, and a voice should tell me,
that a particular man had died at a particular place, and a particular
hour, a fact which I had no apprehension of, nor any means of knowing,
and this fact, with all its circumstances, should afterwards be
unquestionably proved, I should in that case be persuaded, that I had
supernatural intelligence imparted to me.' Johnson related a story of
a ghost, said to have appeared to a young woman several times,
advising her to apply to an attorney for the recovery of an old house,
which was done, and at the same time saying the attorney would do
nothing, which proved to be the fact.
About the middle of the last century, there were reports of a ghost
visiting a house in Cocklane, in the city of London. The whole city
was, for many weeks, kept in a state of agitation and alarm, and the
magazines and newspapers teemed with strange accounts of the Cocklane
ghost. The story, at length, became so popular, and created such
excitement, as to require a thorough investigation. The purport of the
story was, that a spirit had frequently appeared, and announced to a
girl, that a murder had been committed near that place, by a certain
person, which ought to be detected. For a long time, unaccountable
noises, such as knocking, scratching on the walls of the house, &c,
were heard every night. The supposed spirit had publicly promised, by
an affirmative knock, that it would attend any person into the vault
under the church where the body was deposited, and would give a knock
on the coffin; it was, therefore, determined to make this trial of the
visitation and veracity of the supposed spirit. On this occasion, Dr
Johnson, with several clergymen and other gentlemen and ladies,
assembled about ten o'clock at night, in the house in which the girl
had, with proper caution, been put to bed by several ladies. More than
an hour passed, without hearing any noise, when at length the
gentlemen were summoned into the girl's chamber, by some ladies who
were near her bed, and had heard knocks and scratches. When the
gentlemen entered, the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a
mouse upon her back. She was required to hold her hands out of bed,
and from that time, though the spirit was very solemnly required to
manifest its existence by appearance, by impression on the hand or
body of any one present, by knocks, or scratches, or any other agency,
no evidence of any preternatural power was exhibited. The spirit was
then very seriously advertised, that the person to whom the promise
was made of striking on the coffin, was then about to visit the vault,
and that the performance of the promise was then claimed. The company
at 1 o'clock went into the church, and the gentleman to whom the
promise was made, went with another into the vault. The spirit was
solemnly required to perform its promise, but nothing more than
silence ensued. The person supposed to be accused by the spirit then
went down with several others, but no effect whatever was perceived.
Upon their return they examined the girl, but could draw no confession
from her, and the father of the girl, when interrogated, denied in the
strongest terms, any knowledge or belief of fraud. It was therefore
published by the whole assembly, that the girl had some art of making
or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that there was no agency of
any higher cause. Thus ended this singular affair, which had so long
been permitted to disturb the peace of the city and of the public. The
greatest surprise is, that an artful, mischievous girl, should be
suffered to set at defiance the closest scrutiny to detect her
imposition and deception.
The following anecdote may be found in some historical publication,
but is now related from memory without recollecting the authority.
After the execution of Charles the First, the Parliament resolved that
every vestige of royalty should be annihilated. For this purpose,
commissioners were appointed to carry into effect the decree in the
Palace of the late King. While executing their prescribed duties, the
commissioners were from day to day annoyed and disturbed by strange
and frightful noises, in various parts of the house. Logs of wood
rolling over the floor in the kitchen, various utensils clattering
together, dancing and stamping were heard in rooms whose doors were
closed, and to such alarming heights was the deception carried that
the commissioners were about to abandon the house, from the belief
that it was haunted by evil spirits. At length, on close
investigation, the fact was disclosed that the whole deception was the
contrivance of a man of singular art, called _funny Joe_, who was the
acting secretary of the commissioners.
In Southey's life of Wesley, we have another instance of supposed
preternatural noises in the parsonage house of Wesley's father, in the
year 1716. The mysterious noises were said to be as various as
unaccountable; such as knocking at the door, lifting up the latch, and
a groaning, like a person in distress; a clatter among a number of
bottles, as if all at once they had been dashed in pieces; footsteps
as of a man going up and down stairs, at all hours of the night;
sounds like that of dancing in a room, the door of which was locked;
but most frequently, a knocking about the beds at night, and in
different parts of the house. Mr Wesley was once awakened a little
after midnight, by nine loud and distinct knocks which seemed to be in
the next room, with a pause at every third stroke. He and his wife
rose, and went below; a noise was now heard, like that of a bag of
money poured on the floor at their feet. At one time, the servant
heard his hand-mill in rapid motion, without any visible hand to move
it. Mr Wesley made every exertion to ascertain the real cause of the
noises, without success. He at length became so impatient with the
unusual annoyances, that he prepared a pistol, which he was about to
discharge at the place where the noise was heard, but was dissuaded
from it by a neighboring clergyman, who had been called in to his
assistance. But he upbraided the goblin for disturbing the family, and
challenged it to appear to him while alone in his study, after which,
on entering his study, the door was pressed against him, but no object
was seen. At length, the family became so familiar with this invisible
spirit, that one of the daughters gave it the name of Old Jeffrey, and
they treated it as matter of curiosity and amusement. This
unaccountable affair excited much speculation throughout the country.
The celebrated Dr Priestley, and many others, undertook to investigate
the circumstances, but were unable to make any satisfactory discovery,
and it remains inexplicable.
A reviewer of Wesley's life observes, that few will regard the
circumstances as anything more than creatures of imagination, the
offspring of credulity and superstition; but I should strongly suspect
that some one of the family was the prime mover in the business, as
was funny Joe in the Royal Palace of King Charles the First.