Hallucinations are defined as appearances wholly due to fancy;
illusions, as fanciful perceptions of objects actually seen. There
is also a hybrid case which depends on fanciful visions fancifully
perceived. The problems we have to consider are, on the one hand,
those connected with "_induced_" vision, and, on the other hand,
those connected with the interpretation of vision, whether the
vision be _direct_ or _induced_.
It is probable that much of what passes for hallucination proper
belongs in reality to the hybrid case, being an illusive
interpretation of some induced visual cloud or blur. I spoke of the
ever-varying patterns in the optical field; these, under some slight
functional change, may become more consciously present, and be
interpreted into fantasmal appearances. Many cases could be adduced
to support this view.
I will begin with illusions. What is the process by which they are
established? There is no simpler way of understanding it than by
trying, as children often do, to see "faces in the fire," and to
carefully watch the way in which they are first caught. Let us call
to mind at the same time the experience of past illnesses, when the
listless gaze wandered over the patterns on the wall-paper and the
shadows of the bed-curtains, and slowly evoked the appearances of
faces and figures that were not easily laid again. The process of
making the faces is so rapid in health that it is difficult to
analyse it without the recollection of what took place more slowly
when we were weakened by illness. The first essential element in
their construction is, I believe, the smallness of the area covered
by the glance at any instant, so that the eye has to travel over a
long track before it has visited every part of the object towards
which the attention is directed generally. It is as with a plough,
that must travel many miles before the whole of a small field can be
tilled, but with this important difference--the plough travels
methodically up and down in parallel furrows; the eye wanders in
devious curves, with abrupt bends, and the direction of its course
at any instant depends on four causes: (1) on the easiest sequence
of muscular motion, speaking in a general sense, (2) on idiosyncrasy,
(3) on the mood, and (4) on the associations current at the moment.
The effect of idiosyncrasy ft excellently illustrated by the
"Number-Forms," where we observe that a very special sharply-defined
track of mental vision is preferred by each individual who sees them.
The influence of the mood of the moment is shown in the curves that
are felt appropriate to the various emotions, as the lank drooping
lines of grief, which make the weeping willow so fit an emblem of it.
In constructing fire-faces it seems to me that the eye in its
wanderings tends to follow a favourite course, and it especially
dwells upon the marks that happen to coincide with that course. It
feels its way, easily diverted by associations based on what has
just been noticed, until at last, by the unconscious practice of a
system of "trial and error," it hits upon a track that will
suit--one that is easily run over and that strings together
accidental marks in a way that happens to form a well-connected
picture. This fancy picture is then dwelt upon; all that is
incongruous with it becomes disregarded, while all deficiencies in
it are supplied by the fantasy. The latest stages of the process
might be represented by a diorama. Three lanterns would converge on
the same screen. The first throws an image of what the imagination
will discard, the second of that which it will retain, the third of
that which it will supply. Turn on the first and second, and the
picture on the screen will be identical with that which fell on the
retina. Shut off the first and turn on the third, and the picture
will be identical with the illusion.
Turner the painter made frequent use of a practice analogous to that
of looking for fire-faces in the burning coals; he was known to give
colours to children to daub in play on paper, while he keenly
watched for suggestive but accidental combinations.
I have myself had frequent experience of the automatic construction
of fantastic figures, through a practice I have somewhat encouraged
for the purpose, of allowing my hand to scribble at its own will,
while I am giving my best attention to what is being said by others,
as at small committees. It is always a surprise to me to see the
result whenever I turn my thoughts on what I have been subconsciously
doing. I can rarely recollect even a few of the steps by which the
drawings were made; they grew piece-meal, with some almost forgotten
notice, from time to time, of the sketch as a whole. I can trace no
likeness between what I draw and the images that present themselves
to me in dreams, and I find that a very trifling accident, such as a
chance dot on the paper, may have great influence on the general
character of any one of these automatic sketches.
Visions, like dreams, are often mere patchworks built up of bits of
recollections. The following is one of these:--
"When passing a shop in Tottenham Court Road, I went in to order a
Dutch cheese, and the proprietor (a bullet-headed man whom I had
never seen before) rolled a cheese on the marble slab of his counter,
asking me if that one would do. I answered 'Yes,' left the shop, and
thought no more of the incident. The following evening, on closing
my eyes, I saw a head detached from the body rolling about slightly
on a white surface. I recognised the face, but could not remember
where I had seen it, and it was only after thinking about it for
some time that I identified it as that of the cheesemonger who had
sold me the cheese on the previous day. I may mention that I have
often seen the man since, and that I found the vision I saw was
exactly like him, although if I had been asked to describe the man
before I saw the vision I should have been unable to do so."
Recollections need not be combined like mosaic work; they may be
blended, on the principle of composite portraiture. I suspect that
the phantasmagoria may be in some part due to blended memories; the
number of possible combinations would be practically endless, and
each combination would give a new face. There would thus be no limit
to the dies in the coinage of the brain.
I have found that the peculiarities of visualisation, such as the
tendency to see Number-Forms, and the still rarer tendency to
associate colour with sound, is strongly hereditary, and I should
infer, what facts seem to confirm, that the tendency to be a seer of
visions is equally so. Under these circumstances we should expect
that it would be unequally developed in different races, and that a
large natural gift of the visionary faculty might become
characteristic not only of certain families, as among the
second-sight seers of Scotland, but of certain races, as that of the
Gipsies.
It happens that the mere acts of fasting, of want of sleep, and of
solitary musing, are severally conducive to visions. I have myself
been told of cases in which persons accidentally long deprived of
food became for a brief time subject to them. One was of a pleasure
party driven out to sea, and not being able to reach the coast till
nightfall, at a place where they got shelter but nothing to eat.
They were mentally at ease and conscious of safety, but all were
troubled with visions that were half dreams and half hallucinations.
The cases of visions following protracted wakefulness are well known,
and I have collected a few of them myself. I have already spoken of
the maddening effect of solitariness: its influence may be inferred
from the recognised advantages of social amusements in the treatment
of the insane. It follows that the spiritual discipline undergone
for purposes of self-control and self-mortification, have also the
incidental effect of producing visions. It is to be expected that
these should often bear a close relation to the prevalent subjects
of thought, and although they may be really no more than the
products of one portion of the brain, which another portion of the
same brain is engaged in contemplating, they often, through error,
receive a religious sanction. This is notably the case among
half-civilised races.
The number of great men who have been once, twice, or more frequently,
subject to hallucinations is considerable. A list, to which it would
be easy to make large additions, is given by Brierre de Boismont
(_Hallucinations_, etc., 1862), from whom I translate the following
account of the star of the first Napoleon, which he heard,
second-hand, from General Rapp:--
"In 1806 General Rapp, on his return from the siege of Dantzic,
having occasion to speak to the Emperor, entered his study without
being announced. He found him so absorbed that his entry was
unperceived. The General seeing the Emperor continue motionless,
thought he might be ill, and purposely made a noise. Napoleon
immediately roused himself, and without any preamble, seizing Rapp
by the arm, said to him, pointing to the sky, 'Look there, up there.'
The General remained silent, but on being asked a second time, he
answered that he perceived nothing. 'What!' replied the Emperor,
'you do not see it? It is my star, it is before you, brilliant;'
then animating by degrees, he cried out, 'it has never abandoned me,
I see it on all great occasions, it commands me to go forward, and
it is a constant sign of good fortune to me.'"
Napoleon was no doubt a consummate actor, ready and unscrupulous in
imposing on others, but I see no reason to distrust the genuineness
of this particular outburst, seeing that it is not the only instance
of his referring to the guidance of his star, as a literal vision
and not as a mere phrase, and that his belief in destiny was
notorious.
It appears that stars of this kind, so frequently spoken of in
history, and so well known as a metaphor in language, are a common
hallucination of the insane. Brierre de Boismont has a chapter on
the stars of great men. I cannot doubt that visions of this
description were in some cases the basis of that firm belief in
astrology, which not a few persons of eminence formerly entertained.
The hallucinations of great men may be accounted for in part by
their sharing a tendency which we have seen to be not uncommon in
the human race, and which, if it happens to be natural to them, is
liable to be developed in their overwrought brains by the isolation
of their lives. A man in the position of the first Napoleon could
have no intimate associates; a great philosopher who explores ways
of thought far ahead of his contemporaries must have an inner world
in which he passes long and solitary hours. Great men may be even
indebted to touches of madness for their greatness; the ideas by
which they are haunted, and to whose pursuit they devote themselves,
and by which they rise to eminence, having much in common with the
monomania of insanity. Striking instances of great visionaries may
be mentioned, who had almost beyond doubt those very nervous seizures
with which the tendency to hallucinations is intimately connected.
To take a single instance, Socrates, whose _daimon_ was an audible
not a visual appearance, was, as has been often pointed out, subject
to cataleptic seizure, standing all night through in a rigid attitude.
It is remarkable how largely the visionary temperament has
manifested itself in certain periods of history and epochs of
national life. My interpretation of the matter, to a certain extent,
is this--That the visionary tendency is much more common among sane
people than is generally suspected. In early life, it seems to be a
hard lesson to an imaginative child to distinguish between the real
and visionary world. If the fantasies are habitually laughed at and
otherwise discouraged, the child soon acquires the power of
distinguishing them; any incongruity or nonconformity is quickly
noted, the visions are found out and discredited, and are no further
attended to. In this way the natural tendency to see them is
blunted by repression. Therefore, when popular opinion is of a
matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep quiet; they do not
like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide their experiences,
which only come to light through inquiries such as these that I have
been making. But let the tide of opinion change and grow favourable
to supernaturalism, then the seers of visions come to the front. The
faintly-perceived fantasies of ordinary persons become invested by
the authority of reverend men with a claim to serious regard; they
are consequently attended to and encouraged, and they increase in
definition through being habitually dwelt upon. We need not suppose
that a faculty previously non-existent has been suddenly evoked, but
that a faculty long smothered by many in secret has been suddenly
allowed freedom to express itself, and to run into extravagance
owing to the removal of reasonable safeguards.
NURTURE AND NATURE.
Man is so educable an animal that it is difficult to distinguish
between that part of his character which has been acquired through
education and circumstance, and that which was in the original grain
of his constitution. His character is exceedingly complex, even in
members of the simplest and purest savage race; much more is it so in
civilised races, who have long since been exempted from the full
rigour of natural selection, and have become more mongrel in their
breed than any other animal on the face of the earth. Different
aspects of the multifarious character of man respond to different
calls from without, so that the same individual, and, much more, the
same race, may behave very differently at different epochs. There
may have been no fundamental change of character, but a different
phase or mood of it may have been evoked by special circumstances,
or those persons in whom that mood is naturally dominant may through
some accident have the opportunity of acting for the time as
representatives of the race. The same nation may be seized by a
military fervour at one period, and by a commercial one at another;
they may be humbly submissive to a monarch, or become outrageous
republicans. The love of art, gaiety, adventure, science, religion
may be severally paramount at different times.
One of the most notable changes that can come over a nation is from
a state corresponding to that of our past dark ages into one like
that of the Renaissance. In the first case the minds of men are
wholly taken up with routine work, and in copying what their
predecessors have done; they degrade into servile imitators and
submissive slaves to the past. In the second case, some circumstance
or idea has finally discredited the authorities that impeded
intellectual growth, and has unexpectedly revealed new possibilities.
Then the mind of the nation is set free, a direction of research is
given to it, and all the exploratory and hunting instincts are
awakened. These sudden eras of great intellectual progress cannot be
due to any alteration in the natural faculties of the race, because
there has not been time for that, but to their being directed in
productive channels. Most of the leisure of the men of every nation
is spent in rounds of reiterated actions; if it could be spent in
continuous advance along new lines of research in unexplored regions,
vast progress would be sure to be made. It has been the privilege of
this generation to have had fresh fields of research pointed out to
them by Darwin, and to have undergone a new intellectual birth under
the inspiration of his fertile genius.
A pure love of change, acting according to some law of contrast as
yet imperfectly understood, especially characterises civilised man.
After a long continuance of one mood he wants to throw himself into
another for the pleasure of setting faculties into action that have
been long disused, but not yet paralysed by disuse, and which have
become fidgety for employment. He has so many opportunities for
procuring change, and has so complex a nature that he easily learns
to neglect a more deeply-seated feeling that innovation is wicked,
and which is manifest in children and barbarians. To a civilised man
the varied interests of civilisation are temptations in as many
directions; changes in dress and appliances of all kinds are
comparatively inexpensive to him owing to the cheapness of
manufactures and their variety; change of scene is easy from the
conveniences of locomotion. But a barbarian has none of these
facilities: his interests are few; his dress, such as it is, is
intended to stand the wear and tear of years, and all weathers; it
is relatively very costly, and is an investment, one may say, of his
capital rather than of his income; the invention of his people is
sluggish, and their arts are few, consequently he is perforce taught
to be conservative, his ideas are fixed, and he becomes scandalised
even at the suggestion of change.
The difficulty of indulging in variety is incomparably greater among
the rest of the animal world. If a pea-hen should take it into her
head that bars would be prettier than eyes in the tail of her spouse,
she could not possibly get what she wanted. It would require
hundreds of generations in which the pea-hens generally concurred in
the same view before sexual selection could effect the desired
alteration. The feminine delight of indulging her caprice in matters
of ornament is a luxury denied to the females of the brute world,
and the law that rules changes in taste, if studied at all, can only
be ascertained by observing the alternations of fashion in civilised
communities.
There are long sequences of changes in character, which, like the
tunes of a musical snuff-box, are regulated by internal mechanism.
They are such as those of Shakespeare's "Seven Ages," and others due
to the progress of various diseases. The lives of birds are
characterised by long chains of these periodic sequences. They are
mostly mute in winter, after that they begin to sing; some species
are seized in the early part of the year with so strong a passion
for migrating that if confined in a cage they will beat themselves
to death against its bars; then follow courtship and pairing,
accompanied by an access of ferocity among the males and severe
fighting for the females. Next an impulse seizes them to build nests,
then a desire for incubation, then one for the feeding of their young.
After this a newly-arisen tendency to gregariousness groups them
into large flocks, and finally they fly away to the place whence they
came, goaded by a similar instinct to that which drove them forth a
few months previously. These remarkable changes are mainly due to
the conditions of their natures, because they persist with more or
less regularity under altered circumstances. Nevertheless, they are
not wholly independent of circumstance, because the period of
migration, though nearly coincident in successive years, is modified
to some small extent by the weather and condition of the particular
year.
The interaction of nature and circumstance is very close, and it is
impossible to separate them with precision. Nurture acts before birth,
during every stage of embryonic and pre-embryonic existence, causing
the potential faculties at the time of birth to be in some degree
the effect of nurture. We need not, however, be hypercritical about
distinctions; we know that the bulk of the respective provinces of
nature and nurture are totally different, although the frontier
between them may be uncertain, and we are perfectly justified in
attempting to appraise their relative importance.
I shall begin with describing some of the principal influences that
may safely be ascribed to education or other circumstances, all of
which I include under the comprehensive term of Nurture.
ASSOCIATIONS.
The furniture of a man's mind chiefly consists of his recollections
and the bonds that unite them. As all this is the fruit of experience,
it must differ greatly in different minds according to their
individual experiences. I have endeavoured to take stock of my own
mental furniture in the way described in the next chapter, in which
it will be seen how large a part consists of childish recollections,
testifying to the permanent effect of many of the results of early
education. The same fact has been strongly brought out by the
replies from correspondents whom I had questioned on their mental
imagery. It was frequently stated that the mental image invariably
evoked by certain words was some event of childish experience or
fancy. Thus one correspondent, of no mean literary and philosophical
power, recollects the left hand by a mental reference to the
rocking-horse which always stood by the side of the nursery wall
with its head in the same direction, and had to be mounted from the
side next the wall. Another, a politician, historian, and scholar,
refers all his dates to the mental image of a nursery diagram of the
history of the world, which has since developed huge bosses to
support his later acquired information.
Our abstract ideas being mostly drawn from external experiences,
their character also must depend upon the events of our individual
histories. For example, the spoken words house and home must awaken
ideas derived from the houses and the homes with which the hearer is,
in one way or other, acquainted, and these could not be the same to
persons of various social positions and places of residence. The
character of our abstract ideas, therefore, depends, to a
considerable degree, on our nurture.
I doubt, however, whether "abstract idea" is a correct phrase in
many of the cases in which it is used, and whether "cumulative idea"
would not be more appropriate. The ideal faces obtained by the
method of composite portraiture appear to have a great deal in
common with these so-called abstract ideas. The composite portraits
consist, as was explained, of numerous superimposed pictures,
forming a cumulative result in which the features that are common to
all the likenesses are clearly seen; those that are common to a few
are relatively faint and are more or less overlooked, while those
that are peculiar to single individuals leave no sensible trace at
all.
This analogy, which I pointed out in a Memoir on Generic Images,
[11] has been extended and confirmed by subsequent experience of the
process. One objection to my view was that our so-called
generalisations are commonly no more than representative cases, our
recollections being apt to be unduly influenced by particular events,
and not by the totality of what we have seen; that the reason why
some one recollection has prevailed is that the case was sharply
defined, or had something unusual about it, or that our frame of
mind was at the time of observation susceptible to that particular
kind of impression. I have had exactly the same difficulties with
the composites. If one of the individual portraits has sharp outlines,
or if it is unlike the rest, or if the illumination is temporarily
strong, it will assert itself unduly in the result. The cases seem
to me exactly analogous. I get over my photographic difficulty very
easily by throwing the sharp portrait a little out of focus, by
eliminating such portraits as have exceptional features, and by
toning down the illumination to a standard intensity.
[Footnote 11: "Generic Images," _Proc. Royal Institute_, Friday,
April 25, 1879, partly reprinted in the Appendix.]
PSYCHOMETRIC EXPERIMENTS.