marked, always follow-1. Catalepsy; 2. Anaesthesia, which, from three to fifteen minutes, allows of pinching, pricking, and tickling, without feeling or change in the cataleptic state. This anesthetic state is generally followed by an opposite condition-namely, very remarkable hyperæsthesia, in which the senses, the feeling of heat, and muscular activity reach an unusual degree of excitability. At any moment of the experiment the symptoms may suddenly be stopped, by rubbing the eyelids, and directing upon them a stream of cold air. When the patients recover their senses, they remember nothing of what has taken place.'

The most remarkable and instructive circumstance connected with hypnotism is the influence of the patient's bodily posture on his ideas. In the attitude of

devotion he becomes devout. Double his fist and he strikes. Corrugate his brow, and the gloom of care comes over him; in short, in the posture of any passion, the passion itself takes possession, like a soul in a body prepared for it. This indicates the manner in which bodily habits tend to fix the soul into their meaning, and to beget their like, a state of mind which becomes like a second nature. Hence the importance of conforming the mind, by educating the body in the active working out of the principles we desire to possess or instil. The mere transfer of the signs of thought, and the pictures or language of ideas, from one mind to another, or from a book to a brain, is like hypnotism, a mere self-abandonment, and quite the reverse of that healthy abstraction, in which the mind actively elaborates and combines ideas for itself. Hence the danger of loose reading for mere passing pleasure; it may be the soul's lasting loss. This giving up of the soul to receive anything that comes before it, without regard to motives or ends, is a common form of self-abandonment, and renders it so difficult to get men and women to think for themselves, with just

views of what may be expected to result from their conduct. The safe habit of abstraction is that in which, with a mind of one's own, the persuasions of truth are obeyed, and the resultant actions enjoyed; for we cannot be safe without feeling in sympathy with Heaven, as expressed in God's laws, both natural and spiritual.

If a man of the finest faculties yields his reason to the fascinations of sensuality, he soon loses control over the associations of his mind; memory and judgment necessarily become permanently impaired. The habitual drunkard, for instance, is rarely recoverable, except by long disease, or some enforced restraint for a period sufficiently extended to secure a new and better condition of brain. Even a brief interruption to the habit of mental withdrawal from objects of sense, renders a return to abstraction and due thoughtfulness a greater effort, especially if the senses have in the interval been engaged by objects that powerfully excite the passions. Hence we see why comparative sequestration and temperate management of the body are necessary to the student's success; and hence, too, we learn that diversity of objects and change of scene are the natural remedies for morbid abstraction. The case of Brindley, the celebrated engineer, illustrates these observations.

His memory and power of abstraction were so great,

that although he could scarcely read or write, he executed the most elaborate and complex plans as a matter of course, without committing them to paper. But this power was so completely disturbed after seeing a play, and indulging its suggestions, that he could not for a long time afterwards resume his usual pursuits. Thus evil communications corrupt good manners, by absolutely paralysing the power of attending to proper objects of thought, and so weakening the intellectual faculties, as at length entirely to disqualify them for restoration to integrity. Hence the force of that question which He

who asked it can alone answer, 'How can you, who are accustomed to do evil, learn to do well?'

That degree of abstractedness which approaches to dreaming is so essential to powerful intellectual effort, that Dr. Macnish, in his 'Philosophy of Sleep,' includes all the higher exercises of genius in his idea of dreaming. He says, Poems are waking dreams, the aristocratic indulgences of the intellect, the luxuries of otherwise unemployed minds; Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is but a sublime hallucination; Michael Angelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel are elaborated dreams. According to this view of the subject, the mind is most spiritualised when least awake. But surely such a conclusion is contrary to reason; for who can believe that voluntary mental abstraction for a rational purpose is not associated with vigilance of spirit, or that the exercise of memory and imagination is not compatible with sound judgment? As well may we say, that to look steadily over the past, and thence to anticipate the future, is but to dream; and carefully to examine the way we have come, and the way we are going, is to prove ourselves sound asleep. Reason acquires her proper dominion by abstraction from the senses, by her use of memory and imagination, in relation to the meaning of things, or else there is no reality, no truth, beyond bodily sensation. It is true, that the poetic imagination imbues the commonest circumstances with a colouring which the vulgar mind regards as exaggerated; but yet the most successful exercises of creative genius are remarkable for their philosophic truthfulness; and the mind which reasons abstractedly, that is, while voluntarily dissociated from the circumstances and the senses of the body, is most apt to perceive the great principles which connect all science, all art, all moral and all physical relations, with the revealed truth that commends itself equally to the understanding and to the convicted conscience. The

poetic mind is most inventive because most constructive. Thus Goëthe, Darwin, and Davy discovered more of scientific laws than was possible to less imaginative philosophers, and no one can read Newton's 'Principia' without perceiving that he was essentially a poet as well as a mathematician. Those whom sensualists have deemed madmen and dreamers, have been the enlighteners of their race. They have ascended in their thoughts out of the sight of the common down-looking men of this world, and have held their lamp of life to be relumed at the sun of another and higher system, which cannot be reached by telescopes, but is realised by faith. Divine Wisdom has created the mind of man of too expansive a nature to be properly limited by the atmosphere and attractions of earth, and of too inquisitive and spiritual a capacity to be quite easy in believing only in the properties of matter. Those persons really dream who see no further than the surface; who realise nothing beyond the evidence of the senses, and read not spiritually the meaning of the grand panorama spread before their eyes. But those are most vividly and vigorously awake, who can withdraw themselves from sounds and colours, that they may reflect upon treasured ideas, and interpret the mystery of their existence by enjoying their spiritual faculties, in intercourse with other and higher minds, and in communion with their Eternal Parent.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABSENCE AND ABSTRACTION OF

MIND, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO THE

WILL IN CONNECTION WITH THE BODY.

STATE OF THE

It is well to consider the difference between absence and abstraction of mind. The former is a mere morbid vacuity, a listless habit, or unmeaning dreaminess; the latter, a full and intent occupation. Absence is much known in brown-study, and after dinner by the winter fire. It is also common at church and in school, at lectures and at lessons. But mental abstraction is an active and self-absorbing process, in which a powerful and cultivated will sustains the soul in that intellectual exaltation which constitutes the habit of true genius. Absence of mind, like sleep, is common to us all, but voluntary abstraction, to the extent which is necessary to great excellence, and for the purpose of enjoying truth or realising fiction, is a rare endowment by which the possessor dwells, as nearly as may be consistent with bodily life, in the purer region of the spirit. But there is danger in all sublunary enjoyments. Intellectual objects are often pursued to the very verge of that abyss by which Omnipotence has wisely limited the sphere of human thought, and thus many perish as regards all the proper uses of their present being, while distrust and discontent become stamped upon their features, and incorporated with every atom of their substance. By boldly venturing on speculative self-indulgence, they madly leap the bounds of rational inquiry, and then quarrel with their God because He is pleased to surround