mother's face as it was bent over him in childhood. The physical shock of the very instant of death may be the abrupt occasion of such hallucinations.

How easy, then, to suppose, how hard not to hope, and, hoping, to believe, that in that supreme and solemn moment is granted a fore-glimpse into the world of spirits which is just about to open!— that, as the material grossness of earth falls away, the nearly emancipated spirit, hovering on the brink of its new life, and with vision purged of earthly dross, reaches such a state of rarefaction, exaltation, and detachment, as to enjoy a momentary penetration into the supernatural world! Those who believe this to be so, and found on it a confident argument for belief in a future life, ought to call to mind and duly weigh this reflection, that the fever-stricken savage, when abandoned to die by his companions, if he chances to recover unexpectedly and rejoin them, sometimes recounts the particulars of his visit to the world of spirits during the crisis of his disease, and tells a detailed story of the doings of his dead relatives there, which are then very much like their gross doings when on earth.*

The vital question, of course, is whether, during the final decay of faculties in the last stage of mental and physical prostration, when life is flickering before

*For ample evidence, see Tylor's Primitive Culture.

it expires, and the dying person is capable only of a few signs of feeble animation, there is suddenly acquired by him a power and kind of insight the like of which he never had before when he was in health and vigour. Is it lawful to base on the expiring energies of a brain which "doth by the feeble comments that it makes foretell the ending of mortality' the momentous conclusion of living beings in a supernatural world? If it be, then the conclusion necessarily follows that all the insight of man's mind when he is strong and well, and all the knowledge which he has painfully accumulated through the natural avenues of sense, are products of a method which has no guarantee of lasting validity, and which, being of provisional value only, may be discredited and supplanted at any moment by the sudden opening in him of a higher spiritual vision; and a further conclusion be that this sort of vision, contrary to all natural experience, will be at its best when life is at its worst, the soundest mind be displayed in the unsoundest body. What, in such case, would be the right aim and the bounden duty of a devout person who was eager to arrive at the knowledge of things spiritual? Or the right aim of anybody who viewed things visible and temporal as of the meanest moment in comparison with things not seen and eternal? To follow the revolting example of the unclean ascetic,

and to subject his body systematically to the severest fastings, scourgings, and other mortifications, in order to reduce vitality to its lowest ebb. On the other hand, if such visions be only the delirious comments of expiring brain-energies, the conclusion must be that, so far from sustaining the opinion of a spiritual life, they yield substantial support to the opinion that all the intercourse with supernatural beings which has ever been alleged to have taken place ought to be rigorously investigated in the light of their natural origin and being; and the further conclusion follow, that a sane body is the surest foundation of a sane mind. It is a simple question of scientific probability in the end, since revelation, though it guarantee the spiritual world, does not

* We are dealing here only with physical disorder as the occasion of positive hallucination, but the lesson of the fact is a large one; for it ought always to be borne in mind, in relation to observation, that similar disorder of a milder character, of which the individual may be entirely unaware, produces its proportionate effects in causing error of sense and thought. Nothing can be more foolish in most cases than to receive the counsels of a dying man regarding important practical events as if they were pure and sacred wisdom; they commonly reflect and betray the weakness of his expiring nature. Experienced lawyers know well how much the provisions of a will made in such circumstances are at the mercy of the suggestions or persuasions of those who are prompting or assisting the dying man in the business. “I am afraid to say," remarked an old family lawyer, "how many wills I have made in my time." Whosoever wishes to have a truly disposing mind in making his testamentary bequests will not put off the business until he has only a death-bed judgment.

guarantee in any respect the sick man's particular vision of it does he, in the self-delirious state of brain before death, see a phantom-vision, such as is confessedly seen often in similar brain-states, or is a gift of supernatural insight then vouchsafed to him for the first time?

CHAPTER III.

HALLUCINATIONS AND ILLUSIONS-Continued.

THE examples of hallucinations which have been brought forward thus far have been illustrations of their mode of origin in direct disturbance of the senses or of their sensory nerve-centres or tracks; they have originated there and have then imposed themselves upon belief. The person has not seen or heard what he was thinking or believing at the moment, but has been made to think or believe what he has seemed

to hear or see. Not otherwise than as happens often in dreams, where the strange sensory and notional experiences arising mysteriously in the mind without any co-operation of will, and following no known order of relation and succession, have been universally thought to mean supernatural instruction; abundant examples of which might be adduced, were not Solomon's authority enough, who says that "in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, then God openeth the ears of men, and sealeth