likewise stray adventurers from Spain and other Mussulman settlements in the Mediterranean, men by profession freebooters and rovers, with none but the chance home of the day's luck, and lives spent in hazards which made them the terror of towns and citizens; and, finally, there was a sprinkling of men of Persian origin amongst the leaders, as happened in every great Mussulman enterprise after the elevation of the Abassides - men at once venerable, stout-hearted, and vigorous, like the illustrious captain of the host. Before embarking this motley force, Ased reviewed it upon the African strand, and addressed his followers in words which, as they are handed down in the chronicle of an eye-witness, breathe the glowing pride of one who, at the same time that he is animated with a burning piety, also keenly exults in the positive sensation of the authority, which he is conscious of having plucked from the grasp of a grudging and powerful liege lord. ously shared the Western feeling against Iconoclasm, they steadily avoided employing it for those purely political purposes to which the Popes turned it in other quarters. To its Greek emperors Sicily therefore continued faithful, though with that degree of listless loyalty to be expected in an age of torpor, and expressive rather of the absence of any more attractive form of government than of fervent affection. The Byzantine emperors, alive to the fact that here was the most precious gem still in their battered diadem, treated Sicily with special distinction. Invested with regal pomp, resplendent with all the gorgeousness of Byzantine state, the Patrician of Sicily, as the Emperor's Vicar, kept alive the tradition of imperial majesty. Syracuse was raised to the metropolitan rank from which Ravenna had fallen. Here alone in the West, did Byzantine dominion still revel in undiminished pageantry, and exhibit the show of unimpaired greatness, Sicily, from its site and other advantages, while yet at heart all was thoroughly was at this period a possession eagerly co- rotten. With large armaments, a splendid veted by the Popes, and jealously cherished court, and a rich exchequer, the patriciate by the decaying emperors of Byzantium. of Sicily, instead of being the reward of Defended by a belt of water against the worth, was the usual prize reserved for easy invasions which had reduced the imperial minions. Eunuch after eunuch, garden of Italy into a wilderness, Sicily adventurer after adventurer, no sooner drew on itself the eyes of the Popes when was borne aloft for a season by the quick trembling at the successes of the Arian revolutions of palace fortune, than he flung Lombards, as offering the best point of himself upon this choice portion, to snatch retreat, in the event of extreme adversity, up as much of its wealth as he could from which to rally the orthodox spirit of secure before the elevation of a new fathe West to a war at once religious and vorite in reward of some fresh exploit of national. But Sicily had a population not profligate servility. Hence, in spite of merely by origin, but still at that time in comparative privileges by the side of other language as much Greek as Latin, while provinces, the evil administration of a its political associations were all connected government, always extortionate by nawith the seat of Eastern empire. These ture, and rendered doubly rapacious now ties kept the island in a close union with through the imperious wants of painful Byzantium, and filled the Popes with distress, blighted with a withering palsy alarm lest it might submit altogether to the native fruitfulness of this favored isle. the primacy of their detested rivals- the Slavery, with its unfailing followers, sufGreek Patriarchs. Great and unrelaxing fering and nakedness, in its wake, appeared were the efforts they made to avert such on all sides the haggard witness to a decay a disaster. Six out of the seven monas- which the studied gilding of official pomp teries, founded by the private munificence vainly sought to cloak. In the prostration in the service of the Church of Gregory of the people worn down by grinding the Great, before his elevation to the imposts and a leaden despotism, is to be Papal See, were in Sicily. These exertions found the explanation for the slack resistwere crowned with success, and the spi- ance made in Sicily against Mussulman ritual influence of the Western Primate dominion, when once the Byzantine legions effectively outweighed in the end that of had been worsted in the field. There the Eastern. But the preponderance re- was nothing to kindle a national feeling in tained an exclusively religious character. the breast of the Sicilians. The only While the Sicilian people and clergy zeal-principle to inspire them with an impulse was to be found in religion. Accordingly, the desultory struggle carried on during some years against the invaders in the more mountainous districts, were sustained wholly by the fervor of a few Christian devotees, whose consciences would not stoop to bow to the followers of a false Prophet. On both sides, therefore, the stimulating motives to the contest sprang from the same principle. The Mussulmans were pushed on to invasion by the fiery From the British Quarterly. ILLUSIONS AND THUS it is seen that in a state of health | and mental soundness, the senses may be so imposed upon, with or without any existing object, that in some instances it requires the exercise of all the reasoning and analytic faculties to correct the impression; and in others these impressions are so strong, that no suspicion of unreality ever appears to attach to them, nor can the subject of them be persuaded that they do not arise from real objects. This latter is most frequently the case when two or more of the senses are simultaneously af fected by the illusion or hallucination. If only the visual faculty is involved, the ear and the sense of touch may correct the morbid fancy; but when, as is not unfrequently the case, all these are affected, then the detection of the delusion becomes all but impossible, and, practically, is very rarely effected. The illusions and hallucinations connected with dreaming, nightmare, somnambulism, sleep, and the border-land between sleeping and waking, are too familiar to need more than a passing notice. In all abnormal states of mind also, or bodily health, there is a proclivity to hallucinations and illusions. There are hallucinations in mania, and other forms of insanity, in paralysis, in delirium-tremens, in hysteria and hypochondriasis, in febrile and inflammatory disorders; in short, they may occur to complicate nearly * Concluded from page 50. HALLUCINATIONS. * every derangement of the organism. To enter upon these would require a volume, and it is out of our province-they belong more to the domain of special medicine. One general remark we may make, namely, that infinite as is the variety of the phantoms that pass before the excited imagination in these affections, there is no ticeable in some of them a kind of specialty of delusion; thus, the hallucinations of delirium-tremens almost invariably comprise one class of delusions—that pertaining to "creeping things innumerable,” and differ in almost every respect from those of simple febrile disorders on the one hand, and, further still, from those of hypochondriacal affections on the other, all of which appear to have a tendency to some typical character of their own. If it be so, that special organic changes are attended by special mental affections, as manifested in these hallucinations; it may be that when, in the progress of science, these organic changes are better known and recognized, an additional clue to the mystery of idea, thought, and cerebration generally, may be found in the careful consideration and analysis of these aberrations of perception. The hallucinations occurring in that state of the system known as ecstacy or trance, are strange in every aspect, full of mystery, provided that we can place any faith in the narrators of them. The utterances under the influence of these states not, (he replied,) but you, M. Chamfort, will; and you will open your veins with a razor, but will not die for months afterward.' ' or visions are quoted by many writers as having been prophetic. It is necessary in general to receive these accounts with the greatest reserve. The history of one such prophecy is related by La Harpe, and its He then proceeded (so says La Harpe) accuracy is vouched for by Madame de to foretell the fate of Vicq d'Azyr, of NiGenlis, the Countess Beauharnais, and colaï, of Bailly, of Malesherbes, of Rouchother eminent characters; notwithstand-er, all as they afterward occurred; all to ing which authorities, our readers will agree with us that it is expedient to doubt. If we give a brief abstract of it, it is chiefly on the ground that M. Boismont brings it forward as illustrative of this part of the subject, not placing implicit faith in it himself, but considering that it does "not the less belong to history, whether we consider the rank of the personages involved, or the gravity of the events pre dicted."* "It seems but yesterday, (says La Harpe,) yet it was at the beginning of 1788. We were at table at the house of one of our confrères of the Academy, grand seigneur et homme d'esprit. The company was large, and consisted of all kinds of men-courtiers, lawyers, literary men, academicians," etc. He proceeds to describe the banquet, and the lively discourse that succeeded, chiefly turning on the coming or expected revolution. One only of the guests took no part in these joyful anticipations, this was Cazotte, an amiable and original man, but tinctured with the reveries of the visionaries, (illuminés.)" He at length spoke, and not only told the company assembled that they would certainly see this revolution, but that they would have little cause to rejoice; sketching out the fate of many there present. "You, M. Condorcet, will die on the floor of your prison; you will die of the poison you have taken to escape the hands of the headsman-poison which the happy season will compel you to carry about with you always." At this there was great dismay; but they excused it, knowing" that M. Cazotte was in the habit of dreaming with his eyes open." "But what has put these ideas of prison, headsman, and poison into your head? What have they to do with philosophy and the reign of reason? It is precisely as I tell you; it is in the name of philosophy, of humanity, of liberty; it is under the reign of reason that this will happen; at that time there will be no temples but those of reason in France.' 'Verily,' said Chamfort, with a sarcastic air, 'you will not be a priest in that kind of temple.' 'I hope *Boismont, Op. cit., p. 297. "Ah! happen before six years had passed. La Both illusions and hallucinations may appear in an epidemic form. One of the principal forms of epidemic illusion is the vision of armies in the clouds. All history abounds with instances of this nature. A curious illusion of another kind on one occasion occurred at Florence, which depended upon atmospheric causes. Great numbers of the inhabitants were collected in the principal streets of the city for some hours; they contemplated with great attention the figure of an angel floating in the air, and expected some great event to follow immediately; when it was discovered that the phenomenon was caused by a cloud covering the dome, in which was reflected the image of the golden angel surmounting the edifice, which was strongly illuminated by the rays of the sun. History also tells abundantly of epidemic hallucinations; the Crusades were especially rife in such portents. "Scarcely was the signal for the first crusade given than the apparitions commenced; every one recounted his visions, the words he had heard, the orders he had received. The people, the armed multitude, perceived in the air signs and portents of all kinds; but it was especially vols. in 8vo. Paris, 1806. Tom. i. p. 62. Ferriar, Theory of Apparitions. when the Crusaders had penetrated into | But no epidemic hallucinations can vie Asia that the prodigies multiplied." "* in extent with those that were manifested They saw on all hands the saints descend-in connection with the subject of witching and fighting for them at the head of craft, which in itself forms one of the most angelic hosts. But it is needless to mul- remarkable chapters in the psychological tiply illustrations of this kind of epidemic. history of man. Mackay, in his Popular There existed for some centuries two Delusions, says that "Europe for two singular forms of epidemic hallucinations centuries and a half brooded upon the -lycanthropy and vampyrism--which idea, not only that parted spirits walked prevailed extensively amongst great num- the earth to meddle in the affairs of men, bers of people. "The origin of lycan- but that men had power to summon evil thropy (says M. Boismont) goes back to spirits to their aid to work wo upon their the most ancient epochs of paganism. In fellows. An epidemic terror seized upon this illusion the unfortunate sufferers be- the nations; no man thought himself selieved themselves to be changed into cure, either in his person or his posseswolves. .. It was especially in the sions, from the machinations of the devil fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that this and his agents. Every calamity that befell singular illusion was most widely spread him he attributed to a witch. France, in Europe. The cynanthropes and lycan- Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and thropes abandoned their dwellings to bury the far north, successively ran mad upon themselves in the forests, letting their this subject; thousands upon thousands of nails, hair, and beard grow, and pushing unhappy persons fell victims to this absurd their ferocity to such an extent as to and cruel delusion." There was a remarkmutilate, and even kill and eat, children able uniformity in the confessions of those that fell in their way." Many of them accused of witchcraft; the proceedings at confessed these things in such a manner as their imaginary “Sabbath" were always to indicate their insanity; but the ignor- described in nearly the same terms. They ance of the times was such, that they were chiefly turned into cats, and they were supposed to be in pact with Satan, accused themselves of homicides unnumand they were burned at the stake, in bered. They all had frequent noctural ingreat numbers, as the supposed witches terviews with "the master," during which they experienced the most vivid emotions. Had all these confessions been made under the torture, there would have been no question as to their nature; but when the mania for witch-extermination had begun to subside, and men were more anxious to acquit than to condemn, there were still numbers who voluntarily accused themselves of crimes which they had evidently not committed; as of the murder of people that were still alive, and of having attended at the "Sabbath" during nights when the strictest watch had been kept upon them, and it was evident they had never quitted their room. done with a persistency and pertinacity that in many cases precluded the idea of imposture, and left but one conclusion tenable, namely, that they were the victims of hallucination of several of the We shall have occasion to refer briefly to senses, certainly of eye, ear, and touch. this subject again. were. On vampyrism, M. Boismont remarks: "When a man is subjugated by superstition and terror, there are no ideas so grotesque that they may not become realities. One of the most singular aberrations of this kind is that which is known under the name of Vampyrism, of which we find the traces even in the Talmud This epidemic reigned about the commencement of the eighteenth century, in many parts of Hungary, Moravia, Silesia, and Lorraine. The peasants who were the subjects of it, believed that after death their enemies had the power of appearing to them in various forms. Some dreamed that these malevolent spirits took them * Boismont, Op. cit., p. 490. All this was In entering upon the inquiry as to the mode of production and the causation generally of hallucinations, we would premise that the existence of the sensations (merely as such) depends upon the well-known or "We have known cases of ghost-seeing when wide-awake, which have been cured by leeches at the front of the forehead--evidently indicating that they have resulted from a congested state of the perceptive faculties. . . . We were on a visit in and had taken more wine than usual. It was the summer time, and the weather very hot and dry, which combined sensations rendered us feverish and uncomfortable. . . . We went to bed, but not to sleep, and tossed and tumbled, changing our position every moment, but were too restless to repose; at length we turned toward the window, and perceived between it and the bed a short, thick-set, burly figure, with a huge head, staring us in the face. Certainly nothing could appear more real or substantial, and after gazing on this monstrous creature, we put out our hand, when he opened his ponderous jaws and bit at us. We tried various experiments with the creature such as putting our hand before his face, which seemed to cover part of it. The longer we contemplated it, the more palpable was this figure, and the more wrathful were his features. Struck with the apparent reality of the apparition, we mechanically felt our pulse; it was throbbing at a fearful rate; our skin was hot and dry, and the temporal arteries were throbbing at railway speed. This physical jumped out of bed, when the specter seemed to condition had produced the phantom. We then be nearer and of more gigantic proportions. We then threw open the window to admit a lit tle air, sponged our head and body, and thus, by removing the cause, the monster disappeared." physiological law, that whatever impression can be produced upon the organs of the senses by external agency, can also be produced subjectively by internal changes, that is, changes in the organs themselves, or in those parts of the central nervous system with which they are immediately connected. Thus, light falling upon the retina, produces its own specific sensation; but this may equally be produced by distension of the blood-vessels of the retina, some corresponding change in that portion of the brain in which the optic nerves terminate. The same applies to the ear and the other senses. Now, taking the eye for an illustration of all the senses, we know that when any given object is seen, there is an image of that object, be it tree, man, or animal, painted on the retina in rays of light; but how that image is communicated to the brain, and from it to the sentient principle-what is the mechanical change produced on the nerve-fibers during its transmission-what different change is required to convey the different images of a tree or a dog to the mind; of all these things we are utterly ignorant. We know certainly that there is no image painted on the brain itself, and that it is only by a certain kind of polarity of its fibers or molecules that it is enabled to convey to the mind the idea of the particular object in question, that polarity being doubtless different in accordance with the difference of the object. this character, of which a number, interWe know also by abundant physiological esting and instructive, are collected by M. evidence, that these variations of polarity Boismont. We can not fail to be struck are produceable by internal as well as ex- with the great number of hallucinations ternal causes; but as we are ignorant in occurring in subjects who had been accusthe one case of the nature of that polarity tomed, from one cause or other, to periodwhich results from the presence of an ex-ical bleedings, and who had either from ternal object, so in the other are we ig- accident or design neglected the operanorant of that which is automatically ex- tion for some time.* cited in such manner as to produce the subjective sensation, the two being without doubt identical. What we can do, is to trace some at least of the conditions under which such polarity and such consequent sensations and hallucinations occur, which conditions are usually termed the causes of the phenomena. The most frequent general organic condition of the sensory apparatus during the existence of hallucinations, would appear to be one of congestion, or fullness of blood. A circumstance directly illustrative of this is related in the Psychological Journal for April, 1857, as occurring to the writer himself. He says: Medical works abound in histories of *We subjoin one instance: "A man of sound mind was seated one evening in his chamber. To his great astonishment he saw the door open, and one of his friends enter, who, after making a few turns round the room, placed himself before him. and looked on him intently. Wishing to receive his visitor politely, be rose; but scarcely had he advanced a few steps, when the figure vanished; when he recognized that it was a vision. Soon afterward other persons of his acquaintance, who surrounded the figure appeared again, accompanied by many him, all looking at him in the same manner. In the space of a quarter of an hour, the assembly became so numerous that it appeared as though the room him into his bed-room, ranging themselves round would not contain them. These phantoms followed the bed; so that he had some difficulty in getting any sleep. When he awoke, they reäppeared in as |