CHAPTER XIV. DISORDERED INTELLECTUAL ACTION. (1.) EXCITED CONCEPTIONS OR APPARITIONS. 216. Disordered intellectual action as connected with the body. HAVING Completed our examination of the Intellect so far as it presents itself to our notice in its more frequent and regular action, we now propose to conclude the subject, by giving some instances of intellectual states which appear to take place in violation of its ordinary principles. Whatever anticipations we might have been disposed to form A PRIORI, in relation to the action of the mind, it is a matter abundantly confirmed by painful experience and observation, that its operations are not always uniform; and that, in some cases, as we shall have occasion to see, it exhibits an utter and disastrous deviation from the laws which commonly regulate it. The causes of these deviations it may not be easy always, and in all respects, to explain; but it is well understood, that they are frequently connected with an irregular and diseased condition of the body. The mind, it will be recollected, exists in the threefold nature or threefold division of the Intellect, the Sensibilities, and the Will. The action of the Will depends upon the antecedent action of the Sensibilities; and that of the sensitive nature is based upon the antecedent action of the Intellect. The action of the Intellect or Understanding is twofold, External and Internal. And we have already endeavoured, on a former occasion, to show, that the developement of the External Understanding is first in the order of time, as it is obviously first in the order of nature. It is here, so far as the mind is concerned, that we find the commencement of action; but it is well understood, and seems to be entirely undeniable, that all the action which takes place here, takes place in connexion with bodily action. The External intellect does not act, nor is it capable of acting, although the mind is so constituted that the movement of all the other parts depends upon movement here, without the antecedent affection of the outward or bodily senses. And hence the intellect generally, and particularly the External intellect, is unfavourably affected, as a general thing, in connexion with a disordered state of the bodily sys tem. 217. Of excited conceptions and of apparitions in general. The fact that disordered intellectual action is closely connected with a disordered state of the body, will aid, in some degree, in the explanation of the interesting subject of EXCITED CONCEPTIONS OF APPARITIONS. Conceptions, the consideration of which is to be resumed in the present chapter, are those ideas which we have of any absent object of perception. In their ordinary form they have already been considered in a former part of this Work. (See chapter viii., part i.) But they are found to vary in degree of strength; and hence, when they are at the highest intensity of which they are susceptible, they may be denominated vivified or EXCITED CONCEPTIONS. They are otherwise called, particularly when they have their origin in the sense of sight, APPARITIONS. Apparitions, therefore, are appearances, which seem to be external and real, but which, in truth, have merely an interior or subjective existence; they are merely vivid or excited conceptions. Accordingly, there may be apparitions, not only of angels and departed spirits, which appear to figure more largely in the history of apparitions than other objects of sight; but of landscapes, mountains, rivers, precipices, festivals, armies, funeral processions, temples; in a word, of all visual perceptions which we are capable of recalling.-Although there are excited conceptions both of the hearing and the touch, and sometimes, though less frequently, of the other senses, which succeed in reaching and controlling our belief with unreal intimations, those of the sight, in consequence of the great importance of that organ and the frequency of the deceptions connected with it, claim especial attention. 218. Of the less permanent excited conceptions of sight. Excited conceptions, which are not permanent, but have merely a momentary, although a distinct and real existence, are not uncommon. In explanation of these, there are two things to be noticed.-(I.) They are sometimes the result of the natural and ordinary exercise of that power of forming conceptions, which all persons possess in a greater or less degree. We notice them particularly in children, in whom the conceptive or imaginative power, so far as it is employed in giving existence to creations that have outline and form, is generally more active than in later life. Children, it is well known, are almost constantly projecting their inward conceptions into outward space, and erecting the fanciful creations of the mind amid the realities and forms of matter, beholding houses, men, towers, flocks of sheep, clusters of trees, and varieties of landscape in the changing clouds, in the wreathed and driven snow, in the fairy-work of frost, and in the embers and flickering flames of the hearth. This at least was the experience of the early life of Cowper, who has made it the subject of a fine passage in the poem of the Task. "Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers, I gazed, myself creating what I saw." Beattie too, after the termination of a winter's storm, places his young Minstrel on the shores of the Atlantic, to view the heavy clouds that skirt the distant horizon: "Where mid the changeful scenery ever new, Fancy a thousand wondrous forms descries, (II.) Again, excited conceptions, which are not permanent, are frequently called into existence in connexion with some anxiety and grief of mind, or some other modification of mental excitement. A person, for instance, standing on the seashore, and anxiously expecting the approach of his vessel, will sometimes see the image of it, and will be certain, for the moment, that he has the object of his anticipations in view, although, in truth, there is no vessel in sight. That is to say, the conception, idea, or image of the vessel, which it is evidently in the power of every one to form who has previously seen one, is rendered so intense by feelings of anxiety, as to be the same in effect as if the real object were present, and the figure of it were actually pictured on the retina.-It is in connexion with this view that we may probably explain a remark in the narrative of Mrs. Howe's captivity, who in 1775 was taken prisoner, together with her seven children, by the St. Francois Indians. In the course of her captivity, she was at a certain time informed by the Indians that two of her children were no more; one having died a natural death, and the other being knocked on the head. "I did not utter many words," says the mother, 66 but my heart was sorely pained within me, and my mind exceedingly troubled with strange and awful ideas, [meaning conceptions, or images.] I often imagined, for instance, that I plainly saw the naked carcasses of my children hanging upon the limbs of trees, as the Indians are wont to hang the raw hides of those beasts which they take in hunting." 219. Of the less permanent excited conceptions of sound. In regard to excited conceptions of sound, (we may remark incidentally, as we intend to confine ourselves chiefly to those of sight,) they are not, as was seen in a former part of this Work, (§ 60,) so easily called into existence, and so vivid, as visual conceptions. Consequently, we have grounds for making a distinction, and for saying that only one of the remarks made in reference to the less permanent excited conceptions of sight will apply to those of sound. In other words, excited conceptions of sound (those which appear and depart suddenly, without any permanent inconvenience to the subject of them) originate in connexion with a greater or less degree of mental excitement.-Persons, for instance, sitting alone in a room, are sometimes interrupted by the supposed hearing of a voice, which calls to them. But, in truth, it is only their own internal conception of that particular sound, which, in consequence of some peculiar mental state, happens at the moment to be so distinct, as to control their belief and impose itself upon them for a reality. This is probably the whole mystery of what Boswell has related as a singular incident in the life of Dr. Johnson, that while at Oxford he distinctly heard his mother call him by his given name, although she was at the very time in Litchfield.-The same principle explains also what is related of Napoleon. Previously to his Russian expedition, he was frequently discovered half reclined on a sofa, where he remained several hours, plunged in profound meditation. Sometimes he started up convulsively, and with an ejaculation. Fancying he heard his name, he would exclaim, Who calls me? These are the sounds, susceptible of being heard at any time in the desert air, which started Robinson Crusoe from his sleep, when there was no one on his solitary island but himself: "The airy tongues, that syllable men's names, § 220. First cause of permanently vivid conceptions or apparitions. Morbid sensibility of the retina of the eye. We have been led to see, particularly in a former chapter, (§ 64,) as well as in the preceding part of this, that our conceptions or renovated ideas may be so vivid as to affect our belief for a short time hardly less powerfully than the original perceptions. But as in the cases referred to there was not supposed to be an unsound or disordered state of the body, this extreme vividness of conception was exceedingly transitory. There are other cases of a comparatively permanent character, which are deserving of a more particular notice in the history of our mental nature. These last always imply a disordered state of the body, which we were led to see in the last chapter is often attended with very marked effects on the mind. In attempting to give an explanation of the origin of permanently vivid conceptions, the first ground or cause of them which we shall notice is an unnatural and morbid sensibility of the retina of the eye, either the whole of the retina or only a part. This cause, it is true, is in some degree conjectural, in consequence of the retina being so situated as to render it difficult to make it a sub |