tongues, wonderful strength and activity of body and mind. Dr. Constans, the physician sent by the French Government to deal with the epidemic, endeavours to divest the history of all appearance of the supernatural, and no doubt many of his explanations may be accepted. Seeming possession may be a form of insanity; prophecies may fulfil themselves; a few words of a strange language originally heard by accident, and little noticed at the time, may be subsequently remembered and uttered in an abnormal state of mind, and may pass for speaking with unknown tongues; a perception of what is passing miles away may be put down, in the last resort, as somnambulism. All this may be done, and rightly done. But it must be owned that if this age be content to rest in such explanations, other times would have seen in these things the work of supernatural powers. I may add, as of further bearing upon our subject, that a state of excitement was induced among the people in which still greater prodigies were gravely attested.'

I have spoken of these phenomena as especially allied to what we read in the New Testament of possession by evil spirits. This will, I think, be felt by anyone who reads the accounts. In a recent work upon 'Our Lord's Miracles of Healing,' written

1 See Dr. A. Constans: 'Relation sur une Épidémie d'HystéroDémonopathie ;' also 'Cornhill Magazine,' April 1865.

by a clergyman, the Rev. T. W. Belcher, who had been in early life a medical man, and written certainly in no rationalistic spirit, the writer mentions that he had attended a lady suffering from mental disease, whose symptoms resembled those of the demoniacs in the Gospels.

This

Mention has been made of somnambulism. exceptional nervous state has long been known as arising in peculiar cases. But of late years our knowledge of it has been greatly increased by the discovery that a state essentially the same may be artificially brought about with many persons. allude to what is popularly known as electro-biology or animal magnetism.

I

The late Mr. Braid, of Manchester, used to bring on in those on whom he operated a state which he called hypnotism, a kind of artificial somnambulism, and his researches threw much light upon the subject.

Here, too, we have many phenomena which in past days would have been taken for the supernatural. Serjeant Cox,1 in a recent work on psychology, has collected many details. We hear of what seems to be sight when the eyes were closed, or the objects distant, or otherwise not naturally

1 'What am I? a Popular Introduction to Mental Philosophy and Psychology,' by Edward W. Cox, Barrister-at-law. Longmans & Co., London, 1874.

visible. We have great exaltation of the emotions and intellectual powers, and further a stimulation of particular faculties by touching certain parts of the head. We find the patient brought under the control of another person, technically said to be en rapport. We find that it is even in the power of the latter to suggest to the mind of the former ideas which, though utterly false, shall pass as experienced facts; for instance, to make him take a glass of water for wine. We have insight into the thoughts of others. Lastly, we have cures, even of such diseases as paralysis, cancer, and consumption. These cures, however, have a strong appearance of coming under the explanation of Dr. Carpenter, already given. Indeed, Serjeant Cox gives the same explanation, with an addition due to his own views of the physical cause of these phenomena. He supposes that the direction of the mind to the diseased part causes a flow of nerve force to it. He cites as an example the cure of Miss Martineau, the well-known authoress, by these means, from an ulcer which the most eminent medical men had pronounced incurable and fatal.

Allied, yet dissimilar, to somnambulism, is trance. Here we have great mental elevation, at times prolonged fasting, simulated death, and what is perhaps stranger than all, according to Serjeant Cox, cases of resistance to the action of heat. This state has

also a feature peculiarly fitted to give rise to stories of the supernatural, viz., the acting at times with wonderful effect of some character far superior to the patient. Nothing would be more likely to suggest ideas of inspiration or possession.

In connection with these phenomena of trance and somnambulism I may refer to the yet wider subject of unconscious cerebration.' This is the name which Dr. Carpenter has given to that unconscious action of the mind, of which we have very many examples, not only in abnormal states, as delirium, but also in our ordinary healthy life, as in sleep, or in the performance of habitual acts, such as reading or walking.1 One form of this kind of action has no doubt played an important part in religious history, viz., the mysterious voices which the mind sometimes seems to hear speaking it knows not whence.

I may add that Dr. Carpenter, who is a cautious and thoroughly scientific writer, does allow some of the wonderful phenomena just mentioned, as the cases of suggestion of ideas to a hypnotised patient, great exaltation of the sense perceptions, power of reading the thoughts of others, cures, and other effects on the bodily functions. He also allows that if nerve force be a form of energy, its action at a distance, so that one brain should affect another far

1 See Essays by F. P. Cobbe, 'Unconscious Cerebration,' p. 316.

away, cannot be said à priori to be impossible, but it would need very good evidence for its proof.1

There is yet one more class of phenomena in these days of which I would here speak. I allude to what is called spiritualism. I am far from advocating the belief that the phenomena in question are really caused by the spirits of the dead. This belief certainly needs confirmation. But it must, I think, be allowed that we have good evidence for facts, which our present physical and mental science does not explain, and which in former ages would have been thought supernatural. No one can, I think, read the report of the committee of the Dialectical Society on the subject, or the publications of Mr. Crookes, in his 'Quarterly Journal of Science,' without admitting so much. We have, indeed, here the seeming supernatural in varied and difficult forms. We hear of mysterious sounds, movements of heavy bodies without mechanical means, imparting of information in inexplicable ways, apparitions visible to many, sensible also to the touch, performing physical acts some of which, as the introduction of solid bodies into closed rooms, seem impossible. These phenomena are attested, in many cases, by men not only of high character and social position, but also of undoubted scientific cultivation. It is interesting to notice how some of the most striking of the eccle

1 See 'Mental Physiology,' p. 633.