[conclusion.]

West Coast Times, Issue 685, 4 December 1867, Page 4

[CONCLUSION.]

There are several things in connection with this subject of great interest to the observer, e.g., the extreme degree of intensity and acuteness to which our senses may be trained, and the remai'kable manner in which defect, or loss of one sense is compensated for by increased aeuteness in others. I remember a young man, in my parish at home, who had lost his hearing in measles when a boy. This youth, notwithstanding his loss, could converse with his mother, simply by observing the motion of her lips ; and it was in this way I usually communicated to him what I had to say. To what a degree of intensity must the sense of vision have been trained before ho could do this ! I have sometimes endeavoured to account for this singular attainment. No doubt -when his mother discovered her child's sad bereavement, she still continued to Bpeak to him ; and he, on his part, intensely desirous, if not to hear a mother's voice, at least to read her thoughts, would naturally observe, with peculiar intentness, every varying movement of her lips until, by habit, he had learned to decipher her meaning. I have read of another who ■was totally deaf, and yet could beat admirable time to instrumental music. His mode of operation was this : he laid one hand on the wood of the apartment where the music was played, and with the other beat time. Thus, apparently, his sense of touch had, in his exigency, become tutored to such a degree of acuteness, that the various gentle vibrations of the wood produced by the sound of the instrument, were picked up with the greatest facility and exactness. You have read of Mr Saunderson, the blind mathematician, who could distinguish by his hand, in a series of Roman medals, the true from the counterfeit, with a'more unerring descrimination than the eye of a professed virtuoso. Dr. Rush relates of two blind young men, brothers, of the city of Philadelphia, that they knew when they approached a post, in walking across a street, by a peculiar sound which the ground under their feet emitted in the neighborhood of the post. Dr. Abercrombie, to whom lam indebted for most of the facts connected with the subject of this lecture, tells us that he knew several deaf and dumb persons who could tell the approach of a carriage in the street without seeing it, even before it was noticed by persons who had the use of all their senses. This accounts for what fell under my own observation many years ago, and which at the time appeared to me very remarkable. While at college I have, day after day, witnessed a blind man walk down the street, and at the entrance to his house, ■which was by a narrow lane, turn in with as little hesitation and as much precision as though he had possessed the sense of sight. Clearly he could have been guided only by some peculiar, but to Mm well known sound proceeding from fie ground at that particular place. But all this shows us not only the wonderful degree of perfection" to which our senses can be trained, but also the admirable wisdom, and goodness of the Great Author of our being in thus making such a provision, that the defect or loss of one sense is supplemented, or compensated for, by the kind offices of others ; and in thus, also, presenting as with a pattern in the mutual helpfulness of the senses, which we would do well to imitate in social life. Although the process of pei'ception is, to a large extent, involuntary still in order to its full exercise, or, at least, in order to that degree of it, which will leave an impression capable of being retained, a certain voluntary effort of the mind is necessary, or, in other words, attention is necessary. Every one is aware that, when the mind is intently fixed on some object of thought, persons may pass before our eyes, and speeches may be made in our hearing, of which afterwards we have ) not the slightest recollection. And to such a degree may this be the case as to imply not a want of memory only, but even a want of perception. We are certain, however, that, in either case, the sense receives an impression. What is a wanting in the case is atten- I tion, without winch perception' does not j necessarily follow. You have perhaps read of the two schoolboys who were indulged by their master with an excursion into the country alone. The one rambled over hill ■ and dale in the highest glee, seeing every thing, and yet seeing nothing to purpose. The other, no less delighted, not only had his eyes open to the beauty of the scene in general, but his attention was directed with i deepest interest, now to this object, now to that. Here he culled a flower, there a mbss t and there again he gathered pebbles from the brook. When they had returned the master desired to know what they had seen. The one could give no tolerable account of his rambles. The other related with enthusiasm the scenes and objects ho had witnessed, aud presented the master with specimens of nature's treasures. In the one case there was no attention, or, at least, not due attention to the impressions made upon the senses, and, therefore, there were no such perceptions as to become fixed and abiding. In the other case there was attention. Hence the fixed and remembered perceptions. This principle is obviously susceptible of important practical applications. E.g., in the matter of education. It will be seen from what has been said, that in order to have matured perceptions, or, in other words, perceptions which can be retained, it is necessary that the mind have time deliberately to turu attention to the impressions of sense. Suppose, then, a teacher to hurry over the subject of study so as not to afford sufficient time to fix attention on the several steps of progress, would not such a teacher be guilty of a grave error, and indeed inflict a great injustice on his pupil ? On this account it has been said, with much truth, that the most expert master of an art is not necessarily the best teacher of it ; but he who, with a competent knowledge of it, directs minute attention to the individual steps through which it is necesaary for tho learned to advance. The bearing of this principle on reading also is obvious. He who only skims the volume he reads is not likely to be able to boa3t of the amount or value of his acquisitions. Only can he do so who takes time deliberately to attend to his impressions gathered from the book. Thus the man, who reads, multum in parvo is certain to add to his treasures of mental wealth by every volume which falls into his hands. I mUst not leave this subject of attention to our impressions without adverting to a peculiar aspect of it, which, when manifested in a high degree, leads to the most ridiculous issues. Persons are occasionally to be met ■with who have their attention so intensely fired on some object of thought that they become all but unconscious to everything else. We have an illustration of this in the absent man. I have no doubt but that all of us are acquainted with pereons more or less afflicted with thiß peculiarity. I remember hearing it related that Dr. Duncan, while resident in Glasgow, was called, on a certain occasion, to preach in Kerkintulloch. He set out early for his destination, and, Speedily, as was his wont, he was immersed in thought. When well on his journey he stopped to take a snuff. For convenience he turned round, for the wind was blowing, took his snuff, and walked on ; and soon, to his great mortification, ho found himself in the suburbs of Glasgow instead of Karkintulloch. This is no doubt an extreme of attention to objects of thought, but is far less U be dreaded than U» directly opposite,

that is to say, the .habit of inattention by which the mind, long unaccustomed to have llio attention steadily directed to any important object, becomes frivolous and absent, or lost amid its owh waking dreams. A mind in this condition becomes incapable of following a train of reasoning, and even of observing facts with accuracy, or of tracing their relations. Hence nothing is more opposed lo the cultivation of proper intellectual character or mental habits. This state of mind, therefore, ought lo be carefully guarded against, especially in the young ; for when it is once established it can be removed only with the greatest difficulty. There is one thing more we would notice here in connection with this subject, and that is the influence of habit on attention to our perceptions. There is a remarkable law of our mechanism by which actions, at first requiring much attention, are, after frequent repetition, performed with a much less degree of it, or without the mind being conscious of any effort. This is exemplified in various processes of daily occurrence, as reading or writing, but most remarkably in music. Musical performance at first requires the closest attention, but the effort becomes constantly less until it is not perceived at all ; and a lady may be seen running over a piece of music on the piano, and at the same time talking on another subject. Dr. Darwin mentions a lady who executed a long and very difficult piece of music, with the utmost precision, under the eye of her master, but seemed agitated and distressed during the execution of it. When she had concluded she burst into tears. It turned out that her attention had, during the whole time, been intensely occupied with the agonies of a favorite canary bird which at last dropt dead in its cage. We see the same principle exemplified in the rapidity with which an expert arithmetician can run up a long column of figures without being conscious of the individual combinations.

There are a number of remarkable and interesting facts connected with this subject in the case of perceptions which take place without the presence of any external body corresponding with them. These have been called false perceptions. One class of them includes all those hallucinations, which take place in insane persons, which are over accompanied with belief of the real existence of the object. E.g., Dr. Rush tells us of a man who believed that he had a Caffre in his stomach, who had got into it at the Cape of Good Hope, and had occasioned him a constant uneasiness ever eince. Linel mentions another similar case, that of a man who had become insane during the French revolution. This man believed that he had been guillotined, that the judges had changed their minds after the sentence was executed, had ordered his head to be put on again, aud that the persons intrusted with this duty had made a mistake, and put upon him a wrong head. But we do not dwell on this class of false perceptions, which are but the aberrations of a diseased mind. We shall refer moro at length to another class of false perceptions, which are experienced by the perfectly sane. First, there are those false perceptions or impressions made upon the senses only, in which the mind does not participate. Dr Abercrombic mentions a gentleman of his acquaintance, of high mental endowments, at that time upwards of eighty years of age, enjoying uninterrupted health, who had been for eleven years liable to almost daily visitations from spectral figures. They, in general, presented human countenances ; the head and upper parts of the body were distinctly defined j the lower parts were, for the most part, lost in a kind of cloud. The figures were various ; but he recognised the same countenances repeated from time to time, particularly that of an elderly woman with a peculiarly arch and playful expi'ession, and a dazzling brilliancy of eye, who seemed just ready to speak to him. They appeared also in various dresses, such as that of the age of Louis XIV., the costume of the ancient Romans, and that of the modern Turks and Greeks. They were almost always of a pleasant character, and he courted their presence as a source of amusement. He could see them equally well with his eyes open or shut, and he could always banish them by simply drawing his hand across his eyes. Again n second variety of false 'perceptions is that of an impression of visible' objects remaining some time after the eye is shut, or has been withdrawn from. Dr A. mentions a friend of his who had been one diy looking intensely at a small print of the Virgin Mary and child, and sat bending over it for stnne time. On raising his head he was startled by seeing at the farther end of tho apartment a female figure the size of life (vitli a child in her arms. The first feeling of surprise having snbsided, he instantly traced the source of the illusion, and remarked that the figure corresponded .exactly with that which he had been looking at in the print. The illusion continued distinct for about two minutes. Similar illusions of hearing are met with, as is shown by the case of a gentleman who had occasion to go into a large town a few miles from his residence, and who had liis attention attracted by the bugle of a regiment of horse sounding a particular measure which is used at changing guard in the evening. This gentleman assured his friends that the sound of the bugle from thai-time never was out of his ears for about nine months- Another class of false perceptions are those impressions of objects recently seen, returning after a considerable interval. Dr Ferriar mentions of himself that, when about fourteen yours of age, if he had been viewing any interesting object during the day, as a romantic ruin, a fine seat, or a review of troops, so soon as evening came, if he had occasion to go into a dark room the whole scene was visible before him with a brilliancy equal to what it possessed in daylight, and remained visible for some minutes. Yet another variety of false perceptions is to be found in those intense mental conceptions so strongly impressed upon the mind as for the moment to be believed to havea real existence. The following example is mentioned by Dr Hibbert. A gentleman was told of the sudden death of an old and intimate friend, and was deeply affected by it. The impression, though partially banished by the business of the day, was renewed from time to time by conversing on the subject with his family an:l other friends. After supper he went by himself to walk in the small court behind his house, j which was bounded by extsnsive gardens. The sky was clear, and the night serene ; and no light was falling from any of the windows. As he walked down stairs he was not thinking of anything connected with his deceased friend ; but when he had proceeded at a slow pace, about half way across the court, the figure of his friend started up before lu'm in a most distinct manner at the opposite angle of the court. He was not in his usual dress, but in a coat of a different color which he had left off from wearing for some months. I could even remark a figured vest which ho had also worn about the same time, also a coloured silk handkerchief around his neck, in which I had used to see him in a morning, and my powers of vision seemed lo become moro keen as I gazed on the phantom before me. An indiscribable feeling shot through his frame, but ho soon recovered, and walked briskly up to the spot, keeping his eyes intently fixed on the phantom. As he approached tho spot it vanished, not by sinking into the earth, but by seeming to melt into air. A similar example is given by a writer in the " Christian Observer." An intimate friend of my early years, and most happy in his domestic relations, lost his wife in the most painful circumstances. A few weeks after this melancholy event, while travelling during the night on horseback, and in all probability thinking over his sorrows, and contrasting his cheerless prospects witli the joys which, so lately guided t his happy home, tho form of his lost relative 'appeared to bo presented to him at a little distance in advance. Ho stopped his horse and contemplated the vision with great trepidation till iv a few seconds it vanished away.

A gentleman of my acquaintance, in going to and from his business, had occasion daily to pass tho house of an aged lady, who kept a store. One morning, as lie jessed, he learned that she had been taken suddenly and dangerously ill. He was deeply imprpssed by the circumstance. On his return in the evening, when approaching her dwelling, she appeared to him standing in her own door, where he had frequently seen her. lie was just about to speak to her when she turned and went into tho house. He, supposing that she must have recovered from her illness, walked on. When he reached homo ho was told of her death some hours before. It was at once concluded that ho had seen her ghost, and many to their great terror believed it. But here again the phenomenon is easily accounted for by tho recurrence of a strong mental impression. Wo have only to suppose, that when the gentleman heard of her illness i\ strong mental impression was produced, which he assured us was the case. When, on his return, he approached her house, where he had frequently met and chatted with her, the impression is revived with all the vividness of reality. Hence the vision.

To the same principal of intense mental conceptions strongly imprpssed upon the mmd wo are probably to refer the stories of tho apparitions of murdered persons haunting the murderer until he is driven to give himself up to justice; many of which ai'o on record. Similar effects have resulted in other situations from intenso mental excitement. A gentleman, mentioned by Dr Conolly, when in great danger of being wrecked in a boat on the Eddystone rocks, affirmed he actually saw his family at the moment. To this head, also, we are to refer some of the stories of second sight, i.e., that they consisted of spectral illusions arising out of intense mental impression. In one of the Western Isles of Scotland, a congregation was assembled on a Sunday morning, and in immediate expectation of the appearance of the clergyman, when a man started up, uttered a scream, and stood looking to tho pulpit Avith a countenance expressive of terror. As soon as he could be prevailed on to speak, he exclaimed — " Do you not see the minister in the pulpit dressed in a shroud !" A few minute 3 after this occurrence/ the clergyman appeared in his place and conducted the service, appai'ently in his usual health ; but iv a day or two after this he was taken ill and died before the next Sunday. This was regarded by tho people as a prophecy ; but we see it can easily bo accounted for by previous strong mental impression. And I believe, that if people in general were only a little more intimately acquainted with tho wonderful mechanism aud processes of their own mental constitution, the world would speedily be rid of ghosts.