ST. AUGUSTINE ON CLAIRVOYANCE.
Dr. Maitland, in his valuable Illustrations of Mesmerism, has not, I think, noticed an important passage in St. Augustine's treatise, De Genesi ad litteram, l. XII. c. 17. §§ 34. seq., in which, after saying that demons can read men's thoughts, and know what is passing at a distance, he proceeds to give a detailed account of two cases of clairvoyance. The whole is written with his usual graphic power, and will well reward the perusal. I must content myself with a brief outline of the facts.
1. A patient, suffering from a fever, was supposed to be possessed by an unclean spirit. Twelve miles off lived a presbyter, with whom, in mesmerist phraseology, he was en rapport. He would receive no food from any other hands; with him, except when a fit was upon him, he was calm and submissive. When the presbyter left his home the patient would indicate his position at each stage of his journey, and mark his nearer and nearer approach. "He is entering the farm—the house—he is at the door;" and his visitor stood before him. Once he foretold the death of a neighbour, not as though he were predicting a future event, but as if recollecting a past. For when she was mentioned in his hearing, he exclaimed, "She is dead, I saw her funeral; that way they carried out her corpse." In a few days she fell sick and died, and was carried out along that very road which he had named.
2. A boy was labouring under a painful disorder, which the physicians had vainly endeavoured to relieve. In the exhaustion which followed on his convulsive struggles, he would pass into a trance, keeping his eyes open, but insensible to what was going on around him, and passively submitting to pinches from the bystanders (ad nullam se vellicationem movens). After awhile he awoke and told what he had seen. Generally an old man and a youth appeared to him; at the beginning of Lent they promised him ease during the forty days, and gave him directions by which he might be relieved and finally cured. He followed their counsel, with the promised success.
Augustine's remarks (c. xviii. § 39.) on these and similar phenomena are well worth reading. He begs the learned not to mock him as speaking confidently, and the unlearned not to take what he says on trust, but hopes that both will regard him simply as an inquirer. He compares these visions to those in dreams. Some come true, and some false; some are clear, others obscure. But men love to search into what is singular, neglecting what is usual, though even more inexplicable; just as when a man hears a word whose sound is new to him, he is curious to know its meaning; while he never thinks of asking the meaning of words familiar to his ear, however little he may really understand them. If any one then wishes for a satisfactory account of these strange phenomena, let him first explain the phenomena of dreams, or let him show how the images of material objects reach the mind through the eyes.
J. E. B. Mayor.
St. John's College, Cambridge.