The first of these questions was easily disposed of by Sennertus, one of the most eminent Professors and practitioners of the medical science in that age. Facts he said, which were attested by trust-worthy authors, were not to be disputed. Many were the impudent falsehoods which this great and in other respects wise man, received implicitly as facts conformably to the maxim which he thus laid down; and many were the perilous consequences which he deduced in good faith, and on fair reasoning from such premises. Upon this occasion he instanced the case of a countryman, who at certain periods of the moon used to compose Latin verses, though he knew not a word of Latin at any other time. And of a man who spoke languages which he had never learnt, and became unable to speak any one of them as soon as he was restored to health by the effect of some powerful worm-medicines. And of a sailor's son, who being wounded in the head and becoming delirious in consequence, made perfect syllogisms in German, but as soon as his wound was healed, lost all the logic which had been beaten into his head in so extraordinary a way.
Antonius Guainerius, who vouched for one of these cases as having witnessed the fact and all its circumstances, accounted for it by a brave hypothesis. The soul, he said, before its infusion into the body, possesses a knowledge of all things, and that knowledge is, in a certain manner, obliterated, or offuscated by its union with the body; but it is restored either by the ordinary means of instruction or by the influence of the star which presided at the time of its union. The body, and the bodily senses resist this influence, but when these are as it were bound, or suspended, quod fiat in melancholia, the stars can then impart their influences to the soul without obstruction, and the soul may thus be endowed with the power of effecting what the stars themselves effect, and thus an illiterate person may become learned, and may also predict events that are to come. Sennertus is far from assenting to this theory. He says “Magna petita sunt quæ præsupponit et sibi concedi postulat Guainerius.”
A theory quite as extraordinary was advanced by Juan Huarte in his Examen de Ingenios, a book which obtained at one time far more reputation than it deserved. Take the passage, curious Reader, from the English version, entitled “The Examination of Men's Wits,” in which by discovering the variety of natures is shewed for what profession each one is apt, and how far he shall profit therein. Translated out of the Spanish tongue by M. Camillo Camilli. Englished out of his Italian by R. C. Esquire, 1594. “The frantic persons speaking of Latin, without that he ever learned the same in his health-time, shews the consonance which the Latin tongue holds with the reasonable soul; and (as we will prove hereafter,) there is to be found a particular wit applicable to the invention of languages, and Latin words; and the phrases of speech in that tongue are so fitting with the ear, that the reasonable soul, possessing the necessary temperature for the invention of some delicate language, suddenly encounters with this. And that two devisers of languages may shape the like words, (having the like wit and hability) it is very manifest; pre-supposing, that when God created Adam, and set all things before him, to the end he might bestow on each its several name whereby it should be called, he had likewise at that instant molded another man with the same perfection and supernatural grace; now I demand if God had placed the same things before this other man, that he might also set them names whereby they should be called, of what manner those names should have been? For mine own part I make no doubt but he would have given these things those very names which Adam did: and the reason is very apparent, for both carried one self-same eye to the nature of each thing, which of itself was no more but one. After this manner might the frantic person light upon the Latin tongue; and speak the same without ever having learned it in his health; for the natural temperature of his brain conceiving alteration through the infirmity, it might for a space become like his who first invented the Latin tongue, and feign the like words, but yet not with that concert and continued fineness, for this would give token that the Devil moved that tongue, as the Church teacheth her Exorcists.”
This theory found as little favour with Sennertus as that of Guainerius, because he says, Huarte assumes more than can be granted; and moreover because he supposes that the Latin language has a peculiar consonance with the rational soul, and that there are certain natures which are peculiarly constituted for inventing languages. And therefore if by disease that temperament be excited in the brain which is necessary for the invention of any most elegant language the patient would fall into the Latin tongue; and Latin words would occur to him, without any deliberation, or act of will on his part. This opinion Sennertus argued cannot be maintained as probable, being indeed disproved by the very cases upon which the question had been raised, for Greek and Hebrew had been spoken by some of the patients, as well as Latin. The facts he admits as not to be doubted, because they are related by veracious authors; and his way of accounting for them is by the agency of evil spirits, who take advantage of bodily diseases and act upon them, especially such as arise from melancholy; for that humour or passion has such attractions for evil spirits that it has been called Balneum Diaboli, the Devil's Bath. When therefore a patient speaks in tongues which he has never learnt, eo ipso Dæmon se manifeste prodit.
This opinion than which one of greater weight could not have been produced in the 17th century, is recommended to the serious consideration of the Irvingites.
The Doctor would have sung Fa-la-la-lerridan to all this reasoning, and I say Aballiboo!
CHAPTER CL.
THE WEDDING PEAL AT ST. GEORGE'S, AND THE BRIDE'S APPEARANCE AT CHURCH.