At this point of my subject, I feel the natural inclination of a physician to enter upon those changes in the nervous centres which induce individuals to hear, feel, and see, noises, sensations, and spectra, which have no real existence. But with the majority of experienced medical men, the matter is so well known that it would be idle for me to dwell upon it, further than to say, that it is a matter of fact that many an individual who hears and sees words and beings which are illusions, acts upon them as if they were real. Many an assault upon some quiet citizen, many an instance of wilful mischief, and even of murder, is due to a communication made, apparently by a supernatural visitor, to a person who has fully believed it. To a man in his perfect senses the delusive character of a spectre, or a message given in an audible voice may be readily recognized; but when an individual has a diseased brain, all delusions seem real, and it is a part of the affection that they are not only recognized, but acted on.
The question has often suggested itself to my own mind, "How much has insanity of mind had to do with religion?" In modern times, the psychologist can readily see how far Swedenborg, Johanna Southcote, and many others, were influenced by a diseased condition of the brain; he can also see indications of lunacy in Ezekiel and the author of Daniel. But he is unable to prosecute the subject far without discovering that mental weakness is often bolstered up by fraud. Nothing is more easy than for an intelligent physician to understand the physical causes of such visions as certain religionists have talked of. But when a spurious miracle, like that of the apparition of a talking, immaculately-conceived Virgin at Lourdes, is traded on, the occurrence leaves the region of folly, and enters that of fraud. Into that it is injudicious to enter here.
I may, however, advert to the current belief that certain individuals in the same family have, for many succeeding generations, their death foretold by some "wraith" or "phantom" appearing to them. This story is probably founded upon the fact that hereditary brain disease exists in the constitution of all such persons, and that its occurrence in each victim is marked by an ocular, and, perhaps, some aural delusion. The apparition may seem real to the diseased nervous system, though it has no absolute existence.
We are then constrained to believe that the idea of ghosts has not arisen, in the first place, from any peculiar form of religious belief, but from the fact that in all inhabitants of the world there has existed that form of insanity which consists in the victim believing that he hears and sees individuals, inaudible and unseen by others. It is not, however, necessary that there shall be insanity with the hallucinations referred to; for I am personally acquainted with many individuals who have both seen and heard, as they imagine, persons and voices, but of whose sanity I have no doubt. Such delusions often come from overstudy, or too great mental emotion; and the medical worker in his closet and the Roman general in his tent may equally see a spirit.
But it must be understood that to all classes the hallucination has the effect of reality, until, by the exercise of an active will, inquiry proves that both sounds and sights thus noticed are illusions. If, therefore, persons who have visions, &c., have not intellects which are cultivated, the spectres will pass for realities, and, as such, will be described.
If we endeavour to apply this observation to certain cases, we shall see how far the deductions are vraisemblable. Of all the causes which produce atrocious crimes, insanity of mind is the most common. But this cause is rarely recognized at the time, even in a country like our own. Murder, rape, arson, and a host of other atrocities are often the first evidence of a diseased brain. The doctor is assured of this long before an ignorant public, and he traces without surprise the course of a malady which is not seen by the vulgar, until its culmination in some better known form of lunacy. These mental sufferers are exactly those to whom visions are most common, and who are most unable to test the reality of their hallucinations. If, then, they are integers of a people to whom insanity is unknown, it is natural that their narratives will be listened to with awe. The Japanese tyrant, whose case we have given, was probably brutal from impending brain disease, and the visions which appeared to him were caused by an increase of his malady.
Shakespeare has evidently taken this view of the question, for, in Macbeth, he makes that hero (act ii., scene 1), soliloquise with a dagger which he sees, but cannot clutch—"Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling, as to sight, or art thou but a dagger of the mind; a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" Conscious of the illusion, Macbeth recognizes the probable cause; but, at a later period, when the diseased brain is worse than it was before, the unfortunate man is quite unable to reason, and we find him in act iii., scene 4, affrighted by the ghost of Banquo—whose appearance he believes to be real, even although his wife recalls to his mind the dagger scene, and reasons upon his weakness.
I do not think that we shall be far wrong if we assume that many nations, who were not far advanced in mental speculation, obtained their first ideas of the resurrection of the body from the hallucinations of approaching or actual insanity. Christian divines unquestionably endeavour to demonstrate the truth of the dogma referred to, by the frequent appearance of Jesus to his disciples after his crucifixion.
But the manifestation of Jesus differed wholly from that of Moses and Elias who once came to talk to him. He takes particular pains to demonstrate to Thomas that he has flesh and blood and a hole in his side, as well as in his hands and feet. This indicates that Jesus did not die upon the cross, but that he fainted and came back to life.
To insist for a moment upon the lessons taught by the narrative in the gospels, let us inquire what is the value of the argument which proves the resurrection of the body, either by the appearance to some one of a departed friend or enemy, or the visits of Jesus to his disciples. If it is demonstrated thus that the body is eternal and will rise again, it is equally certain that its garments, whether cloth, linen, or calico, will be resuscitated also!