"On April 14th, being down in the village where she lives, she called on me in my class-room, and begged me to come and see her, as she had something particular to tell me. On my going to see her, she reminded me of our conversation on January 6th, and of my parting words; and said that she now knew she had ' told me a great story,' and wanted to beg my forgiveness. And how she had found out her mistake was as follows: -

"On the night of March 24th she went to bed early, but could not sleep. This was unusual with her. She lay awake over 3 hours, with no desire to sleep. She could not understand it; but lay very quiet and happy, thinking of nothing particular. All at once my late curate passed into the room, and stood at the foot of her bed. (This gentleman had left me on January 8th, having obtained an appointment as Naval Chaplain.) As she lay in the bed, the curtains shut off the view of the door, so that she cannot say whether he entered the door or not. He stood at the foot of the bed, with a little basket under his arm, and told her that I could not come to see her myself, but would come as soon as I could, and meantime had sent her a present, which ho had in a little basket. Having delivered this message, he disappeared.

"And then it flashed upon her memory that this was the exact reproduction of an actual scene which had taken place on January 5th, 1884. Everything was the same: position, manner, words, exactly as it had been on that day. And my poor old friend was almost broken-hearted to think how she had forgotten, and said what was untrue about me.

"I simply give the narrative as she told it to ine. I visited her again a week later and made her repeat the story. She did so without the slightest alteration of facts. I cross-questioned her thoroughly as to details, the mode of entry of the figure, the appearance of it, etc., etc. She simply said that everything was as natural as life; that she was wide awake; that it was no dream or anything of the kind. I pressed her as to the words spoken; whether they were soundless or internally spoken words; but here again she was perfectly clear; the words were spoken aloud, just as they were in the actual occurrence. She was perfectly aware all the time that it was a vision; and never for a moment thought it either the real man, or his ' ghost.' She is not in the slightest degree superstitious".

I may add the following parallel though much less elaborate instance. Mr. Alfred Wedgwood, of 20, Shorncliffe Road, Folkestone, describes how, having been trying unsuccessfully in the course of the day to recall the French for "It does not matter," he saw, just as he was stepping into bed, a sheet of paper a foot broad between him and the sheets, with N'IMPORTS in large letters stretching all across it. He could have sworn that the object was really there, and immediately told his wife of the experience, as she testifies. We must, of course, attribute this hallucination to the previous gropings after the word the highest cortical tracts, and they alone, are capable of performing. From our experience of the number and mobility of the ideas and images that the mind in a normal state can summon up and combine, we know that the cells of the highest cerebral areas are practically unlimited in their possible groupings and lines of discharge; but we have no right to assume the same inexhaustible possibilities as existing independently in any specific sensory centre - we might almost as well expect a kaleidoscope to present us with an ever-fresh series of elaborate landscapes.

The very common implication of two or more senses must also surely be accounted for by supposing a simultaneous excitation of the several centres involved, from a common higher point; for the difficulty, pointed out by Baillarger, of referring the correspondence to simultaneous but independent abnormalities of the external organs applies equally to the specific centres. And over and above all this, there is the connection so frequently observed between the delusions, the conceptions delirantes, of the insane and their sensory hallucinations, which makes it almost impossible not to regard the latter as a particular effect of the more widely diffused cerebral disturbance; while even with sane persons of low mental development, we may note in a more general way the prevalence of a particular form of hallucination during the prevalence of a particular superstition - as in the witch-cases above mentioned. The conclusion seems to be that for many hallucinations the mode of origin can be no other than the centrifugal - i.e., a process in the direction from higher to lower centres.1