tant officer in a department of justice, for several years. Though he knew that they were of subjective origin, they wore him out, and he died a victim to the agony in which his life was passed.
Dr. Abercrombie gives a case of a man who had been all his life beset by hallucinations: when he met a friend in the street, he was uncertain whether he was a real person or a phantom, but by paying close attention he could distinguish between them. Dr. Abercrombie declares that he was at the time of writing in good health, of a clear intellect, and occupied in business.
Many forcible instances, the most valuable of which are those personally attested by Boismont, or by the authorities whom he quotes, are given where the mind was sane, though the hallucinations were not corrected by it. It must not be supposed that these hallucinations of the sane are confined to persons of distinction, sedentary habits, or poetic temperaments. Many have had once or twice in their lives spectral illusions, or instances of hallucination; and among plain men, mechanics, laborers, and the peasantry of all nations, they are very common. Griesinger, after giving a list of distinguished men who, though sane, had hallucinations, says: "Judging from what we have heard and observed on this subject, hallucinations doubtless occur also in men of very average minds, not as rare but as frequently overlooked phenomena."
I suggested, more than twenty years ago, the importance of a census upon a large scale of hallucinations of the sane. Within the last four or five years a somewhat systematic attempt has been made on both sides of the Atlantic. The results so far as tabulated show meager returns, though recently the Society of Psychical Research has given increased at-
