Education, whose all-powerful action in the production of oppressive ideas we have already mentioned as being a fruitful source of physical and moral disease, may, says M. Cerise, impart single but false notions; in which case there will be error, ignorance, and prejudice, but no morbid condition. Thus the idea of a female head, associated with the sensorial impression produced by the moon, or that of the tomb of a giant associated with the sensorial impression occasioned by a mountain, constituted beliefs of a greater or less poetical character, without danger to those who admitted them. It is otherwise when the association of the idea with the sensation is united with sensual and sentimental emotions; when, for example, the idea of a frightful spectre is, from infancy, coupled with that of a certain stone or a birch tree, as is the case in some of our country places.† These false ideas are, to those who entertain them, the causes of uneasiness, fears, and torments.

"False ideas," continues the same author, "associated with sensual and sentimental emotions, are those which exert the most deplorable influence on hallucinations of all periods. Let us first mention those superstitious beliefs, the relics of former religions, which have traced such deep furrows in popular tradition. When we recollect the long course of ages which have by turns witnessed the reigns of magic, astrology, sorcery, divination, presages, invocations, augurs, auspices, necromancy, the cabala, oracles, the interpretation of dreams, pythonesses, sybils, manes, lares, talismans, the presence of demons in corporeal form, incubes, succubes, familiars, vampirism, possession, lycantrophy, ghosts, shadows, spectres, phantoms, hobgoblins, sylphs, fairies, urchins, will-o'-the-wisps, evil eye, enchantments, etc., can we help sighing at the facility with which man receives error, and almost fancying that we are destined to live in the midst of a world of illusions, unless we trace it to the sad consequences of a false education, and of a forgetfulness of morality and religion?"

* Gruddeck, De la Maladio democratique.

† Cerise, des Functions et des Maladies Nerveuses, Paris, 1842, 1 vol. 8vo., p. 463.

To dwell upon all these causes would pass the limits of this work; we restrict ourselves, therefore, to the consideration of some which have prevailed the most in European society, such as the belief in the power and materiality of demons, in sorcery, in possession, magic, lycantrophy, ghosts, vampires, spirits, etc.

The religion of the ancients, which peopled all nature with divinities and genii (comprehended under the general name of demons), would naturally lead to a belief in the power and materiality of spirits. The influence which the doctrines of Plato, borrowed probably from those of Zoroaster, exercised under this point of view, was immense. On studying the ideas and manners of Grecian society, we see that the philosophy of Plato was the great law of the schools of Alexandria. They were above all else Platonists, nor did they cease to be so, on becoming Christians. On the contrary, they attempted to reconcile the genius of Plato with the severe and rigorous philosophy of Christianity. Thence arose so many metaphysical and abstruse discussions, and thence were derived the errors and heresies of so many celebrated men. Saint Justin, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Origen, blind Didymus, and many others, belonged to the platonic school. But this was confined to elegant and polished society. Learned men disputed for and against, and gained a reputation in the schools or in churches; the minds of the ignorant, the lower order of the people, and the peasantry, took another direction, and as they could neither read nor write, they were only affected by the material part of Christianity. They stopped, as it were, on the threshold. Unable to distinguish themselves in disputation, in controversies with pagans, or in the instruction of neophytes, they only adopted that part of Christianity which was material, but they adopted it rigorously and to the letter, in its most absolute sense; thus they soon invested it with terrors, almost always borrowed from the architecture or literature of the times. In those days, the hallucinated were pursued by black devils, with horns, cloven feet, and a long tail, as, in other times, Orestes was tormented by Eumenides, and terrified by the hissing of serpents.

The history of demons, propagated by ignorance the love of the marvellous, and fear, that queen of the world; and received by credulity, placed the human mind under the yoke of a terror which everything concurred to augment; the devil was universally believed to have been seen, heard, or touched. Moreover, how could they do otherwise than attribute to this sinister influence those frightful calamities, so eloquently described in the correspondence of Saint Jerome,* which overwhelmed the Roman world? Was not the belief general that the Huns were infernal spirits?

Such was the origin of the hallucinations which universally reigned during several centuries, which still reign in many countries, especially in Lapland, and of which there are also frequent examples in France, as Esquirol, M. Macario, and ourselves can certify. The most celebrated men paid tribute to the doctrines of the period, but their hallucinations had no influence on their reason, conduct, or actions; what they did was the result of education, and did not bear the impress of insanity.

To believe that demons existed in corporeal forms, was to admit the possibility of forming compacts and relations with them, and to acknowledge their power over men; in other words, to believe in sorcery, possession, and lycantrophy. The belief that demons interfered in the actions of life was the source of immense disorders, which massacres and scaffolds only served to increase. Men, women, and children persuaded themselves that they had assisted at the Witch's sabbath, had interviews with the devil, and had seen persons sign a horrible compact with him. Judges and ecclesiastics, giving faith to such declarations, condemned thousands of victims to death.