signs, is made to believe that they are repeated as formerly. The ideas are re-excited; the sensations are reproduced; while the imagination, employing its accustomed instruments and resuming its former routes, gives birth to the same phenomena."* 66 § 322. Instance of sympathetic imitation at the poorhouse at Haerlem. Multitudes of other facts, equally well attested, show the sympathetic connexion between mind and mind, and the sympathy between the mind and the nervous and muscular system. Few are more interesting or decisive than what is stated to have occurred at Haerlem under the inspection of Boerhaave." In the house of charity at Haerlem," says the account, a girl, under the impression of terror, fell into a convulsive disease, which returned in regular paroxysms. One of the by-standers, intent upon assisting her, was seized with a similar fit, which also recurred at intervals; and on the day following another was attacked; then a third, and a fourth; in short, almost the whole of the children, both girls and boys, were afflicted with these convulsions. No sooner was one seized, than the sight brought on the paroxysm in almost all the rest at the same time. Under these distressing circumstances, the physicians exhibited all the powerful anti-epileptic medicines with which their art furnished them, but in vain. They then applied to Boerhaave, who, compassionating the wretched condition of the poor children, repaired to Haerlem; and, while he was inquiring into the matter, one of them was seized with a fit, and immediately he saw several others attacked with a species of epileptic convulsion. It presently occurred to this sagacious physician, that, as the best medicines had been skilfully administered, and as the propagation of the disease from one to another appeared to depend on the imagination [the sympathy of imagination], by preventing this impression upon the mind, the disease might be cured; and his sug * Rapports des Commissaires chargés par le Roi, de l'Examen du Magnetisme Animal (as quoted by Stewart). gestion was successfully adopted. Having previously apprized the magistrates of his views, he ordered, in the presence of all the children, that several portable furnaces should be placed in different parts of the chamber, containing burning coals, and that iron, bent to a certain form, should be placed in the furnaces; and then he gave these further commands: that all medicines would be totally useless, and the only remedy with which he was acquainted was, that the first who should be seized with a fit, whether boy or girl, must be burned in the arm to the very bone by a redhot iron. He spoke this with uncommon dignity and gravity; and the children, terrified at the thoughts of this cruel remedy, when they perceived any tendency to the recurrence of the paroxysm, immediately exerted all their strength of mind, and called up the horrible idea of the burning; and were thus enabled, by the stronger mental impression, to resist the influence of the morbid propensity." § 323. Other instances of this species of imitation. It would not be difficult to multiply cases similar to those which have been mentioned. A few years. since, there was a man in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, who had a family of six children, one of whom became affected with the CHOREA, or St. Vitus's dance. The others, in the indulgence of that thoughtless gayety which is natural to children, amused themselves with imitating his odd gestures, until, after a time, they were irresistibly affected in the same way. this state of things, which seems to be susceptible of an explanation in no other way than on the principles of sympathetic imitation, the family, as may be naturally supposed, were in great affliction. The father, a man of some sagacity as well as singularity of humour, brought into the house a block and axe, and solemnly threatened to take off the head of the first child who should hereafter exhibit any involuntary bodily movements, except the child originally diseased. By this measure, which proceeded on the same view of the human mind as the experiment of Boerhaave just mentioned, a new train of feeling was excited, and the spell was broken.* It may be added, that not only those in the same family and in the same building have been seized, but the contagion has sometimes spread from one to another (by the mere imitation of sympathy as we suppose) over whole towns, and even large districts of country. This was the case in a part of the Island Anglesey, in 1796; and still later in this country, in some parts of Tennessee.t § 324. Application of these views to the witchcraft delusion in New England. The doctrines of this chapter furnish, in part at least, an explanation of the witchcraft delusion which prevailed in New England about the year 1690. In the first place, it is to be recollected, that the existence of witches and wizards, possessing a powerful but invisible agency, was a part of the popular creed, and was generally and fully believed. It makes no difference, in our explanation of the subject, so far as we attempt to explain it, whether there was or is a foundation for such belief or not. It is further to be recollected, that the people were, as a general thing, very ignorant at that time, a state of mind exceedingly favourable to any superstition or delusion of that sort; and also that their minds were kept in a state of constant and high excitation, not only in consequence of living scattered abroad and remote from each other, but by residing, in many cases, in the midst of dense and dark forests. Under these circumstances, certain individuals, probably under the influence of some form of nervous disease, became affected with pains in certain parts of the body resembling the pain occasioned by the pricking of pins, or by sudden and heavy blows; and in some cases became subject to certain involuntary motions * Powers's Essay on the Influence of the Imagination, p. 32. of the body, similar to those of the CHOREA, or St.Vitus's dance. Of course, in accordance with the common belief, those mysterious personages, popularly denominated Witches, were at their work, and the whole country was at once thrown into a ferment. It is not easy to conceive a more favourable basis than this for the operations of the powerful principle of Sympathetic Imitation. The few cases of nervous and muscular disease which existed at first, were rapidly propagated and multiplied on every side; and as the popular belief ascribed them to the agency of Satan, manifested in the subordinate agency of witchcraft, the infatuation soon arose to the highest point. The accusations of innocent individuals as exercising the art of witchery, and the scenes of blood which followed, were the natural consequence. Similar views will probably apply to the witchcraft delusions which, to the ruin of thousands of individuals, have prevailed in other periods and countries. § 325. Practical results connected with the foregoing views. As sympathetic imitation, if it be correctly considered as a distinct and specific modification of the more ordinary form of Imitativeness, is to be regarded as an original part of our mental constitution, we may well suppose it has its beneficial ends. But it is evident, from the facts which have been given, that it may also be attended, and, under certain circumstances, is very likely to be attended, with results of a different kind. Hence the direction has sometimes been given by physicians, that a free intercourse with persons subject to convulsive attacks ought not to be unnecessarily indulged in, especially by such as are inclined to nervous affections. And this precautionary rule might be extended to other cases; for instance, of madness. "It is a question," says Mr. Stewart, in the chapter already referred to, "worthy of more attention than has yet been bestowed upon it by physicians, whether certain kinds of insanity have not a contagious tendency, somewhat analogous to that which has just been remarked. That the incoherent ravings and frantic gestures of a madman have a singularly painful effect in unsettling and deranging the thoughts of others, I have more than once experienced in myself; nor have I ever looked upon this most afflicting of all spectacles without a strong impression of the danger to which I should be exposed if I were to witness it daily. In consequence of this impression, I have always read, with peculiar admiration, the scene in the Tragedy of Lear, which forms the transition from the old king's beautiful and pathetic reflections on the storm, to the violent madness in which, without any change whatever in his external circumstances, he is immediately after represented. In order to make this transition more gradual, the poet introduces Edgar, who, with a view of concealing himself from Lear, assumes the dress and behaviour of a madman. At every sentence he utters, the mind of the king, 'whose wits' (as we are told in the preceding scene) were beginning to turn, becomes more and more deranged, till at length every vestige of reason vanishes completely." 6 § 326. Application of these views to legislative and other assemblies. We have already had occasion to intimate, that the effects of sympathetic imitation have been strikingly experienced in public assemblies; and we may here add, when those effects have been strongly marked, they have seldom been beneficial. In all political deliberative assemblies, external signs of approbation and disapprobation should be in a great degree suppressed. There is generally enough in the subjects which are discussed to excite the members, without the additional excitement (to use a phrase of Buffon) of "body speaking to body." It is said of the famous Athenian tribunal of the Areopagus, that they held their deliberations in the night, in order that their attention might not be diverted by external objects. And, without expressing an opinion on this practice, it is certainly not unwise to guard against the terrible |