ons of
horrible aspect cruelly beat him nearly to death, the brave old man
defying them to the last, and telling them that he did not wish to be
spared one of their blows; it was thus that in the night, with hideous
laughter, they burst into his cell, under the form of lions, serpents,
scorpions, asps, lizards, panthers, and wolves, each attacking him in
own way; thus that when, in his dire extremity, he lifted his eyes for
help, the roof disappeared, and amid beams of light the Saviour looked
down; thus it was with the enchanted silver dish that Satan gave him,
which, being touched, vanished in smoke; thus with the gigantic bats and
centaurs, and the two lions that helped him to scratch a grave for Paul.

[Sidenote: Important religious results of cerebral sight.]

[Sidenote: A future world.]

[Sidenote: Immortality of the soul.]

The images that may thus emerge from the brain have been classed by
physiologists among the phenomena of inverse vision, or cerebral sight.
Elsewhere I have given a detailed investigation of their nature (Human
Physiology, chap, xxi.), and, persuaded that they have played a far more
important part in human affairs than is commonly supposed, have thus
expressed myself: "Men in every part of the world, even among nations
the most abject and barbarous, have an abiding faith not only in the
existence of a spirit that animates us, but also in its immortality. Of
these there are multitudes who have been shut out from all communion
with civilized countries, who have never been enlightened by revelation,
and who are mentally incapable of reasoning out for themselves arguments
in support of those great truths. Under such circumstances, it is not
very likely that the uncertainties of tradition, derived from remote
ages, could be any guide to them, for traditions soon disappear except
they be connected with the wants of daily life. Can there be, in a
philosophical view, anything more interesting than the manner in which
these defects have been provided for by implanting in the very
organization of every man the means of constantly admonishing him of
these facts--of recalling them with an unexpected vividness before even
after they have become so faint as almost to die out? Let him be as
debased and benighted a savage as he may, shut out from all communion
with races whom Providence has placed in happier circumstances, he has
still the same organization, and is liable to the same physiological
inciden