ious mental labour which is
accomplished in the reproducing cellules of past impressions and ideas
by the instantaneous creation of the type, gathers round this type the
form and features corresponding with it, which had its earlier existence
in our own experience. The external pose and indefinite modification of
the objects appear to correspond with the gradual mnemonic revival of
the typal form, and they reciprocally stimulate and react on each other.
For while a fold, shadow, or line of the objects seen appear to
correspond with some feature of the mnemonic type, on the other hand, a
fold, shadow, or outline of the object recalls a feature of the inward
phantasm composed by the memory.

In this process the mnemonic details which are in accordance with the
pre-existing type, and sometimes also in accordance with some remarkable
face or person which was the first to present itself to the mind, serve
as a model for the accidental form of the external object or objects
which correspond to it; this in its turn recalls features which remain
in the memory, and in this way the external form of this particular
phantasm is gradually chiselled into full relief. The more intently we
regard the object which is modified to suit the mental image, the more
perfectly they agree together, and the apparition stands out with more
vivid distinctness. This will be the experience of every one to whom
such a phenomenon appears, and a dispassionate analysis of all the
phases of this fact must fully confirm our theory.

Such a fact, which is implicitly included in the general law we have
laid down for the origin of myth, will also as I think throw further
light on the origin of many hallucinations, both in normal conditions of
mind and in the abnormal state of nervous disorders. The different
appearances of objects, animals, and men, the voices, words, songs, and
conversations seen and heard in these hallucinations, are produced, by
an internal impulse as well as by a stimulus from without; they are
internal in the images and sensation already unconsciously impressed
upon the memory, and they are external in the accidentally modified form
in which they occur in sensible objects, so that they act reciprocally
as an incentive and impulse to each other.

If in normal hallucinations the vividness of the internal image is in
certain physiological conditions projected outwardly, the configuration
and accidental form of the external objects contri