nto a mysterious, entified, and efficacious power,
in the same way that every ancient people, whether barbarous or
civilized, mythically venerated certain numbers; the Peruvians, for
instance, and some other American peoples regarded the number "four" as
sacred.

In addition to the cherished remembrance always inspired by portraits of
those we love, a breathing of life, as if the dead or absent person were
communicating with us in spirit, is perhaps unconsciously infused into
the picture while we look at it. These are transient states of
consciousness, of which we are scarcely aware, although they do not
escape the notice of careful observers. Any dishonour or insult offered
to images, whether sacred or profane, deeply moves both the learned and
unlearned, both barbarous and civilized peoples, not merely as a base
and sacrilegious act against the person represented, but from an
instinctive and spontaneous feeling that he is actually present in the
image. Any one who analyzes the matter will find it impossible to
separate these two sentiments, and many disgraceful and sanguinary
scenes which have led to the gallows or the stake have actually resulted
from the identification of the image with the thing represented.

Even when a man of high culture and refined taste for beauty stands
before the canvas or sculpture of some great ancient or modern artist,
his spiritual and aesthetic enjoyment of these wonderful works is, as he
will find from the observation of his inmost emotions, combined with the
animation and personification of what he sees; he is so far carried away
by the beauty and truth of the representation that the passions
represented affect him as if they were those of real persons. This
relative perfection of a work of art, either in the way the objects
stand out, in the varied diffusion of light and shade, in the movement
and expression of figures, in the effect of the whole in its details and
background, is all heightened and confirmed by the underlying
entification of images. The process we have before described by which a
confused group of objects appear to us as a human form or phantasm is
also effected in this case in a more subtle way and with less effort of
memory; it is all ultimately due to the primitive fact of animal
perception. Our imagination can supply the resemblance, the limbs,
colour, and design in a picture in which a face, figure, or landscape
are slightly sketched, or in a roughly chiselled