o whom,
from an evidential point of view--such visions would be most useful. The
spiritual experience is determined by the pre-existing religious belief.
When belief in a personal devil was general, visions of Satan were
common. The evidence for personal conflicts with Satan is of precisely
the same nature and strength as is the evidence for intercourse with
deity. When the belief in Satan died out, visions and conflicts with him
ceased. How can we discriminate between the two classes of cases? Why
should the testimony of a great Christian character that he is conscious
of intercourse with deity be more authoritative than the testimony of,
perhaps, the same person on other occasions, of conflict with a personal
devil? Moreover, visions and a sense of contact with a super-normal
world are not peculiar to the religious character. It is a common
feature of a general psychopathic condition. Medical works are filled
with such instances. And it is only to be expected that when the
psychopath is of a deeply religious nature the affection will find a
religious expression. What is clearly needed is an explanation that will
cover the phenomenon as it appears in both a religious and a
non-religious form.

We may take as illustrative of what has been said the following case as
given by Dr. W. W. Ireland. It is that of a Berlin bookseller who placed
on record a clear description of his impressions while in ill-health,
and which entirely ceased on recovery. His delusions mostly took the
form of human figures; of these he says:--

"I saw, in the full use of my senses, and (after I had got the better of
the fright which at first seized me, and the disagreeable effects which
it caused) even in the greatest composure of mind, for almost two
months, constantly and involuntarily, a number of human and other
apparitions--nay, I even heard their voices. For the most part I saw
human figures of both sexes; they commonly passed to and fro, as if they
had no connection with each other, like people at a fair where all is
bustle. Sometimes they appeared to have business with one another. Once
or twice I saw amongst them persons on horseback, and dogs and birds;
these figures all appeared to me in their natural size, as distinctly as
if they had existed in real life, with the several tints on the
uncovered parts of the body, and with all the different kinds and
colours of clothes."[11]

Here we have the case of a man who was under no misconcept