Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 517

;

(JiiAP. II]

§ 82.

THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION

with most people, never passes the potenis the case with the visionary' capacity.

aesthetic power, tial

493

stage; and such

Whether

or not

it

will discover its existence depends

the inner and outward disposition of the person. the chance for this

is

better than in the West.

npon

In the East

The Semitic

more strongly than the IndoGermanic. By one temperament its development is favored by another weakened. In times of excitement and general commotion, it is more usual than in days of quiet and rest. He who is aesthetically disposed becomes more readily race developed this capacity

visionary than the intellectualist.

Sensitive nerves court the

more than what have been called nerves of iron. Psychically diseased conditions are more favorable to the visionary than the healthy and normal and often before dying a peculiar visionary condition appears to set in, which is exceedingly worthy of note. Vivid imagination forms the transition between the common wakeful consciousness and real vision, which operates in a threefold form. It is strongest when one becomes agitated by a phantom, especially when this is occasioned by an evil conscience. Macbeth sees everywhere the image of Duncan, the king he murdered, and in his inquiry whether that image is real, he is unable vision

;

to distinguish

appearance from reality.

ferent nature

is

life

what

is

Of an

entirely dif-

called "absent-mindedness,"

i.e.

a

in another world than the real, either as the result of

much study and

thought, or of the reading of history or

some people, that the very them strangely at times, and they imagine themselves to be in the company of their novel heroes. Finally the third form is the vision of the artist, in whose spirit looms the image, which from his spiritual view li£ will paint on the canvas or chisel in marble. But these are not novels.

This

members

of their family affect

is

carried so far by

visions in the real sense, since the horizon of our inner view

here ness.

still

remains subject to the verification of our consciousthis is the very thing lost with vision. Images

And

and forms then rise before us, Avhich force themselves upon us an outside power, repress the autonomous activity of our imagination, and bring us outside of ourselves. Then one

as

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