Acorresponding account of the incident has been received from Miss Jowett, the landlady's daughter. We owe the accounts of the incident to Mr. F. Schiller, who investigated the matter for the Oxford Phasmatological Society. The persistency of the vision in this case is a feature very rarely found in cases of undoubted hallucination, and the fact that it was only seen through glass suggests that the whole appearance was due to a reflection of some kind, although it must be admitted that this explanation, which was considered and rejected by the percipients at the time, cannot be accommodated to the facts without difficulty. In the epidemics of religious hallucination so common in the Middle Ages, and still occurring from time to time in Catholic countries, it would appear that as a rule there is no objective basis for the perception. When, as at Knock, in Ireland, a few years ago, the figure of the Virgin or a Saint is said to have been seen by a large number of persons simultaneously, it seems probable that in those who really saw the figure the hallucination was due to repeated verbal suggestions acting on minds which, under the influence of strong emotion, were temporarily in a state analogous to that of trance. The nearest analogy to such cases is no doubt to be found in hypnotism. A collective hallucination can be imposed upon a whole roomful of hypnotised persons by the mere command of the operator. But not the most explicit verbal suggestion--_si vera est fabula_--could make the courtiers in the fairy tale see the king's clothes; and there is no evidence that with normal persons in full possession of their ordinary faculties any hints derivable from look, word, or gesture could suffice to originate an instantaneous hallucination. Still, the possibility of such an explanation under certain conditions should perhaps be kept in view. (See later, Chapter XVI.)