Nor is the power occasionally granted to men to control their senses limited to these; even the spontaneous functions of the body are at times subject to the will of man. An Englishman, for instance, could at will modify the beating of his heart (Cheyne, "New Dis.," p. 307), and a German produced, like a veritable ruminant, the antiperistaltic motions of the stomach, whenever he chose (Blumenbach, _Phys._ § 294). Other men have been known who could at any moment cause the familiar "goose-skin," or perspiration, to appear in any part of the body, and many persons can move not only the ears--a lost faculty according to Darwin--but even enlarge or contract the pupil of the eye, after the manner of cats and parrots. Even the circulation of the blood has been known, in a few rare cases, to have been subject to the will of men, and the great philosopher Kant did not hesitate to affirm, supported as he was by his own experience, that men could, if they were but resolute enough, master, by a mere effort of the will, not a few of their diseases. A striking evidence of the comparative facility with which men thus exceptionally gifted, may be able to imitate certain magic phenomena, was once given by an excellent mimic, whom _Richard_ describes in his _Théorie des Songes_. He could change his features so completely that they assumed a deathlike appearance; his senses lost gradually their power of perception, and the vital spirit was seen to withdraw from the outer world. A slow, quivering motion passed through his whole system from the feet upward, as if he wished to rise from the ground. After a while all efforts of the body to remain upright proved fruitless; it looked as if life had actually begun to leave it already. At this moment he abandoned his deception and was so utterly exhausted that he heard and saw but with extreme difficulty. In the face of these facts the possibility at least cannot be denied that certain specially endowed individuals may possess, in health or in disease, the power to perceive phenomena which appear all the more marvelous because they are beyond the reach of ordinary powers of perception.