[26] The facts cited are taken from Karl Kiesewetter's essay _Hypnotisches Hellsehen_, in _Sphinx_, I, 130, 1886. Perty's work on the Magical Phenomena of Human Nature, and Adolf Bastian's treatise _Psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvolkern_ in No. 2 of the _Schriften der Gesellschaft für Experimental-Psychologie_ (Leipsic, Ernst Günther, 1890), may also be consulted. It will appear from the very enumeration of these multifarious methods of procedure that the effect does not depend upon the especial character or constitution of the "magic mirror." It is a remarkable trait of human thought, however, that it first endeavors to trace all phenomena back to external facts before it seeks the cause of the same within itself: the child of nature sees in all his thoughts the inspirations of good or evil spirits, and even the modern believer finds the source of all extraordinary enlightenment not in himself but in another—the Highest Being. A very high degree of culture is requisite for man approximately to comprehend what marvellous forces slumber within him, and to what a great extent, in the truest sense of the word, he is the creator of his own perceptions and emotions. And thus it was that throughout the long space of three thousand years people did not clearly discover that in the case of magic mirrors the most important factor was the _person that saw_, and not the instruments of seeing. If we will use the word "superstition," therefore, we can justly do so with reference to the improper disposition of the two factors involved. This incorrect interpretation of the phenomenon, as being necessarily dependent in its origin upon the material object employed, then called forth the fables regarding some particularly rare and miraculous mirror which was kept in a certain family as a holy relic, and whose possession admitted people to a knowledge of the secrets of nature and of the future. Countless sacrifices of money and human life have been made to these extravagant fancies. Indeed, even to-day, certain English business-houses deal in magic mirrors "manufactured after the best prescripts," and certainly derive much profit from their traffic. In all the treatises upon occult science, in those of ancient Egypt as well as in those of the present time,—and the literature of divination by mirrors (catoptromancy) fills whole libraries,—in all I say are found directions for the manufacture of especially effective glass or metal mirrors. True, in addition to this, there is now and then a presentiment to be detected of the importance of personality. Tradition prefers in such experiments chaste maidens, pure boys, or pregnant women—a choice that despite its material faultiness at any rate pursues the correct principle of emphasising individual character.