=Punished by the Imagination.=--The teacher continued: "Swedenborg speaks of being punished by the imagination. That is what doctors generally call 'hallucination.' He who suffers from persecution-mania is persecuted. The Philistines think he is only persecuted by his imaginations, but if the wise man asks why he is persecuted by his imaginations, conscience answers by ceaselessly endeavouring to discover the persecutor. The patient goes through the whole list of the persons whom he has offended. If they are many in number, and their hatred is justified, one may well suppose that the sick man is persecuted by their hatred, for which his awakened conscience is now receptive. "In my inner life punishment by hallucinations has played the chief part; but after I had discovered the rationale of it, I regarded the hallucination itself as a punishment. The severest form of punishment is suspicion, when I am obliged to suspect the innocent. That is irresistible. My thoughts sway between trust and mistrust. I struggle and conquer myself gradually, either by acknowledging myself wrong, or by accepting the breach of faith resignedly. But if I give vent to suspicion I must ask for pardon; then I take this humiliation as a discharge. Most of my misfortunes have been imaginary; but they have had the same effect as real ones, because I came to the consciousness of my own wrong-doing. The incurable man is the obstinate one who believes himself wrongfully persecuted by other men. =Bankruptcy of Philosophy.=--"When Kant during the dark period of the 'Illumination' had proved that philosophy can prove nothing, he set up the theory of the categorical imperative and postulate, _i.e._ the demands of religion and morality. Put in plain language, that is equivalent to faith. This declaration of the bankruptcy of philosophy saved men from useless brain-cudgelling. Christianity revived, now supported by the philosophers with Hegel at their head. But the old stream flowed parallel with it once more. In spite of the bankruptcy of philosophy, notes of exchange were issued and cashed by the dunder-headed free-thinkers Feuerbach and Strauss. They wanted to approach God with the everyday intelligence which one uses in kitchens and grocers' shops. The last fool was Renan, whose cheques still circulate mostly among college-students and the like. At the beginning of the last century E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote thus: 'In ancient times we had a simple generous faith; we recognised that there was a Higher, but knew also that our senses were insufficient to reach it. Then came the "Illumination," which made everything so clear, that for sheer clearness not a trace could be seen. And now we are told that the supernatural is to be grasped by a firm arm of flesh and bone.' To-day it is called the Science of Religion. That is a science which starts from the false presupposition that religion is a mental disease because it cannot be mathematically proved."