POLAR HALLUCINATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9684, 7 January 1910, Page 4

POLAR HALLUCINATION.

Accepting the view that the committee of the Danish University which recently examined the proofs submitted by Dr Cook in favour of his assertion that he had reached the North Pole finally disposed of his pretensions, Dr Ernest Jones, InspectorGeneral of the Insane for Victoria, submits a most interesting generalisation tending to support the Iheorj of hallucination. "It is quite conceivable," he says, "that an Arctic explorer, undergoing privations and spending a long time in solitary wastes, might become possessed oi an hallucination. Shackleton spoke of the extraordinary influence oi polar desolation. A mind continually dwelling on and anticipating some achievement might come to an erroneous perception of what has happened,/' Hallucinations, it would appear, are sharply divided from delusions. A delusion might be produced 'by long brooding upon a particular subject, whereas an hallucination requires the assistance of outward influences, such as the affecttion of one of the special senses, and particularly that of hearing. Dr Jones gives specific instances of hallucinations being bolstered up by diary entries. Many of Dr Cook's friends have concluded that he Is the I victim of a delusion. On Dr Jones' showing, if he is afflicted with anything of the kind it is clearly an hallucination. Neither conclusion is particularly flattering to the intrepid explorer, and if there is no point of more practical purpose to be cleared up than the question of what form of mental side-slip haa affected Dr Cook's outlook upon the cold facts with which he is dealing, it would be very much more acceptafcle to the public if he should be permitted at this stage (supposing his claims to be baseless) to sink gently into the obscurity from which he never should have emerged.