Rümke's characterization of hallucinations and illusions

   In 1954, the Dutch psychiatrist Henricus Cornelius Rumke (1893-1967) characterized hallucinations and illusions as follows: "Already the Greeks made a distinction between hallucinations and illusions. As to the illusions it has been thought that the perception of an object in the external world underlies them, as to the hallucinations it is never an object in the external world underlying them. Here, too, we must realize: hallucinations and illusions do not exist in abstracto. All we are acquainted with are hallucinating and illusioning individuals."

   References

   Rümke, H.C. (1954). Psychiatrie I. Inleiding. Amsterdam: Scheltema & Holkema.