16 I-
ON DREAMS,
IN THEIR
MENTAL AND MORAL ASPECTS,
AS AFFORDING AUXILIARV ARGUMENTS
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRIT,
FOR A "separate STATE,"
AND FOR A PARTICULAR PROYIDEXCE.
BY JOHN SHEPPARD,
AUTHOR OF THOUGHTS OX DEVOTIOX, ETC. ETC.
Oiide 7€ OTTO)? a.<ppwv earai rj ^j/vx'] enetdctv tov cKppovoi
awna-oi dt'x" 7ev»|Tat, ovde rovro ireiretafxai. 'AA\' orav
aKparof Kut Ka6ap6i 6 vou? eKKptOt), rare Kal ^povifiwra-ov
eiKor avTov elvai. — Cyrus, apud Xeiioph.
" De tels faits, dent I'univers est lout plein, embarrassent
plus les esprits forts qu'ils ne le temoignent." — Bayle, Diet
Histor. Majus, Note D. Maldonat. G.
LONDON :
JACKSON AND W A L F R D,
ST. faul's church -xard.
1847.
London:
clay, rujnti'.r, hhkao street hill.
TO THE REVEREND
JOHN STUART HIPPISLEY HORXEK,
PRESIDENT OP THE
FROME SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY INSTITUTION,
ST^ese iirssags,
FOUNDED ON LECTURES THERE DELIA-ERED
IN MDCCCXLV. AND 3IDCCCXLVI.
ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.
tilGiO
PREFACE.
These Essays will be found to contain so
unusually large a share of citations, that the
writer may be regarded by some rather as
a compiler of materials, than as presenting
thoughts of his own.
It will be found, however, that — excepting
a very few passages introduced as slightly
illustrative, or ornamental — the citations con-
sist of facts and authorities. Had these
been omitted, any opinions advanced could
have had but small weight or worth. Nar-
ratives of facts demand space : inferences
A3
VI PREFACE.
from them may be nought the less conclusive
or probable for being expressed with brevity.
The writer has scarcely anything to offer
from his own experience as to dreams ; and
this may appear, at first view, a great dis-
qualification for treating of them ; yet perhaps,
on second thoughts, it will be deemed in one
respect advantageous ; as promising, in some
degree, more unbiassed thoughts, than as
though he had himself received extraordinary
impressions through this medium, which might
have too much influenced his judgment on the
whole subject.
These Essays are the substance of lectures
given at a literary institution ; since en-
larged, and considerably modified in form.
Tlie request of respected hearers encou-
raged their being prepared for the press ;
not without a sense of their imperfections,
which in the revision and remodelling was
much deepened. Hesitation has been at length
overruled by considering, that even if the
PREFACE. Vll
inferences should appear weak or inconclusive,
at least the facts collected are worthy to be
thus placed in a combined view and arrange-
ment, and to be examined by those who may
argue from them more forcibly and justly.
The utility of studying these phenomena, —
for which, at the beginning of the following
Essays, the judgment of Dugald Stewart is
adduced, — might be further advocated from
the opinion of Lord Bacon, who, in several
hints, recommends such an inquiry.^ To the
instances which follow, very many might of
course have been added, and some of them
more curious than any which are here offered ;
but part of those are anonymous, or of doubt-
ful authority ; and others too marvellous, too
seemingly artificial, to be entirely credible.
There is none which I should be more inclined
to insert than the dream of the Elector Frederic
of Saxony, which " in substance (writes Dr.
1 In his work, " De Aiigraentis Scientiarurn," (referred to
in Stewart's Elements, vol. i. pp. 11, 12.) See Bacon's
Works, vol. vi. pp. 6, 130, 1 33 ; Dr. Shaw's translation.
Vlli PREFACE.
Merle d'Aubigne) is unquestionably authentic,
though circumstances may have been added. "^
It is, indeed, so far attested, that one cannot
wholly discredit it ; but yet so expertly and
consistently complete in its allegorical adapt-
edness, that one cannot but suspect it to be
(as D'Aubigne himself intimates) a sort of
enlarged or embellished version. Romanists,
no doubt, would represent it as an " invention
of the enemy ; " that is, either of the party
called by them heretical, or more probably
of the great " enemy " by whom they assert
Luther and that party to have been themselves
impelled.
An intelligent writer ^ has thought fit to
state, in regard to dreams which have been
viewed as "supernatural," — "of course, we
can only conclude that we are ignorant of the
natural principle concerned : " he then relates
* See his History of the Eeforraatiou, (Bevcridge's transl.)
vol. i. pp. 200—203.
2 In Chambers's Edinh. Journal, ISM.
PREFACE. IX
three or four very striking instances, which,
could the authority for their truth have been
ascertained, would have been quite appro-
priate for this volume ; and he adds, — " The
question with many minds will be, are they
natural events ? Here we should suppose no
enlightened person could hesitate for a mo-
ment to answer in the affirmative. As natural
events, how, then, are they to be accounted
for ? The only answer is, that the principle,
if it be one, is unknown to us."
Now, if " natural " be here meant to denote
the operation of general laws, in such a sense
as to exclude special and extraordinary de-
sign, I have myself to rank among the not
"enlightened persons," who cannot at all view
such occurrences as in that sense natural.
It is true, that in another (and unwonted)
sense of the word, — surprising deliverances,
predictive dreams or visions, and even the
miracles recorded in scripture, — might be
termed natural, as being parts of the great and
X PREFACE.
diverse train or system of events which God
has preordained.^
Yet they widely differ from the common
course of events, in being the reverse of
ordinary, and therefore (like the creation of a
new world, or of a new living creature, if we
had been witnesses of these, or if we have
good proof of them) they betoken more forcibly
the immediate acting of a sovereign mind for
an especial purpose.
1 Bishop Butler holds that " God's miraculous interpositions
may have been, all along, hy r/enerallKvis of wisdom." (Analogy,
partii. chap. iv. p. 224 ;) and that "there maybe beings to
whom the whole Christian dispensation may appear as natural
as the visible known course of things appears to us." (Ibid,
part i. cliap. i. p. 37.) And Dr. Price, wliile referring to the
bishop, says, " Miracles imply no suspension of the laws of
nature." "Tlie interposition of superior power imphed in a
miracle may be entirely natural." (Four Dissertations, pp. 80,
81, and see p. 437.) Dr. Clarke writes, " Absolutely speaking,
in the strict and philosophical sense, either noildng is miracu-
lous, namely, if we have respect to the power of God ; or, if
we regard our own power and understanding, then almost
everyth'infj — as well what we call natural as what we call
supernatural— is in tlds sense really miraculous ; and it is only
usualness or unusuahiess that makes the distinction." (Clarke
on the Attribute's, cS:c. p. 375.)
PREFACE. XI
But the accepted meaning of tlie word
" natural " is, something in the orcUnciry train,
grounded on laws of so very broad and cus-
tomary operation, as not to indicate any par-
ticular and occasional plan or interposition of
the Divine Mind. If the writer whom I have
cited employed the term in the ?f//usual sense,
he might just as allowably have said, concern-
ing the creation of the first man or the first
mammoth, the healing of the ''paralytic" or
the raising of Lazarus, " these were natural
events, and if such, how are they to be ac-
counted for ?" Would he then have chosen to
say, — " The only answer is, that the principle,
if it he one, is unknown to us" ? Certainly
that would not be the answer of a tJieist ; and
I cannot but judge the tendency of the like
answer, as given concerning some dreams, to
be, unconsciously, atheistic also. Not that
I would put any dreams, except the clexirly
prophetical ones of scripture, on a par with
tniracles: but there are others, as I judge,
Xll PREFACE.
which more or less approach that character,
and which (whether they be termed natural or
supernatural) contribute to render a great and
i^vaZwa^/e " principle " the more known to us,
namely, the special providence of the Omni-
scient Ruler. They do not, indeed, actually
involve the divine rule or agency more than
the commonest sequences involve it ; but they
do make it more signally and impressively
apparent.'
Certain writers who have inferred from
dreams, as is attempted in the following pages,
auxiliary arguments for the distinct subsis-
tence of spirit, have been stigmatized as
" pseudopsychologists." The stigma, indeed,
may have been chiefly aimed at those of
them who contend for the spirit's indepen-
dency of matter in a sense or degree beyond
' Howard's promptness and punctuality in paying his debts,
and liis kindness to relations, were as really parts of his
beneficence as liis visits to dungeons; yet the former were
much less impressively and signally illustrative of that quality
than tlie latter.
PREFACE. Xlll
what facts and sound reasonings can sub-
stantiate.
But Descartes, Sir Thomas Browne, and
Addison, have been so named. ^ I had far
rather incur the appellation on such grounds,
and in such company, than for opinions of an
opposite kind to which it might be far more
justly applicable.
Those are most truly, as I judge, "pseudo-
psychologists," who, by the assumption that
matter is all — that there is no other or spiritual
substance, would make the notion of the soul
itself a falsehood. That indifference appears
to me quite inexplicable, which is expressed
by here and there an intellectual person pro-
fessing Christian belief as well as philosophic
acumen, on the question whether there be
really and without metaphor "a spirit in man."
1 St. Paul must not be placed in the same line. But under
the same imputation he must surely come, who doubted if his
" visions " were " in the body or out of the body," (3 Cor.
xii. 3,) and who expected to be " absent from the body and
present with the Lord." (3 Cor. v. 8.)
h
XIV PREFACE.
Were we to surrender the great truth that so
it is, — that mind, while ever dependent for its
existence on the will of God, is really one and
indissoluble, a real unit, or spiritual monad, —
thus yielding up what consciousness testifies,
and both reason and scripture confirm ; thus
granting that the soul of Bacon or of Plato
might be only a congeries of particles wonder-
fully subtile, and his thoughts only agitations
or melodies of these, how could we not
discern, yet how ward off, at least one de-
structive inference ? — how retain the belief of
man's unity, continued identity, nay, person-
ality : for, except in a spiritual being or real
monad, no proper individuality' can be con-
ceived to exist.
^ The terra " individual," now so vulgarized, it is true, was
used by Cicero to describe the " atoms " or " corpuscles " of
Epicurus, (De Natura Deorura, lib. i. cc. xxiv. xxv. xxvi.) and
it could there only mean physically or actually indivisible ;
since those atoms* — corpuscula — were, as the latter name
♦ arn)io<:, insccabilis, iudividuus, corpusculum rainutissimurn.
— Ilcdcr. el Scajj. Lexic.
PREFACE. XV
It is true, we have still stronger arguments
for this spiritual existence than the phenomena
of dreaming supply ; but, in my judgment,
where a subject is all-important, even subor-
distinctly shows, considered as not " unextended." But, even
were the mind supposed to be only one of these indiscerptible
atoms, and the tenn individual applied to it, — that hyijothesis,
while it might remove one difficulty, would leave another
untouched, and perhaps induce some greater.
The learned Howe, indeed, in his masterly and amusing
irony against the Epiciirean atomists,* states, that he had " not
met witli any that had asserted the rationality of single
corporeal atoms," and so had " not fought with any adversary ;"
hut adds, that " he knows not what time may produce."!
Had he Kved to know what German pliilosophy can produce
or reproduce, he might have been still more uncertain, gene-
rally, as to the possible products of time.
It is worth whUe, therefore, to notice such a hypothesis.
No doubt it removes one difficulty by representing the soul
or mind as not actually discerptible or dissoluble, i. e. (as we
may presume would be meant) except by Omnipotence. But
then it still impKes, — whether intending it or not, — that this
mind or soul has parts, and parts which are numberless, For,
as the great mathematician Pascal MTites, " however smaU a
given space may be, we can conceive one less and less to
infinity without ever arriving at an indivisible imextended
* Living Temple, part i. chap. iii. Works, vol. i. pp.44 — 52,
folio edit. f Ibid. p. 47.
XVI PREFACE.
dinate corroborative arguments should not be
unnoticed or foregone.
If these observations, more lengthened
than was at first intended, should appear
point : " * and he adds, " persons who are not satisfied with
these reasons," (which he had stated,) " hut persist in the belief
that space is not infinitely divisible, must never pretend to
master geometrical demonstrations. — It is possible to be a very
able man and a bad geometrician." f Again, " a geometrician
can no more exist without this principle, than a man ^A"ithout
a soul. We perfectly comprehend it to be false, that in
dividing a given space we can ever arrive at an indivisible,
that is to say, an unextended point." X
Now, according to the before-named hypothesis, — that
rational " atom " wliich constituted the soul or nodnd of this
renowned French geometrician, was doubtless a thing or
" individual" of parts ; nay, of infinite paris. If it be denied
that these parts could — even by Divine power — be actually
severed, it still cannot be denied, I presume, that they existed
together ; and that they were mentally separable.
What wonder, then, if this " atom " or " corpuscle," which
was the very soul of Pascal, and whose thoughts, in their
sublime littleness, " wandered through eternity," was able to
demonstrate, as it did, that every " extended " atom must have
" parts to infinity," inasmuch as it had in itself a countless host
of witnesses to this fact, firmly united, always consistent, never
incoherent! We say not that any one of these undivided
♦ Pascal's Thoughts, Ed. Glasg. 1838, p. 353,
t Ibid. p. .30].. X Ibid. p. 350.
PREFACE. XVll
too digressive from my immediate subject,
they yet cannot be deemed irrelevant to that
chief and ultimate design which the title-page
announces.
parts of the rational atom was, by itself, rational, — but that,
by the supposition, they aU, being together and inseparable,
formed or made up or evolved, a rationality or soul, which,
however small, was yet mighty, alike in mathematics, theology,
and satire.
hS
CONTENTS.
ESSAY L
SECTION I.
I X T R O D U C T O R Y.
DuGALD Stewart's views of Dreaming, pp. 3 — C. Scope of
these Essays, 6, 7. Views of Materialists— Epicurus, 7,
Lucretius, Hobbes, 8. Locke on Unconsciousness, 8. Watts's
and A. Baxter's answers, 9, 10. Richard Baxter, 10. Dr.
Abercrombie on unremembered Dreams, 10, 11. Dr. A.
Clarke, ibid. 11, 12. Catalepsy, &c. Dr. Mason Good, 13.
Sir H. Davy, typhus, 14. Apoplexy, H. Unconsciousness
not to be proved, 15.
SECTION IL
CELERITY.
Rapidity of thought in dreams, p. 16. Lord Brougham on
this, 16—18. Dr. Abercrombie— Atlantic— Skeleton, 18, 19.
Lavater, 19. Archbishop Whately, 20. Stewart's remarks on
instantaneous thought questioned, 20, 21. Time requisite for
waking thought, 23. Body a hindrance — Socrates — Philo —
St. Paul, 23. Some -disconnexion from grosser organs in
dreams probable — Addison — Lord Brougham, 23 — 25. Associa-
tion — Dream of Etna, 25, 26. Irderior organization, 27.
Byron on Dreams, 27.
XX CONTENTS.
SECTION III.
INVENTIVENESS AND POWER.
Sir Thomas Browne's experience, pp. 28, 29. Coleridge's Kubla
Khan, 30-32. Caedmon, 32. Addison, 33. Objection that
these productions are imaginative, 33. Problems in sleep, H4.
Dr. Gregory — Condorcet, 34. Franklin — Scottish lawyer, S.').
Richard Baxter — Cardan— La Mothe le Vayer, 36. Tartini,
37. Varieties of dreaming thought, 38. Bishop Newton's
inference, 39, 40.
SECTION IV.
ETHEREAL VEHICLE.
Manner of separate spirit's acting, p. 41. Mysteries of spirit and
of body, 41. Opinions on the "vehicle," — of Newton —
Augustin—Broughton— Plato— Galen--Hierocles-The Rabbis,
42, 43. Irenaeus— Origen, 44. Scriptural reasons — " The
tabernacle."— Hartley— Paley, 44, 45. Illustrated by micro-
scopic research, 4G, 47. Broughton on ideas, 48. Author's
experience, 49. Mrs. Sigourney, 50. Medicinal dreams, 51,
Vivid dreams during languor— Inference from these, 51, 52.
SECTION V.
SLEEP OF THE SOUL.
A dreaminu sleep, p. 53. Dr. Watts and Dr. T. Burnet on this, 54,
55. Euler, Hartley and Bonnet on a dreaming state of the
soul after death, 55, 5C. Inscriptions in catacombs, 57.
Objection, " dreaming not real life," 57 — is real in some sense,
58. Bonnet, on the chrysalis— Inward activity, 58. Waking
thoughts often dream-like, 59.
SECTION VI.
THE "vehicle" (resumed).
Opinion of Leibnitz— uses of this opinion, pp. 60, 61. Arch-
bishop Whately on eternity, 62. Eternal life potential, 63.
Centuries of the deceased saints have been a gain, 64. The
ideal period of their millennia, 65, QQ. Simultaneous ideas —
M'Culloch, 66, Ql . Objection, "that these are hypotheses,
and useless," 67. Study of mind vindicated — Physics and
metaphysics compared, 67 — 69. Dream of Zimmermann, 69 —
72. Its character, &c. 72, 73.
CONTENTS. Xxi
SECTION VII,
IMPORTANCE OF OUR INQUIRY.
Objection, " These arguments superfluous to confirm revelation,"
p. 74. But antecedent or collateral proofs not to be abandoned,
75. May lead to a concern about the great future, 76, ll]
Physical science, why sometimes exclusively preferred^ 77.
Yet is but secondary, 77, 78. The Christian's and sceptic's
prospects contrasted, 78—80.
ESSAY II.
SECTION I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Objections to the whole subject from \" its obscurity," p. 83.
Answer, mystery is universal, 84. Objection from "the imper-
fect action of mind in sleep," 85. Sir Thomas Browne, 85.
Galen— Antoninus, 86. Negro debate, 86, 87. Recapitulation
of former Essay, 87, 88. Further design, 88, 89.
SECTION II.
SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING DREAMS.
Divination by dreams, 90. Pharaoh — Astyages— Magi— Cyrus,
91. Quintus Cicero, 92. The profession of interpreter lucra-
tive but perilous, 92, 93. Revolt of Cyrus— Nebuchadnezzar,
92, 93. Grandson of Aristides— Julian— Timur—Tippoo, 93.
Brizo in Delos, 94. Priests — Oracle of Faunus, and of Am-
phiaraus, 95. Penelope's dream of her geese, 95 — 97. Invention
of dreams— Cicero's, of the boy at the Capitol, 97. Probably
invented to please Augustus— Superstitions of that emperor,
98, 99. Dream of the egg and treasure, 99. Futile and
fictitious dreams no disproof that others were providentially
ordered, 100.
XXll CONTENTS.
SECTION iir.
DREAMS RECORDED IN SCRIPTURE AS SENT OF GOD.
Declarations as to true and false dreams, pp. 101, 102. Classes
and uses of the true, 102—110, viz.—
I. Protection of God's servants — Abimelech — Laban— Magi,
p. 102.
II. Encouragement of good men — Jacob — Pharaoh's house-
hold—The Midianite, 103, 104. Solomon- St. PaulatTroas—
.Tudas Maccabaeus, 104.
III. Impressing reverence for the true God — Pharaoh —
Nebuchadnezzar.
IV. Distinctly prophetic — Joseph's, of the sheaves — Abram's,
of his posterity — Daniel's visions — Nebuchadnezzar's dream,
105, 106.
V. Solemn impression of truth — Eliphaz — Elihu, 106, 107.
Such dreams were "visions" — the terms often synonymous,
108. Dreams of Daniel, 108. Their plurality of uses, 109.
Sent of God, 110, — or let unbelievers explain them, ibid.
Dream of Joseph — of the wife of Pilate, ibid.
SECTION IV.
DREAMS RECORDED IN ANCIENT SECULAR HISTORY.
Several mentioned in Scripture were sent to heathens— as
Abimelech — Laban — Pharaoh — Nebuchadnezzar — Pilate's
wife, p. 111. Ultimate object appears to have been the
impressing Jehovah's attributes, 112. Some sort of theism
among heathens — But polytheism often combined with virtual
atheism, 113. Plato atheist — Hebrews known to be mono-
theists, ibid. Jews and proselytes manj', through all lands, 1 14.
Remarkable dreams were related of eminent persons, 115, 116.
Objection, "that they fostered idolatry" — Juno Sospita —
Goblet of Hercules, 116. Some paganism better than atheism
— Dr. Jortin-Dr.Parr— Baylc, 117. Death of Lucretius, 117.
Divine dreams might amend atheistic paganism, 117, 118.
Crcesus and Atys, 118. Alexander, concerning Ptolemy, 119.
Cyrus in his last days, 120. Socrates in i)rison — Simonides,
121, 122. Cicero, on his own dream of Marius, 122. On the
whole, theism was tluis aided, 123. Arcadians, 124. Credulity
may be imputed — Hut credible because useful, 125.
CONTENTS. XXUl
SECTION V.
rSES OF DREAMS OCCURRIXii IX CHRISTEXDOM.
Objection, " Miracles have ceased : " — But not what may be
termed ^'mental miracles," pp. 128, 129. Bayle's acknow-
ledgment, 129. Earl of Rochester — Lady Warre's chaplain,
129, 130.
I. Preservation of Life — Grotius— Salmasius, 131. Scottisli
clergyman— Frith of Forth, 132, 133. Impression of the Divine
agency— Instance in America, 134, 135.
II. Preparation for distress — Premonition of a father's
death, 136. Sight of deceased children, 137. Doddridge's
dream, 138.
III. Awakening, or deepening and revival, of spiritual
thoughts — Brazen serpent — Beings with wings, i;^9, 140.
Africaner's dream, 140 — 142. General Burn's, 142—144.
SECTION VI.
WHAT THE RIGHT VIEW OF OUR OWX OR OTHERS* DREAMS.
Superstitions not extinct — Sylla — American Indians — South
Africans, 146, 147. Under tyrants, unsafe to tell a drer.m —
Constantius— Mount Atlas— Claudius— Petrae executed, 147,
148. Triviality of dreams — Mercutio — Addison — Titus Tro-
phonius, 149, 150, Ludicrous complaints of dreamers, 151.
All this cannot set aside other facts — But how discriminate?
152. Augustin, on his mother's dream, 153, 154. Monica's
gift of discerning, 154. Caution against being prompted to act
by dreams, 155 — Yet exceptions have been here adduced, 155.
Wherever they oppose Scripture, or second the passions, to be
discarded — Hannibal— Timur — Cromwell. 155 — 157. Main
use, the enforcement of great truths, 157, 158. Regulation of
the mind concerning them, 158 — 161.
SECTION VII.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
Gratitude for clearer revelation, 162. Rejecters of it— Tran-
scendentalism, 1G3. The starry night — Us realities and mys-
teries, 163, 164. Science has surpassed all poetry, 164.
"Night-thoughts" — Lessons of night, 165. Realities tran-
scend all dreams, 166, 167.
XXIV CONTENTS.
NOTES.
NOTE A.
KUBLA KHAN.
Coleridge and Opium— Kenilworth Castle, in sleep, pp. 169—171.
NOTE B.
lA MOTHE LE VAYER.
His character and sayings, pp. 171, 172.
NOTE C.
On Zimmermann's Dream, p. 172.
NOTE D.
THE SCEPTIC AND CHRISTIAN.
Shelley's Adonais and Milton's Lycidas compared, pp. 172 — 174.
NOTE E.
DREAMS TAKEN FOR FACTS.
Children — " Nocturnal " — " Rhapsodies " — Black Sam — Watch-
fulness over the mind a duty, pp. 175 — 177.
NOTE F.
IDEALISM.
That of Hume, Fichte, Hegel, &c.— Of the Greeks— Hint of
Plato— Bishop Berkeley, pp. 177, 178.
NOTE, (SUPPLEMENTAL.)
DREAM OF CYRUS.
That of the Rev. H. Woodward compared with it, pp. 178, 179.
ESSAY I.
ESSAY I.
SECTION I.
This subject will appear to some, in its
nature as in its very name, so visionary, as
to afford little prospect of real instruction.
Yet an inquiry on the phenomena of dreaming
was deemed worthy, by the late eminent Pro-
fessor Stewart, to occupy a section in his
" Elements of the Philosophy of the Human
Mind." He states that three questions may
be proposed on it ; which I thus abridge : —
" What is the state of the mind in sleep ?
How far do our dreams appear to be influenced,
by our bodily sensations ? What change does
sleep produce on those parts of the body, with.
4 DUGALD STEWART.
which our mental operations are more imme-
diately connected, and how does this change
operate in diversifying so remarkably the
phenomena which our minds then exhibit,
from those of which we are conscious in our
waking hours?" The second of these ques-
tions he refers " to the medical inquirer ;"
the third he judges "to relate to a subject
which is placed beyond the reach of the human
faculties."^
The present writer is in no way entitled to
enter on those physiological investigations,
which the professional studies of others so
much better qualify them to pursue. Nor,
while examining the first question, " What
is the state of the mind in sleep?" will any
pretension be made to treat it in a strictly
philosophic manner. The aim is to adduce
some recorded facts and popular considera-
tions which may cast a degree of light on it,
and to connect with these some inferences,
which, if well grounded, are certainly not
wanting in interest and importance.
In connexion with the speculations of that
distinguished inquirer to whom reference has
1 Elements, &c. vol. i. p. 327.
DUGALD STEWART. 5
been made, it may be mentioned, that, since
the selection of this topic, some encourage-
ment has been derived from a note which Mr.
Stewart appends to them, as follows: "The
phenomena of dreaming may form an article not
altogether useless in the natural history of
man ; inasmuch as they contribute to attract
our attention to those intellectual powers,
from which it is so apt to be drawn by that
external world which affords the first, and
(for the common purposes of life) the most
interesting field for their exercise. In my
own case at least," he adds, " this supposition
has been exactly verified : as the speculations
concerning the human mind, which I have
ventured to present to the public, all took
their rise from the subject to which this note
refers. The observations which I have stated
with respect to it in the text (excepting a
very few paragraphs since added) were written
at the age of eighteen, and formed a part of
the first philosophical essay which I recollect
to have attempted. — When I was afterwards
led professionally, at the distance of many
years, to resume the same studies, this short
manuscript was almost the only memorial I
B 3
6 STEWART. SCOPE OF THESE ESSAYS.
liad preserved of these favourite pursuits of
my early youth ; and from the views which
it recalled to me, insensibly arose the analysis
I have since undertaken of our intellectual
faculties in general." He then adds, "For
some indulgence to the egotism of this note,
I must trust to the good-nature of my
readers." '
But apology was not requisite. The note
may be very useful, by pointing out to the
young the importance and value of a wise
direction and employment of thought in
" early youth ;" as the frequent and perhaps
usual germ of whatever they may achieve
that is worth achieving, whether studiously
or actively, in the maturity of after life.
To me it has suggested the hope, that since
this subject of dreaming originated the chief
work of Dugald Stewart, it may here, how-
ever differently and slightly treated, give rise
to some productive or profitable thoughts in
the minds of inquiring readers.
The principal points which it will be en-
deavoured in this first Essay to illustrate, are,
the rapidity of thought as exercised in
' Elements, vol. i. p. 574.
VIEWS OF MATERIALISTS. 7
dreams, — and the intellectual inventiveness
and power occasionally exerted in dreaming.
These facts, it will be argued, appear to cor-
roborate other arguments for the immateriality
of the soul, and to indicate also its capacity
for thought in a state of separation from the
present or visible bodily structure.
In the second Essay it is proposed to ex-
amine, and partially confirm, the prevailing
impression, that some dreams have been
specially ordered for important ends by the
ruling Providence of God; yet strongly, at
the same time, to discourage a fanciful or
superstitious misuse of that persuasion.
Let me here premise, that we may infer
how naturally arguments for a spiritual sub-
stance, and a divine Providence, have been
deduced by mankind from certain phenomena
of di-eaming, when we are aware how solici-
tous the philosophic advocates of materialism
have been to account for them mechanically.
Thus Epicurus, who held that " the soul is
a subtle corporeal substance composed of the
finest atoms,"' taught that "dreams are the
effect of images casually flying about, which
1 Enlield, Hist. Philos. vol. i. p. 467.
8 LUCRETIUS. LOCKE.
from their extreme tenuity penetrate the body
and strike upon the mind,"^ which is itself
"formed of particles most subtle in their
nature."^ Lucretius has presented the same
theory in an elaborate poetic dress. Hobbes,
among the moderns, has treated of dreaming
with the like design.^
A philosopher of exceedingly different cha-
racter from these, the great Locke, — some of
whose opinions have been employed, contrary
to his intention, to support the doctrines
of materialists, — argues that thought and
consciousness are in sound sleep suspended.
But his conclusion rests merely on our fre-
quent forgetfulness of having dreamed, and
on the testimony of one " that was bred a
scholar and had no bad memory," who told
him " he had never dreamed in his life, till he
had a fever."* Such testimony, if ever so
much multiplied, could amount only to this,
that the deponents had had no dreams which
J Eufield, Hist. Philos. vol. i. p. 4.70. 2 jij ^ 409^
3 Hallam's Literature, vol. ii. p. 4<0i', and A. Baxter on the
Soul, p. 19G.
* Essay on Human Understanding, book ii. c. i. § 14, p. 46,
fol. edit.
WATTS. A. BAXTER. 9
they could remember; which actually proves
nothing in the case.
Dr. Isaac Watts, in one of his philosophical
essays, commenting on Mr. Locke's opinion,
writes, " Often have I awoke from a dream
wherein a multitude of scenes has been im-
pressed on the mind — yet with utmost labour
I could not recollect enough to fill up one
minute, but only short broken hints of the
dreaming scene, which also in a little time
vanished."^ He adds, "It is plain that we
may be conscious of sleeping thoughts at that
moment when they arise, and not retain them
the next moment ; so that the forgetfulness
of our dreams never so soon, is no proof that
we did not dream, or had no consciousness of
thinking in sleep." ^
The same, I apprehend, might often be
truly alleged even of our recent waking
thoughts. Let any one try to remember, in
circumstances where the mind has been unbent
or languid, what were the thoughts of the
last five minutes, or to verify that there were
any by producing one. Andrew Baxter, in
^ Essay V. § 2. Works, vol. v, p. 556, fol. ed.
2 Ibid. p. 557.
10 R. BAXTER. ABERCROMBIE.
his " Inquiry on tlie Soul," says truly, " It is
a mark of our imperfect natures, that we
cannot become conscious of all our past con-
sciousness at pleasure ; " adding, " no man at
night would infer that he was not in a state
of consciousness and thinking at a certain
time of the day, because he has no memory what
thoughts he had at that time. And it is no
better argument that a man was not conscious
in his sleep, because next morning he hath
no memory of what ideas were in his mind." *
Richard Baxter, a very different author,
has these words : " I suppose the soul is never
totally inactive. I never awaked, since I had
the use of my memory, but I found myself
coming out of a dream. And I suppose they
that think they dream not, think so because
they forget their dreams."^
The late honoured Dr. Abercrorabie has a
remark of much weight in favour of this
opinion. " We have reason to believe," he
writes, " that dreams which are remembered
occur only in imperfect sleep, and that we do
not remember any mental impressions which
' Inquiry on the Soul, p. 149, iibridged.
^ Reasons of Christian Religion, p. 543, Appendix.
UNREMEMBERED DREAMS. 11
occur in very profound sleep, though we have
satisfactory proof that they exist. Thus, a
person will talk in his sleep so as to be dis-
tinctly understood by another, but without
having the least recollection afterwards of the
mental impression which led to what he said." *
A much-respected clergyman, the Rev.
J. B. B. Clarke, (son of the eminent linguist
and commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke,) has
favoured me with the account of a dream
which clearly and curiously testifies of this.
Mr. Clarke writes thus : " When I was a boy,
it was my father's custom to hear me, over-
night, repeat to him the lesson which I was
expected to say the next morning in school.
At the time I refer to I was learning my
Greek grammar, and the part which I had to
repeat was the active voice of the verb tvtttio.
When I went up to him just before bed time
as usual, I could not say it, and was sent away
in disgrace. Immediately I went to bed, as
was the rule, after having left his study.
* Intellectual Powers, p. 154 ; see also p. 305 ; and the
account of an officer in the expedition to Louishurg, who
after dreams in which he had both spoken and acted, had not
any remembrance ot them. — P. 283. Ibid.
12 ADAM CLARKE.
Before he himself retired for the night, my
father invariably went his rounds to the
children's bed-rooms to see that all was right.
Coming as usual to my room, he heard me
speaking, and coming near saw that I was
talking in my sleep. I was conjugating the
verb TVTTTb), and he waited till I had gone
through it all without a mistake. When I
left the room next morning he summoned me
to say my lesson. I was as ignorant of it as
I had been the night before ; and though for
my encouragement he told me at the time
that he had heard me say it perfectly in my
sleep, I still could not repeat it. The above
fact he not only told me at the period when
it occurred, but more than once in after life.
I make no comments, but state the bare fact."
The evident inference is, that a dream
completely distinct and intelligent, may yet
have been quite effaced by or before waking,
from the dreamer's memory.
This may be the fit occasion to express
dissent from the opinion of an ingenious
author, that " the dream never occurs in sound
or perfect sleep, for then all the senses are
quiescent or uninfluenced, at least by slight
DREAMS IN DEEP SLEEP AND TRANCE. 13
Stimuli." ^ Indeed some evidence tending to
the opposite conclusion seems to present itself
in another part of his essay, when, describing
" trance or catalepsy," the author remarks that
"consciousness in that state is sometimes
perfect," and relates the case of a lady, who in
a profound trance actually heard and felt the
preparations for her own burial, and could
only rouse herself at the moment when " the
coffin -lid was about to be nailed on."^ Such
a case also goes far to make questionable the
strong assertion of the excellent Dr. John
Mason Good, that in "complete apoplexy" —
" in sleepy coma from fever " — and " in all
cases of suspended animation from drowning
or catalepsy," — " no man has been ever con-
scious of a single thought or idea."^ The
only fact possible to be proved (and that would
require an immense induction) would be that
no one has ever remembered any.
^ W. C. Dendy on Dreams, p. 19. We shall find Lavater
(p. 34, below) stating that " problems have been solved in deep
sleep" (" tiefen sclilaf,") — and Euler (Section V. below) affirm-
ing that " in joro/owwc? sleep the more regular and connected are
our dreams." See also La Mothe le Vayer, p. 36, below.
2 Dendy on Dreams, pp.139, 140.
^ Good's Book of Nature, vol. ii. Lect. vii. p. 202.
C
14 FEVER. APOPLEXY.
But Sir Humphry Davy, relating what
occurred to himself in typhus fever, writes :
" I remained, when the weakness consequent
to exhaustion came on, in an apparently sense-
less or lethargic state ; yet, in fact, my mind
was peculiarly active. There was always
before me the form of a beautiful woman,
with whom I was engaged in the most inte-
resting and intellectual conversation. — Her
figure, for many days, was so distinct in my
mind as to form almost a visual image: as
I gained strength, the visits of my good
angel (for so I called it) became less frequent,
and when I was restored to health they were
altogether discontinued,"'
Dr. Abercrombie relates: "A gentleman
whom I saw lately in a state of profound
apoplexy, but from which he recovered, had
a perfect recollection of what took place
during the attack, and mentioned many things
which had been said in his hearing, when he
was supposed to be in a state of perfect
unconsciousness. A lady, on recovering from
a similar state, said she had been asleep and
dreaming, and mentioned what she had dreamt
» Last Days of a riiilosoplici', pp. 04, Gfj.
UNCONSCIOUSNESS NOT REAL. 15
about."' So little are we entitled to affirm
that apparent unconsciousness, apparent cessa-
tion of thought, is real. Even if no one had
thus remembered the active exercise of
thought, occurring in a state when it was
judged to be wholly suspended, that want of
remembrance (as was observed before) could
never demonstrate that consciousness and
thought had been in reality quite interrupted.
These preliminary facts and observations,
as controverting the views of materialists, are
obviously important to my principal design.
^ Intellectual Powers, p. 153.
16 KAPIDITY OF THOUGHT.
SECTION II.
Having thus adverted to theories which
materialists have raised, or of which they
have availed themselves, on this subject, but
which appear to be without any solid founda-
tion of fact, — I proceed to offer some illus-
trations of the rapidity of thought as evinced
in dreams.
A signal one, drawn necessarily from his
personal experience, is given by Lord
Brougham in his " Discourse of Natural
Theology." He adduces it to show, " the
prodigiously long succession of images that
pass through the mind " (in sleep) " with
perfect distinctness and liveliness, in an
instant of time." " Let any one," he writes,
" who is extremely overpowered with drow-
siness — as after sitting up all night, and
sleeping none the next day — lie down, and
begin to dictate : he will find himself falling
asleep after uttering a few words, and he will
LORD BROUGHAM. 17
be awakened by the person who writes re-
peating the last word, to shew that he has
written the whole ; not above five or six
seconds may elapse, and the speaker will find
it at first quite impossible to believe that he
has not been asleep for hours, and will chide
the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over
his work, so great apparently will be the
length of the dream which he has dreamt,
extending through half a life-time. This
experiment is easily tried : again and again
the sleeper will find his endless dream re-
newed : and he will be always able to tell
in how short a time he must have performed
it. For suppose eight or ten seconds required
to write the four or five words dictated, sleep
could hardly begin in less than four or five
seconds after the effort of pronouncing the
sentence ; so that at the utmost, not more
than four or five can have been spent in
sleep. But indeed the greater probability is,
that not above a single second can have been
so passed ; for a writer will easily finish two
words in a second; and suppose he has to
write four, and half the time is consumed in
falling asleep, one second only is the duration
c 3
18 CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.
of the dream, which yet seems to last for
years, so numerous are the images that com-
pose it."^
We may allow something here for a cer-
tain largeness and vagueness in the phrase
of " years," and " half a life-time ;" and not
a little for the extraordinary quality of the
noble and learned writer's intellectual action,
which in sleep probably, as certainly when
awake, has been more rapid, intense, and
versatile, than that of any other mind among
myriads.
But if we substitute, in more ordinary cases,
days or hours for years, as having their inci-
dents and images comprised in a dreaming
instant, these examples will afford ground
enough for surprise and speculation ; and of
these we have a variety.
Dr. Abercrombie tells us, " A friend of
mine dreamt that he crossed the Atlantic and
spent a fortnight in America. In embarking
on his return he fell into the sea, and having
awoke with the fright, discovered that he had
not been asleep above ten minutes."^ He also
cites the following case from Dr. Gregory :
1 Discourse, pp. 113—115. 2 lutcllfctual Powers, p. SSi.
THE SKELETON. LAVATER. 19
" A gentleman, after sleeping in a damp place,
was for a long time liable to a feeling of suffo-
cation when he slept in a lying posture ; and
this was always accompanied by a dream of
a skeleton which grasped him by the throat.
He could sleep in a sitting posture without
any uneasy feeling ; and after trying various
expedients, he at last had a sentinel placed
beside him, with orders to awake him when-
ever he sank down. On one occasion he was
attacked by the skeleton, and a severe and long
struggle ensued before he awoke. On finding
fault with his attendant for allowing him to lie so
long in such a state of suffering, he was assured
that he had not lain an instant, but had been
awakened the moment he began to sink."^
Lavater states, in a work which I think is
not translated, " Many examples are known
to me from personal observation, where sick
persons who had waked after slumbering a
few moments only, could hardly be persuaded
that they had not slept for successive hours ;
because, they said, they had had dreams of
surprising length, had been in this and that
place, gone through this and that transaction,
^ Intellectual Powers, pp. i383-4>
20 ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.
heard such and such things, answered in such
and such a manner.'"
Archbishop Whately, in his lectures to the
parishioners of Halesworth, observes : " It
must have occurred to most of you, that now
and then a long series of events, such as would
occupy several weeks or months, and such as
could not even be described in a day's time, will
be presented to the mind, and will appear to
pass, in a sleep of perhaps less than an hour."-
Professor Stewart adverts to this very dif-
ferent " estimate " of time in dreaming ; " an
inaccuracy " (such is his phrase) " which
sometimes extends so far, as to give to a single
instant the appearance of hours or perhaps of
days." But he does not judge it necessary
to suppose " the rapidity of thought greater
than while we are awake." " For " (he
affirms) " the rapidity of thought is, at all
times, such, that in the twinkling of an eye, a
crowd of ideas may pass before us, to which it
would require a long discourse to give utter-
^ Aussichten in die Ewigkeit, t. i. p. 311.
^ Scripture Revelations of a Tuture State, 5tli Edit,
pp. 163, 151'. — Published without a name, but ranked in tho
catalogues umong the Archbishop's works.
STEWAKT ON INSTANTANEOUS THOUGHT. 21
ance ; and transactions may be conceived,
which it would require days to realize."*
I know not how to accede to this statement ;
although here again very sensible how much
more rapid may have been the processes of
waking thought in such an intellect, than in
my own or other ordinary minds.
Most true it is, that waking thought can
make an instantaneous transition from one
object to another the most remote and dis-
similar, passing " in the twinkling of an eye "
from the sun to a mushroom, or from the
depth of a coal-mine to the cluster of the
Pleiades ; but I cannot believe that our natu-
ral waking condition admits of an instantane-
ous series and connexion of very multiplied
thoughts ; for instance, that even Johnson or
Person, having committed (as our young stu-
dents do) a Greek tragedy to memory, could
have recited it throughout, mentally, in the
twinkling of an eye.
It is indeed surprising, how greatly the
succession of ideas can be accelerated by a
peculiar stimulant. An Indian drug (not
opium) was once prescribed for myself, by
^ Elements, vol. i. p. 345.
22 INDIAN DRUG.
way of experiment whether it might prove
useful as a soporific. But it excited a train
of suggestions and inferences the swiftness
of which I could not have deemed possible.
Although these very quickly vanished from
memory, there was gained from them an en-
tirely new notion of the rate at which some
philosophers and orators may think. On the
other hand, while pain of the head which
followed, warned me against a second use of
so stimulating a medicine, I had procured
perhaps the farther evil of some increased
discontent with my own wonted foot-pace of
cogitation : — as railways make us impatient of
old-fashioned vehicles and pedestrian tours.
Yet this acceleration of thought was no
more to be compared to what takes place,
without any stimulus, in dreams, than the
speed of an " express train " to that of an
electric telegraph.
What may be the future and ultimate
rapidity of thought, as acting in its most
refined and perfect vehicle, we can have no
present knowledge : but by the exterior and
mortal organs of our present bodily system
it appears to be retarded. Length of time, in
SOCRATES. ST. PAUL. 23
our ordinary waking state, is requisite to the
formation or recollection of a number of ideas ;
and the more, in proportion to the defects of
the individual's organization, or health.
If it be objected, this is to represent the
body as an impediment to the mind, it must
be replied that in such a view of it the best
philosophy and the Christian scriptures agree.
Let any one examine what is said of the body
by Socrates in the 1 1th chapter of the Phaedo,
and its accordance with the apocrj^phal Book
ofWisdom (ascribed by some to PhiloJudaeus),
which says, "the corruptible body weighs down
the soul, and the earthy tabernacle burdens the
meditative mind ;"^ and vriih St. Paul's desire
and promise of being " clothed upon " or
indued with " a spiritual body."
The only probable way, as I conceive, of
accounting for the extreme rapidity of thought
in dreams, is to suppose some partial discon-
nexion or liberation of the mind in sleep, from
those grosser organs which are the media of
its action while we wake.
This opinion seems to have been ap-
proached (though not definitely expressed) by
* Chap. is. ver. 15; loTv Tro\v(i)(>ov7ida.
24 ADDISON ON DREAMS.
the distinguished Addison, when he remarks
that " Dreams may give us some idea of the
great excellency of a human soul, and some
intimation of its independency of matter."
He adds, " when the organs of sense want
their due repose and necessary reparations,
and the body is no longer able to keep pace
with that spiritual substance to which it is
united, the soul exalts herself in her several
faculties, and continues in action till her part-
ner is again qualified to bear her company. —
Dreams look like the relaxations and amuse-
ments of the soul when she is disencumbered
of her machine ; her sports and recreations
when she has laid her charge asleep. — Dreams
are an instance of that agility and perfection
which is natural to the faculties of the mind
when they are disengaged from the body.
The soul is clogged and retarded in her
operations when she acts in conjunction with
a companion that is so heavy and unwieldy
in its motions ; but in dreams it is wonderful
to observe with what sprightliness and alacrity
she exerts herself" '
Lord Brougham well observes, " The mind's
' Spectator, vol. vii. No. 487.
BROUGHAM ON MIND. 25
independence of matter, and capacity of
existence -without it, appears to be strongly
illustrated by whatever shews the entire dis-
similarity of its constitution. The incon-
ceivable rapidity of its operations is perhaps
the most striking feature of the diversity ; and
there is no doubt that this rapidity increases
in proportion as the interference of the senses
— that is, the influence of the body — is with-
drawn. Facts, chiefly drawn from the phe-
nomena of dreams, throw a strong light upon
this subject, and seem to demonstrate the
possible disconnexion of mind and matter."^
And in another place, " Nothing can be con-
ceived better adapted than these facts to
satisfy us, that the nature of the mind is con-
sistent with its existence apart from the body." ^
We may readily allow the judgment of
Professor Stewart to be correct, that while
" certain general laws of association," which
regulate the train of our waking thoughts,
also operate during sleep, the will has then no
power of " stopping the train," or " diverting
the current of thought into a new channel."^
» Discourse of Nat. Theol. p. 111. 2 n^ij, p, nS.
3 Elements, vol. i. pp. 334, 335.
D
26 DREAM OF ETNA.
We fully admit also that these laws of asso-
ciation include material as well as spiritual
influences. That dreams are very frequently
suggested by bodily sensations, there is
abundant proof.
Thus a manuscript of the eminent Dr. Gre-
gory of Edinburgh, " mentions of himself, that
having gone to bed with a vessel of hot water
at his feet, he dreamt of walking up the crater
of Mount Etna, and of feeling the ground warm
under him. He had early in life visited Vesu-
vius, and actually felt a strong sensation of
warmth in his feet, when walking up the side
of the crater ; but the dream was of Etna, of
which he had only read Brydone's description."*
Cases of this kind, which are frequent and
familiar, would suffice to refute the very
singular theory of Andrew Baxter, who en-
deavoured philosophically to show that all
dreams must arise from the influence of se/?«ra^6
spirits on the mind.
But none of the foregoing facts or con-
siderations is adapted to exjilain the immense
celerity of thought in dreams. This must
remain, I apprehend, wholly unaccounted for,
' Abcrcrombie, Intellectual Powers, p. 279, abridged.
BYRON ON DREAMS. 27
except by the supposition already glanced at, —
that the mind then acts not by its exterior or-
ganization, but either apart from all organs, or
(which to me seems far more probable) by that
highly refined interior organization, to which,
during sleep, the torpor of the visible and
tangible organs permits a freer agency, some-
what like what may take place when the
mortal frame is dissolved.
To the whole mystery of this subject,
Lord Byron's well-known lines, with his
accustomed elevation and energy of diction,
powerfully direct our thoughts^
" Our life is two-fold : sleep hath its own world,
A houndary between the things misnamed
Death and existence : sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality :
And dreams in their development have breath.
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy :
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts;
They take a weight from off our waking toils :
They do divide our being ; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time.
And look like heralds of eternity.
They pass Kke spirits of the past ; they speak,
Like Sibyls, of the future ; they have power ;
The t}-rauny of pleasure and of pain ;
They make us what we were not — what they will —
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows."
28 INVENTIVENESS AND POWER.
SECTION III.
I WOULD now invite attention to the second
point proposed, namely, the intellectual inven-
tiveness and power frequently exerted in
dreams. That original and eccentric writer,
Sir Thomas Browne, in his Religio Medici,
thus describes his own experience : " I thank
God for my happy dreams, as I do for my
good rest. We are somewhat more than
ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of
the body seems to be but the waking of our
souls. It is the ligation of our sense, but the
liberty of reason ; our awaking conceptions do
not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my
nativity, my ascendant was the earthly sign
of Scorpio, I was born in the planetary hour
of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that
leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious,
nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of
company ; yet in one dream I can compose a
SIR T. BROWNE. COLERIDGE. 29
whole comedy, behold the action in one dream,
apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake
at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as
faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would
never study but in my dreams, and this time
also would I choose for my devotions ; but
our grosser memories have then so little hold
of our abstracted understandings, that they
forget the story, and can only relate to our
awakened souls a confused and broken tale
of that that has passed."
He afterwards writes in reference to what
he had said of the elevation of the faculties in
sleep, " Thus I observe that men oftentimes
upon the hour of their departure do speak
and reason above themselves. For then the
soul begins to be freed from the ligaments of
the body, begins to reason like herself, and to
discourse in a strain above mortality."^ Let
it be noticed that all these are the remarks of
an acute and practised ijhysician.
The poet Coleridge published a fragment
of a poem, composed by him in sleep ; or what
he terms " a vision in a dream." His prefatory
account of the circumstances I thus abridge.
1 Rclig. Med. Edit. 161;:, pp. 178—181.
D 3
30 Coleridge's " vision
" In the summer of 1797, the author, then
in ill health, had retired to a farm-house,
between Porlock and Linton. In consequence
of slight indisposition, an anodyne had been
prescribed, from the effect of which he fell
asleep in his chair, at the moment that he was
reading these or similar words in Purchas's
Pilgrimage, ' Here the Khan Kubla com-
manded a palace to be built, and a stately garden
thereunto ; and thus ten miles of fertile ground
were enclosed with a wall.' — The author con-
tinued for about three hours in a profound
sleep, at least of the external senses, during
which time he has the most vivid confidence
that he could not have composed less than
from two to three hundred lines ; if that
indeed can be called composition, in which all
the images rose up before him as things,
with a parallel production of the correspondent
expressions, without any sensation or con-
sciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared
to himself to have a distinct recollection of
the whole, and instantly and eagerly wrote
down the Urns that are here preserved. At
this moment he was unfortunately called out
by a person on business, and detained above
IN A DREAJI." 31
an hour, and on his return to his room found,
to his no small surprise and mortification, that
though he still retained some vague and dim
recollection of the general purport of the
vision, yet with the exception of some eight
or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest
had passed away."
Of what the poet had previously written
down, I present the chief portion, to the
reader's curiosity rather than his criticism ; for
perhaps, according to Sir Thomas Browne,
it should be both recited and heard in sleepy
in order to be fully appreciated.
" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous riUs,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hiUs,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
" But oh, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedam cover !
A savage place, as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was baunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover !
32 KUBLA KHAN. C^DMON.
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted hurst,
Huge fragments vaulted Like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks, at once and ever.
It flung up momently the sacred river.
" Pive miles meandering with a mazy motion.
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
Then reached tlie caverns measureless to man.
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
" The shadow of the dome of pleasure
floated midway on the waves ;
^Vliere was heard the mingled measure
Prom the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome, with caves of ice." *
Dr. Moore, in a recent work "On the Power
of the Soul over the Body," mentions, " It is
related of Ceedmon, the Anglo-Saxon bard,
that he composed his first and probably his
best poem, that on Creation, in a dream.
Previous to this, he was unable to repeat a
single stave, but afterwards he became remark-
able for the facility of his verses."
1 Coleridge's Poetical Works, vol. i. pp. 266— 269.— Sec
~^o{e A. at the end of this volume.
ADDISON. REASONING IN SLEEP. 33
Addison notices this extraordinary power.
" In dreams the slow of speech make unpre-
meditated harangues. Invention works with
such ease and activity, that we are not sensible
when the faculty is employed. Thus I believe
every one, some time or other, dreams that he
is reading papers, books, or letters ; in which
case the invention prompts so readily, that
the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes
its own suggestions for the compositions of
another."^
But, it may be said, — the best ascertained
of those compositions or rhapsodies, — even
those dreaming pindarics of the poet, and
that dreaming comedy of the physician,
(whatever were our trust in the merit of scenes
which he did not note down,) — are still but
efforts of the imaginative faculties. They may
prove, to use a phrase of the latter, the
" unmatched /awci^s of our sleeps ; " but they
make no approach to the higher more exact
and severe operations of reason, or intellectual
power.
We shall find, however, no lack of testi-
mony for those exercises of the mind in sleep.
' Spectator, No. 4-87, abridged.
34 LAVATER. GKEGOKY. CONDOKCET.
Lavater states, " many a mathematician has in
deep sleep solved the most difficult problems,
and performed complex calculations with
inexpressible quickness."'
Dr. Abercrombie adduces most striking
facts, to show mental operations in dreams
of a highly intellectual character. "Dr.
Gregory, (he states,) mentions, that thoughts
which sometimes occurred to him in dreams,
and even the particular expressions in which
they were conveyed, appeared to him after-
wards, when awake, so just in point of reason-
ing and illustration, and so good in point of
language, that he has used them in his college
lectures, and in his written lucubrations.
" Condorcet related of himself, that when
engaged in some profound and obscure calcu-
lations, he was often obliged to leave them in
an incomplete state and retire to rest ; and
that the remaining steps, and the conclusion
of his calculations, had more than once pre-
sented themselves in his dreams.
" Dr. Franklin also informed Cabanis, that
the bearings and issues of political events,
^ Aussichten, t. i. p. 310. lie gives as his authorities
treatises of Kant and Kruger, and Ilallcr's Elements of
Physiology.
IRANKLIN. SCOTTISH LAWYER. 35
which had puzzled him when awake, were not
unfrequently unfolded to him in his dreams." '
"The following anecdote," Dr. Abercrombie
adds, " has been preserved in a family of
rank in Scotland, the descendants of a dis-
tinguished lawyer of the last age. This
eminent person had been consulted respecting
a case of great importance and much diffi-
culty ; and he had been studying it with
intense anxiety and attention. After seve-
ral days had been occupied in this manner,
he was observed by his wife to rise from
his bed in the night, and go to a writing desk
which stood in the bed-room. He then sat
down, and wrote a long paper, which he put
carefully by in the desk, and returned to bed.
The following morning he told his wife that
he had had a most interesting dream ; — that
he had dreamt of delivering a clear and lumi-
nous opinion respecting a case which had
exceedingly perplexed him ; and that he
would give anything to recover the train of
thought which had passed before him in his
dream. She then directed him to the writing
desk, where he found the opinion clearly and
1 Intelleohxal Powers, p. 303.
36 BAXTER. LA MOTHE LE VAYER.
fully written out ; and it was afterwards found
to be perfectly correct." ^
I may add, that Richard Baxter, no poet, but
a grave divine and controversialist, declares of
himself, " Many a time (in dreams) my reason
hath acted for a time as regularly and much
more forcibly than it doth when I am awake." ^
An author of entirely different character
and pursuits — La Mothe le Vayer' — writes
thus : " Cardan affirms in his Treatise on the
Immortality of the Soul, that he owes many
geometrical demonstrations to the reasonings
of his mind while he slept; for that whenhewas
composing the books of his new geometry, he
accomplished when sleeping what he could not
have dared promise from himself when awake.
And I can assure you that it has happened
to me, as well as to many others, to have had
thoughts in the most profound sleep, which
I reviewed with astonishment on awaking,
and that when I have been able to remember
the terms in which I had put them, whether in
verse or in prose, I have admired the advan-
1 Intellectual Powers, pp. 303—305.
2 Reasons of Christian Religion, (Appendix,) p. 543.
3 He is styled by Hallam, "universally a sceptic." —
Literature of Europe, v. ii. p. 510. — See Note B, at the end of
this volume.
TARTINI. LOCKE. 37
tage which the superior part (the spirit) had
taken during the torpor of the other. "^
A case of a different kind from all these is
thus referred to by Dr. Moore. *' Tartini, a
celebrated violin player, composed his famous
' Sonata del Diavolo/ while he dreamed that
the devil challenged him to a trial of skill on
his own violin." ^
This sonata is extant ; and an ingenious
writer, already quoted, refers to it as the
" exquisite product" of " the dream, as it is
termed, of Tartini." ^
His supposition that Tartini's and some
other dreams might be not strictly such, but
rather waking reveries, appears to me unsus-
tained by any proof.
These facts may at least sufficiently refute
the indirect assertion of Mr. Locke, when he
says, " 'Tis a wonder that the soul should
retain none of its more rational soliloquies
and meditations ;"* (i. e. which occurred in
sleep.) He evidently means to intimate, by
an irony, that such did not occur. But the
^ CEiivres, fol. ed. torn. ii. (bound as torn, iii.) p. 662.
^ Power of the Soul over the Body, p. 121.
3 Dendy on Dreaming, p. 108. * Essay, book ii. c. i. p. 47.
E
38 VARIETY OF DREAMING THOUGHT.
facts show, both that they have occurred,
and that some of them have been retained.
And if none had been so, this would have
afforded no proof of their non-occurrence:
for, as Dr. Abercrombie again observes, (in a
different part of his work from the passage
before cited,) " there can be no doubt that
many dreams take place which are not remem-
bered, as appears from the fact of a person
talking in his sleep so as to be distinctly
understood, without remembering anything
of the impression that gave rise to it." '
It is very observable, that the subjects of
mental exertion in dreams, which have been
thus recorded, are most unlike each other :
imaginative invention, musical composition,
mathematical calculations and problems, poli-
tics, law ; — and the witnesses as unlike in
opinions, pursuits, and habits : the sceptic, the
Christian, — the physician, the poet, the vio-
linist, the advocate, the diplomatist, the divine.
The testimony fully warrants, in my
judgment, the conclusion of Bishop Newton ;
who grounded it, not on these facts, but on
others of the same kind. " It is very evi-
^ Intellectual Powers, p. 305.
BISHOP NEWTON. 39
dent," he writes, " that the soul is in great
measure independent of the body, even while
she is within the body; since the deepest
sleep that possesseth the one cannot affect
the other ; and while the avenues of the body
are closed, the soul is still indued with sense
and perception, and the impressions are often
stronger, and the images more lively, when
we are asleep than when awake. They must
necessarily be two distinct and different sub-
stances, whose natures and properties are so
very different, that while the one shall sink
under the burden and fatigue of the day, the
other shall still be fresh and active as the
flame; while the one shall be dead to the
world, the other shall be ranging in thought
through the universe. Why then should the
death of the one be any more the death of
the other, than the sleep of the one is the
sleep of the other ? Since the soul can think
and act in this manner without the body,
even while united to it, why should she not
be able to think and act in a more enlarged
and more exalted manner, when separated
from the body, or united to a spiritual body
that shall no longer hinder her operations ?
40 BISHOP NEWTON.
Since the soul hath her distinct joys and
sorrows, pleasures and pains, while the body
is senseless and asleep, why should she not
be capable of the same, when the body shall
be no more ?"*
' Dissert, xxvi. Works, vol. iii. pp. 193-4, abridged.
' SEPARATE SPIRIT.' 41
SECTION IV.
This brings us to the abstruse question,
in what manner the soul may be best con-
ceived capable of thought and emotion when
our external bodily frame is dissolved. The
difficulty of apprehending " unextended sub-
stance," and of conceiving the locality of a
being which is quite apart from matter, has
supplied materialists with one chief objection
against the existence of spirit at all : although
Locke, from whom they have tried to derive
support, has said most truly, "if the notion of
spirit have great difficulties in it, we have
thereby no more reason to deny or doubt the
existence of spirits than of bodies ; for the
notion of body is hard and perhaps impossible
to be explained." ^ He adds, " it is no more
a contradiction that thinking should exist
separate from solidity, than that solidity
should exist separate from thinking." -
1 Essay, book ii. c. xxiii. § 31, p. 168, abridged.
* Essay, book ii. c. xsiii. § 32, p. 168, abridged; and see
pp. 159, 166.
E 3
42 ETHEREAL VEHICLE.
The objection, however, is in fact built on
a supposition not capable of proof, and I think
very improbable, — namely, that the soul is
separated from all matter at death. Many
good and wise men have believed, on the
contrary, that " perfect spirituality, utterly
separate from matter in any possible state, is
the exclusive attribute of Deity," ^ — " the
prerogative of the Divine Being alone."*
Bishop Newton deems it most probable that
even spirits superior to man are " clothed
with some fine aerial or ethereal vehicle, and
that the only perfectly pure" (meaning unem-
bodied) " spirit in the universe is God." ^ So
Augustine, and others of the Christian Fathers,
fully held. * The learned Broughton thinks
that "with exquisitely fine ethereal bodies
all created spirit is naturally clothed." ^
It is well known to have been a tenet
of the Pythagorean philosophy, entertained
> Robert Hall. Works, vol. v. p. 59.
2 Doddridge. Lectures, vol. ii. p, 420.
3 Dissert. 1. Works, vol. vi, p. 70.
* Burnet, de Stat. Mort. p. 169 ; and Cudwortli, Intell. Syst.
vol. iv. pp. 8, 37—42.
' Bronghton on Puturity, pp. 405-6, and p. 120.
PYTHAGOREAXS. PLATO. GALEN, 43
afterwards by Plato and his followers, that
the human soul has an interior luciform ethe-
real body, which remains united to it after
death/ "Plato," (Bishop Berkeley writes,)
" compares the soul to a charioteer that guides
and governs a chariot, not unfitly styled
avyoeLdeg oxrifxa, a luciform sethereal vehicle ;
terms expressive of the purity, lightness,
subtilty and mobility of that fine celestial
nature in w^hich the soul immediately resides
and operates." ^ Galen, the greatest physio-
logist of antiquity, writes of this as " the
primary vehicle of the soul," and as " ex-
tended throughout the brain." ^ AndHierocles
observes, " to our lucid or splendid (interior)
body this mortal body is but an accession." *
Several Christian Fathers held this opinion.
Irenaeus and Origen were of the same per-
1 Cudworth, Intell. System, vol. iii. pp. 523—529.
2 Chuiii of Philosophical Reflections, &c. pp. 78-9. Quoted
in Broughton on Futurity, p. 120.
3 In his work on Hippocrates, cited in Cudw. Intell. Syst.
iii. pp. 523-5.
4 Ibid. p. 524.
The Eabbis also wrote much of this refined or subtile
body, from which the soul is not to be separated. See quota-
tions from their Hebrew in Wollaston's Religion of Nature,
p. 197, note.
44 CHRISTIAN FATHERS ON THP: ' VEHICLE.'
suasion, that the soul after death had a certain
subtile body still united to it, having the
same characterising form (eicoc ■)(apaKTr)pLi^or).^
Dr. Cudworth remarks, that they and other
ancients who adopted this tenet did not regard
it as in the least inconsistent with that of
a future resurrection ; and also that " although
it agrees with the Pythagoric, they were led
into it by scripture itself :" ■ as by the " his-
toric phenomena of angels in the scripture,"
by the account of the E,ich Man and Lazarus in
Hades, and by St. Paul's expression, "the
earthly house of this tabernacle," where Ori-
gen and Methodius distinguish the " earthly
house," (or dwelling,) the mortal body, from the
tabernacle (7-0 aKrjvog), vehicle, or subtile body
which, with the soul, is " burdened " by that
mortal earthly dwelling.^ And in fact, the "co-
verings" of the Hebrew " tent" or tabernacle in
the wilderness may possibly have suggested this
peculiar figure. The outer covering, " covering
above," * was of coarse and heavy skins; while the
» Cudw. InteD. Syst. vol. iv. pp. 17, 18, 50,51.
2 Ibid. p. 45, el scqq.
3 Ibid. pp. 51, 52.
■* Exod. xxvi. 14; xxxvi, 19.
HARTLEY. PALEV. 45
inner curtains, forming properly the tent itself,
were of fine twined linen, and the veil within
these was probably of more subtile and curious
device. The " covering above " might not
unfitly be named " the house of this taber-
nacle." If that were taken down or fell, the
fine curtains or finer veil might still be
a vehicle for that pure and luminous glory
which was symbolic of a spiritual and living
Presence.
Dr. Hartley observes, that " an infinitesi-
mal elementary body, intermediate between
the soul and gross body, appears to be
no improbable supposition." ^ Dr. Paley in-
directly favours the notion of a material and
inseparable vehicle of the spirit, when he
writes, — " If any one find it too great a strain
upon his thoughts, to admit the notion of
a substance strictly immaterial, that is, from
which extension and solidity are excluded, he
can find no difliculty in allowing, that a
particle as small as a particle of light, minuter
than all conceivable dimensions, may just as
easily be the depositary^ the organ, and the
vehicle of consciousness, as the congeries of
1 Observations on Man, vol. i. p. 34%
46 VEHICLE, MICKOSCOPIC RESEARCH.
animal substance which forms a human body,
or the human brain ; that, being so, it may-
transfer a proper identity to whatever shall
hereafter be united to it ; may be safe amidst
the destruction of its integuments ; may
connect the natural with the spiritual, the
corruptible with the glorified body." ^
This may be thought by some scientific
readers an unsuitable digression into con-
jectural and antiquated philosophy and theo-
logy : but if the theory of an inseparable
vehicle of the soul — favoured as I think it is
by the phenomena of dreaming — facilitate our
conception of consciousness and emotion in
our proximate and intermediate state, it were
strange if it should fail to interest us. It
appears also to acquire, from the microscopic
researches of our day, a constantly increasing
probability. Knowing as we do, on good
testimony, that "animalcules exist so minute
that myriads can swim in a drop of water,
and yet each one possesses organs of digestion,
circulation, &c. made uj^, necessarily, of an
immense number of atoms," ^ — we have such
1 Evidences, vol. ii. p. 393.
2 Bird's Natural J'liilosophy, p. 5,
PLATONISTS. TENUITY. 47
practical proof of the tenuity which may
characterise an organized vehicle of the hu-
man mind as the ancients could not possess.
Although the later Platonists supposed this
vehicle physically indivisible,^ — so that it
might well warrant the poetical description
of La Fontaine —
" An atom's qnintessence, an extract of the light," -
still they were quite ignorant of the fact that or-
ganized life actually so approaches this exility,
that to one class of infusory animalcules the
name monas seems, in a figure, suitably enough
applied. If this assist us to conceive of the
spirit's retaining an inexpressibly subtile or-
ganism when it lays down this exterior frame,
by which it may still have and express thought
and emotion, till it " superindue "^ that form
which shall be " spiritual " and immortal, —
the microscopic facts have for me a deeper
interest as illustrations of this probability,
than as mere facts. While valuino^ all scien-
1 See Proclus, quoted in Barclay, on Life and Organization,
p. 437.
2 "Quintessence d'atorae,extrait delalumiere,"--Pab.liv.x. 1.
2 A word used by Cudworth.
48 BROUGHTON. MATERIAL VEHICLE.
tific investigation of the works of God, I
prize it and its results incomparably most, as
they throw light on His highest attributes
and on our own noblest prospects.
An author already quoted has a passage to
this effect. — " The soul, we know by experi-
ence, retains ideas during sleep. For of what
else do dream^s consist ? And we know that
the bodily senses are at that time as it were
locked up, and the tie or connexion between
soul and body considerably loosened or re-
laxed. Why then may not the soul retain its
ideas when the connexion is quite dissolved,
and the body lies asleep in death ? We shall
the more readily believe this, if we admit the
hypothesis of the soul's material vehicle, com-
posed of most exquisitely fine particles of
matter. For if the so^l receive now its ideas
by means of impressions made on this vehicle
or clothing, which is inseparable from it and
departs with it from the body, we can the
more easily conceive how ideas accompany it
into the world of spirits." '
It was stated in the lines prefatory to these
' Broughton (preh. of Sarum, and vicar of St. Mary Red-
cliif, Bristol) on Futurity, pp. 121, 122, abridged and altered.
I
author's experience. 49
Essays, that little or nothing can be advanced
from my personal experience which would
illustrate our subject. What will be now
briefly mentioned may perhaps be excepted, if
it shall appear, as it does to myself, to favour
the opinion of some such interior organism,
not essentially affected by the state of the body,
and probably not separable from the spirit.
During painful returns of chronic indisposi-
tion, characterised by much mental languor
and depression, when unable to bear a part in
intercourse even with near friends, it has
happened to me, while asleep, to be engaged
in very animated and pleasing conversation,
sustaining, of course, the parts both of myself
and of one or more companions in the dreaming
interview ; and great has been the disappoint-
ment, on waking, to find the fetter and the
burden still fixed, from which in sleep the
mind had been transiently released.
I would, indeed, that those dreams had
been far more like what an American poetess
describes, when she writes —
" Is it not sweet
To 'scape from stern reality, and glide
Where'er wild fancy marks her fairy way
Unlimited? If adverse fortune make
50 SIGOURNEY. MEDICINAL DREAMS.
Our pillow stony, like tlie patriarch's bed
At lonety Bethel, do uot pitying dreams
Plant a bright ladder for the angels' feet,
And change our hard couch to the gate of heaven ? "
And again —
" If thou wilt seek the fellowship of dreams,
And make them friends, they e'en may bear thee up
From star to star, and let thee hear the rush
Of angel-wings upon God's errands speeding ;
And while they make some silver cloud thy car,
Will wliispering tell thee that the unslumbering soul
Wears immortality upon its crest,
And by its very power to soar with them
Proves that it cannot die." ^
I regret that my own dreams, whether in
sickness or health, have been exceedingly
below this most exalted character ; still, such
as they were, they have at times proved some-
what medicinal : for although to awake from
them into the sense of great lassitude and
anxiety has been indeed gloomy, yet has
reflection on that very contrast tended to
nourish hope that the mind, thus emancipated
in sleep, might again be one day permitted to
act pleasurably and with alacrity when the
frame was awake ; that some residue of latent
energy was thus evinced, which God's provi-
' Mrs. Sigourney, a Christian authoress of niucli talent.
Pocahontas and other Poems, pp. 302-3.
DREAMING CONTRAST. 51
dence could yet suddenly or gradually call
forth to animate the duties and intercourses
of waking life. This kind of fact therefore
deserves to be ranked, at least in my esteem,
as among the more special providential ends
to which dreams may conduce ; a topic which
will be entered on subsequently. But it is
adduced here as appearing to favour the
opinion under discussion. It is an instance
where the bodily frame performs its functions
languidly, — where the cerebral organs and
nerves, in sympathy with the rest, are spe-
cially affected, — and yet where the mind,
which in waking hours, at such periods,
shrinks with conscious incompetence from
social converse and engagements, enters into
these in sleep with vivacity and earnestness.
Does it then so enter into them, by a total self-
abstraction and isolation, attained by sleep,
from organs, nerves, and matter altogether ?
That seems quite improbable, if only from
the very nature of the social scenes which
those dreams have presented : not to speak at
present of the prior question whether such
entire abstraction from matter be ever or-
dained or permitted for created minds. But
52 ETHEREAL VEHICLE.
if it be not by such entire abstraction, or total
separateness of action from the body, that the
mind so acts in sleep, then, it may be justly
asked, — lioiv does it act at that season ? By
what conceivable way, in such a state of the
body, and of the brain in particular, does the
mind exert itself with such contrasted anima-
tion, vigour, and promptitude, — except by
acting during sleep, in some conjunction with,
or through the medium of, an interior vehicle ?
What third supposition or solution can be
i'ramed ?
On the whole, my impression is, that the
theory of the mind's operating, after its sepa-
ration from the mortal body, by means of an
ethereal vehicle, separable with it from our
external frame, at any rate greatly aids the
imagination with respect to the then continued
action of the spirit, and that the phenomeiia
of dreaming, especially when so explained,
further help to facilitate our conception of
this.
SLEEP OF THE SOUL. 53
SECTION V.
It may be here asked — Do you then adopt
and advocate the doctrine of the " sleep of
the soul " ? The answer to that query must
depend altogether on what sense is attached
to the phrase. If it be taken or meant to
describe such a " profound sleep " as is sup-
posed to amount to " total insensibility " ^ or
suspension of consciousness, which seems to
be what has been most usually understood by
the phrase " sleep of the soul ; " for tliat, it is
manifest, no plea is offered, but for the very
contrary.
There is, however, another sense of the
word sleep, much more analogous to its real
ordinary meaning, in which I conceive it may
very fitly describe (though of course very
imperfectly) the state of the separated spirit.
' Whately. Scripture Revelations of a Eiiture State, pp. 93, 9"2.
F 3
54 DR. WATTS. DR. T. BURNET.
It is in this sense that Watts would have
the word employed, when he puts the fol-
lowing objection, — "How comes death to
be called so often in scripture a sleep, if the
soul wakes all the while ? " — and answers it by
this second query, — " Why is the repose of
the man every night called sleep, since the
soul wakes, as appears by a thousand dreams ?
But, as a sleeping man ceases to act in the
affairs of this world, though the soul be not
dead or unthinking, so death is called sleep,
because during that time men are cut off
from the businesses of this world, though the
soul think and act in another." ^
Dr. Thomas Burnet of the Charterhouse, in
his Latin treatise " on the state of the dead,
&c." remarks, that " in scripture they are said
to sleep ; which intimates a state of rest,
silence, and cessation of work, that is, as to
the outward world ; so that we have no more
communication with it in the state of death
than in the state of sleep;" ^ and he afterwards
adds, " It is however to be noted, that when a
1 Watts's Works, vol. i. p 544, 4'to cd. ; .vud as quoted in
JIuTitingford's Testinnonies, pp. 38-34.
^' De Statu Mortuovum, &c. p. 98.
IXWARD ACTIVITY. EULER. 55
cessation of work is attributed to tlie souls of
the dead, we are not to understand this as
universal and of every kind, inward as well as
outward, but outward only ; so that they ope-
rate or affect nothing in the corporeal world,
nor are any way affected by it. Yet they
have, meantime, life, and indwelling or imma-
nent thoughts (cogitationesimmanentes). As
Christ said of the deceased patriarchs, they
" all live " unto God ; i. e. in relation to Him
and the invisible world, and in regard to their
intellectual powers, they live and act with
vigour (viviint vifjentque)." ^
The distinguished Swiss mathematician,
Leonard Euler, (in a passage part of which
has been already cited,) writing of the state of
the soul after death, observes, " Sleep likewise
furnishes something like an example (pre-
figuration) of this : as the union of soul and
body is then in a great measure interrupted,
yet the soal ceases not from activity, being
employed in the production of dreams. These
are usually disturbed by the remaining influ-
ence which the senses exercise; and we know
^ Burnet- Dc Statu Mortuoiuni, &c. pp. 99, 100.
56 EULER. HARTLEY. BONNET.
by experience, that the more this influence is
suspended, which is the case in profound
sleep, the more regular and connected are
our dreams. Thus after death we shall find
ourselves in a more perfect state of dreaming,
which nothing shall be able to discompose.
It will consist of representations and reasonings
perfectly well kept up" (sustained).^
Dr. Hartley remarks, " Upon the whole we
may guess, that though the soul (after death)
may not be in an insensible state, yet it will
be in a passive one, somewhat resembling a
dream, and not exert any great activity till
the resurrection." -
The Genevese naturalist, Charles Bonnet,
throws out, in his remarks on sleep, this
passing inquiry — " Is the state of the soul,
when separated from this mortal body, (corps
grossier,) that of a perpetual dream — pleasing
for the good, painful for the wicked ? " ^^ —
a suggestion that may recal to English me-
mories the well-known soliloquy which, one
' Letters of Euler to a German Princess, vol, i. p. 359,
abridged. This passage is given from an English translation,
which is wanting in elegance, I would hope not in faithfulness.
2 Observations on Man, vol. ii. p. 41 fi.
3 Contrmpl. de la IN'atnre, (oin. i. p. 103.
INTEK-MEDIATE STATE. 57
would hope, has checked some meditated
suicides : —
" la that sleep of death what dreams may come,
Must give us pause ! "
Many have seen in the catacombs of Paris
(which are now closed) the infidel's chosen
inscription, " Death is an eternal sleep:" but
what is gained for their object of repose, by
those whose wish was " father to that thought,"
if the "eternal sleep" they coveted should
prove also a perpetual and an evil dream ?
After all — it may be said — that " sleep of
the soul," although it should be a vividly
conscious and ever-^/'eam?"/?^ sleep, can scarcely
be called real and substantial life. Its vision-
ary and " phantastic " character cannot equal
or emulate the clearness and assurance of
a waking state.
But I rather believe, that while as to ex-
terior action and communication it confessedly
cannot, it yet as to interior cogitation and
emotion may ; and, in this sense of life, maybe
fairly called quite real and substantial. A the-
orem, or problem, or calculation, evolved in a
dream, is as real and true as if it had been
completed in the state of waking ; and the
58 THE CHRYSALIS.
feeling of lively joy or deep sadness in our
sleep is as actual and acute while it lasts as if
we experienced it in a waking hour.
Bonnet, writing of the state of the chry-
salis, observes, (as some will think, fancifully,
or even absurdly,) "In this state the activity
of the (insect's) mind does not exert or de-
velop itself outwardly. The state may be
compared to that of sleep. I will not, there-
fore, decide that the activity of the insect's
mind does not operate inwardly. It (the
chrysalis) may have dreams, by the remem-
brance of sensations which it experienced in
the caterpillar state."* This may appear
childish or preposterous to some. Yet few
people doubt that beagles and lapdogs have
dreams : and, if so, why should not the poor
chrysalis have its soothing reveries, and the ^
butterfly enjoy some brilliant trance in her
siesta on a roseleaf ?
Although there be, doubtless, between sleep
and waking a broad and manifest distinction,
still how equivocal in some sense, and evanes-
cent, is the reality (so called) of our present
waking life ! Is not that true concerning
EsStai Analytifjup, torn. ii. p. 226.
SCENES AND THOUGHTS FLEETING. 59
most of our daily imaginings and hopes and
fears, which the great poet last quoted has
said of our " palaces " and " temples," and of
this " great globe itself," that with respect to
earthly 'remembrance they vanish and " dis-
solve," and like an
" insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wreck beliind ? "
So that he not unfitly adds, as it regards
our mortal condition,
" We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our L'ttle life
Is rounded with a sleep." ^
The contrast, to be stated even in sober
prose, between dreams in sleep and the scenes
and thoughts of our waking mortality is not
so strong and absolute as may be at first con-
ceived. There are deep meanings in a later
poet's query, —
" Is not the past all shadow ? — What are these ? —
Creations of the mind ! — The mind can make
Substance ; and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms that shall outlive all flesh."
^ Tempest. Act iv.
60 THE VEHICLE. LEIBNITZ.
SECTION YL
Returning, for a short time, to our hypo-
thesis of the innermost body — the probably
inseparable vesture of the soul, I may cite
the belief of the philosopher Leibnitz, " that
all souls, all simple created substances, are
always joined with a body, and that none are
ever entirely separated from it." ^
He also says, " I judge this the only tenable
conclusion, the conservation, namely, not only
of the soul but of the organic machine, al-
though the dissolution of thegross or ponderous
parts has reduced it to a minuteness which
escapes our senses." ^
He elsewhere contends that " no derange-
ment of visible organs" (meaning not even
death itself) "is capable of producing entire
1 Nouvcaux Essais, p.l3; quoted in Bonnet, Palingenesie,
torn. i. p. 291.
2 0pp. torn, ii. p. 51 ; quotpclin Dissert, i. prefixed to Encyc.
Brit. ed. vii. p. 259.
ARCHBISHOP WHATELV. 61
confusion, and depriving the soul of all its
organic body." '
Now it is to me very apparent, as has been
already argued, that this notion of a latent
and refined organic vehicle renders our con-
ception of the unbroken consciousness and
inward activity of a spirit, when separated
from the gross mortal body, much the more
distinct and credible ; and also that the phe-
nomena of dreaming materially conduce to
support it : nor can I cease to believe the
consciousness of the spirit so separated,
whether viewed on Christian or philosophic
grounds, to be a tenet of great weight and
interest.
It is true, we must needs agree with
Archbishop Whately, that " on the supposi-
tion of utter unconsciousness of the separate
spirit " the time of this " total insensibility "
is to the spirit itself " no time at all." — " To
the party concerned there is " (as he adds) '* no
interval whatever."^ But when this very
* Nouveaiix Essais ; quoted in Bonnet, Palingenesie, torn. i.
p. 298.
2 Script. Revelations of a Future State, pp. 9-2M, edit. 5,
1842.
G
62 WHATELY ON ETERNITY.
eminent logician goes on to affirra, that there
would not be in that " any loss of happiness
that might otherwise have been enjoyed during
the interval," ^ from this, although it may be
rash in one not trained in the academic use of
logical weapons, I am constrained to differ.
The learned writer says, "that Avhich is
taken from eternity does not shorten it." ^
Does not this proposition, as here applied,
involve the paradox that eternity which had
a heginning, (and such must be the constant
meaning of the word when applied, as above,
to creatures,) is as long, as great, as eternity
which had no beginning, — or that an endless
line to be drawn from any point is as long as
the same line protracted infinitely from the
same point in two opposite directions ?
The archbishop adds, " if we are all destined,
as we are, to live /or eve?^ he that is born, for
example, a thousand years earlier, cannot be
said to have a longer life than he who is born
a thousand years later." ^ Now to object to
that position because it would seem to involve
this indefensible consequence, that even He
^ Script. Revelations of a Future State, p. 99.
2 Ibid. p. 100. 3 ii5i(i. p. 100.
ETERNAL LIFE POTENTL\.L. 63
who was " from everlasting " could not then
be said to have a longer life than the angel or
the infant formed to-day, who is " to live for
ever," — might be fallacious, as well as pre-
sumptuous : inasmuch as the Divine Existence
being regarded as simultaneous and insucces-
sive, the term " long," and similar terms, may
in no way be applicable to it.
But the phrase, " to live for ever," when
spoken of human beings, describes only a
potential life, a life future or which is to he,
but of which it never can be affirmed, now or
hereafter, that it is, or is complete. The actual
life of a creature — according, at least, to all
our conceptions — is only the past and present,
and will be still so millions of ages hence.
Although it be, at all periods, potentially, and
in God's purpose, infinite, it is, at all periods,
actually, finite. That which will he for ever
endless, is and must be for ever actually a
finite sum ; and whatever is taken out of that
actually finite amount, namely, out of the
past, has by so much shortened it.
It is admitted that any even finite period,
be it a thousand or a million of years, will at
length be a fraction vanishingly small of even
64 CENTURIES OF THE DECEASED.
another finite period which will have past :
but this does not prove, to my apprehension,
that the many centuries since the death of
Noah or of Abraham are as nothing, and that
to have been totally unconscious during all
those ages, instead of living unto God, would
have been no loss ; or, which is tantamount,
that those patriarchs' centuries of conscious
repose and hope have been and are no gain.
On the contrary, I reckon there has been a
gain, even in the later instance, of more than
three millennia and a half; no small gain,
surely, in itself, however minute in proportion
to the vast future.
Then, further, the archbishop has been
already quoted, remarking (as others have
done) that " a series of events such as
would occupy several weeks or months will
appear to pass in a sleep of perhaps less than
an hour."^
The "Spectator"^ refers to Malebranche
as telling us that it is possible some creatures
may think half an hour as long as we do
a thousand years. I have not found these
1 Scripture Revelations, pp. 153, T54.
' No. 94, vol. ii. p. 54.
THEIR IDEAL PERIOD. MALEBRANCHE. 65
words inMalebranche; and if he were speaking
of lower creatures, he could not have used
them consistently, since he held the astounding
Cartesian dogma of their being mere machines.
But it is perhaps to the following passage that
Addison refers. " I doubt not " (writes Male-
branche) " but God can so apply our minds to
the parts of duration, by producing in us
a great number of sensations in a very little
time, as that an hour may appear as long as
many ages."^ To this Lord Brougham's
computation of dreaming time would most
approach, who thinks a dream lasting one
second may seem to last for years. But let us
keep far within these reckonings, and even
within Archbishop Whately's own. He sup-
poses the events of " weeks or months " to be
comprised in the dream of " an hour." Let
only those of the waking hours of 2i fortnight
be so, and then must the millennia which have
elapsed be more than two-hundredfold multi-
plied, in order to represent the ideal period of
thoughts and feelings which has been lived
through by the spirits of those patriarchs :
1 Recherche, (Search after Truth.) Translation, book i.
c.viii. vol. i. p. 51.
g3
66 SIMULTANEOUS IDEAS.
supposing, only, that the thoughts and emo-
tions of their separate state have equalled in
rapidity and multiplicity those which occur,
on a low computation, in the dreaming state.
Such I conceive to be allowable and proba-
ble inferences from the ascertained rapidity of
thought in this latter condition, and from that
resemblance of the former to it which some
philosophic minds anticipate.^
An acute inquirer on our subject, after
noticing this " incalculable rapidity," observes,
" in regard to the prospect of futurity, who of
us can decide that this is not one evidence of
the divine nature of mind — a remote resem-
blance, if I may presume so to write, of one
of His attributes to whom a thousand years
are as one day ?"^
The speculation here glanced at seems to
be, the possibility — when the mind is dis-
engaged from its mortal body — of the virtual
or real simuitaneousness of a plurality of
ideas. It would be an augmentation of the
human powers which we cannot appreciate,
1 See Watts, p. St; Burnet, p. 55 ; Eiilcr, p. 56 ; Hartley,
and Bonnet, ibid.; above.
^ Dondy on Dreams, pp. 37, -iO.
STUDY OF THE MIND. 67
if the mind should become capable to think
clearly even of two objects at one time.^
On all this the comment may be made by
some, — these are mere hypotheses, not scien-
tific facts : they refer also to what is in itself
ideal and intangible, and are without practical
utility. Hoping, however, not to be deemed
insensible to the importance of physical science,
I must equally hope that the reader is not so as
to the value of that which is above and beyond it.
It is a truism — and yet needs to be remem-
bered, — that the highest results of mathe-
matical or astronomical research, the most
recondite discoveries in chemistry or fossil
remains, or the most ingenious applications of
science to arts, agriculture, or manufactures,
all derive their existence from the mind itself,
which can alone either produce or estimate
or enjoy these results. The study, therefore,
of our thinking selves cannot (one would
judge) be of less interest than that of any
^ On the marvellous subject of omniscience, striking illus-
trations are offered in a remarkable chapter of Dr. McCulloch's
work on the Attributes, — " the coexistence of ideas in the
Divine ramd." — Vol. i. ch. xv. p. 380. See also Locke on
Pascal and on Angels. Essay, book ii. c. x. § 9, p. 7-3.
68 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS.
external and visible objects. But, it may be
said, much less sure and demonstrative.
Granting this — which, however, is not in all
respects beyond dispute — it may then be
rejoined, — whatever concerns and will always
concern us intimately and chiefly, cannot,
though it be more inscrutable in some respects,
deserve curiosity and attention less than what
affects us very slightly or indirectly, although
the latter should be more easy to investigate,
or more apparently practical in its application.
To observe the contests of microscopic
insects in a water-drop — " myriads of indivi-
duals, each of them as perfect in organization
as the mighty mammoth of old, or the saga-
cious elephant of our days, endowed with
distinct habits, propensities, and faculties,"^ —
to detect the organs of the infusoria, or pursue
with Dalton the ultimate atoms in their latent
forms — is doubtless exceedingly interesting,
as it unveils the recesses of creative skill ;
but it cannot, methinks, be less so to infer —
from these facts, which show how prodigiously
matter is subtilised while yet regularly or-
ganised — how our thinking self may carry
' Dr. Millingen. Ciiriositiei'i of Mpdical Exprripnco, p. 359.
POPE. ZIMMERMANN. 69
with it, and wear upon it, some extremely
attenuated organism in the dreaming or medi-
tative repose of Hades, and then assume a
yet more " spiritual " body for the waking life
and active rest of Heaven.
It seems fair to judge, that they who deem
this a less worthy object of study than the
pursuits of Faraday or Ehrenberg, betray a
distaste for the knowledge of their present
and future selves which is not to be admired,
even in a merely intellectual point of view.
Pope's weighty maxim,
" The proper study of mankind is man,"
must, of course, not be taken in a restrictive
or exclusive sense ; but, in its intended and
legitimate meaning, it cannot by the truly
wise be discarded.
Before passing from our immediate topic—
that of the separated spirit's probable state of
reverie, and of the ethereal vehicle in which it
may act — to those more general remarks
which will conclude the present Essay, it will
be appropriate to mention a singular dream,
relating to that separate state, which occurred
to Zimmermann, (the physician of George II.)
/O DREAM OF ZIMMERMANN.
and is recorded by Lavater in one of liis
letters to him.
" I add," (he writes,) '' as a phenomenon
from which perhaps some idea may be deduced
as to the state of the soul after death, that
remarkable dream which you yourself had,
my dearest Zimmermann, in November, 1765.
The true narrative of such an experience, by
a man who is the sworn foe of all superstition,
and who contemns the remotest approach to
fanaticism, is of great value. This dream of
yours is worthy of notice on two accounts :
first, in so far as it may be considered gene-
rally to have arisen from an unusual state of
the soul, which perhaps resembles its condition
after the death of the body ; and secondly, as
it contains and suggests some very probable
ideas respecting that condition of the separated
spirit. You saw your wife — whose decease
had been announced to you — in a beautiful
and aerial form and garb, in her modest tran-
quil loveliness, yet with an aspect of somewhat
strange solemnity.
" She approached you with an amiable
majesty not to be described, and with the
disclosure, 'that she had experienced things
I
COULD NOT BE FULLY TOLD. < 1
which no man had ever conjectured ; that the
powers of her soul had been infinitely exalted
and enlarged ; that she had looked through
the transient past in all its causes and se-
quences ; that each present moment was for
her as a sea of ideas, but the future still some-
what dark ; that she was inexpressibly happy,
and yet not perfectly so ; that her whole past
course of life ever floated before her mind ;
that every thought, every disposition, not
leading decidedly to that towards which all
her wishes were now directed, appeared to
her a fault, and gave her uneasiness ; that
she felt a sort of helplessness when contem-
plating the way to heaven ; that in heaven
she was not yet ; judgment had not yet
occurred ; that brilliant clouds as yet veiled
from their view that blissful home, and thither,
thither, they were pressing.' You told me,
further, that you had asked of your wife a
number of weighty questions, which she so
answered, that you saw clearly what the
greatest mind among mortals could never
have attained the remotest glimpse of; but
that in the attempt to note these down you
awoke, and then, notwithstanding the most
72 ITS ELEVATED IDEAS.
Strenuous efforts at recollection, were unable
to recal the sublime, and new, and prescient
ideas, which in the dream you were anxious to
record." '
On the more special design and use which
may be traceable or supposable in dreams of
such an order as this, nothing will be said at
present. That branch of the subject will
occupy us in the subsequent Essay. The
general character of this dream, and of some
others — namely, that extraordinary affluence
and elevation of ideas which the dreamer
experienced — appears to be in part explained,
though rather vaguely, by Addison, at the
close of his paper on sleep, where he writes,
"I do not suppose that the soul, in these
instances, is entirely loose and unfettered
from the body : it suffices if she is not so
immersed in matter, nor so entangled and
perplexed in her operations, as when she
actuates the machine in her waking hours.
The corporeal union is slackened enough to
give the mind more play."^
' Lavater, Aussichten, torn. i. brief 7, pp. 141, H-i. See
Note C, at the end of this volume.
'^ Spectator, No. 487.
REFINED VEHICLE. 73
Some approach to a less indistinct explana-
tion of this is made, as it seems to me, by the
hypothesis which has been brought before the
reader, — that of an exquisitely refined vehicle
in close connexion with the spirit, acting
when the functions and influences of the
exterior body are peculiarly suspended ; a
theory which I conceive casts some faint
light, at least, both on the present occasional
action of the mind in sleep, and on its pro-
bable action in that next condition, which,
with reference to the exterior body, is fitly
called the " separate state."
74 USE OP THIS INQUIRY.
SECTION VII.
This inquiry, imperfect as it is, will not be
fruitless, if it corroborate for any mind the
probabilities which exist, independently of
the Christian revelation, of a spiritual sub-
stance and a life to come ; and if it assist our
conception and belief that the spirit will con^
tinue to experience good or evil immediately
after death, and before union to that immortal
" indument " with which, if itself renewed, it
shall be at length invested and adorned.
Some, however, while admitting that the
design is good, may object that the arguments
are for such purposes superfluous, since we
have the scriptures to rest upon, and " there
is firm footing ; " whereas all else is fanciful
or unsure. Why, they may ask, attempt to
add frail props or flying buttresses, Avhen the
" pillar and ground " of God's truth uphold so
strongly the great edifice of our hopes ? But
the fact (as I conceive) should be never
COLLATERAL PROOFS VALUABLE. 75
slighted or forgotten, that while in our age
the strength of revealed proof has been evinced
and searched and recognised afresh, — in our
age likewise insidious modifications of un-
belief abound ; while some learned Chris-
tians, when insisting on the need of tradition
and authority, have, for the sake of en-
forcing this, most strangely depreciated the
character of evidence derived from nature
and from scripture. It is therefore to me
very apparent, that no collateral or prior and
independent proof — though it may be merely
of a presumptive character — concerning a
future life, and even concerning an imme-
diate life after death, can be rightly abandoned
or even overlooked.
Such arguments should be peculiarly oiFered,
to those who refuse serious attention to the
claims of revelation ; and ought to impress
them, at least, with this persuasion — that there
is much probable evidence, wholly apart from
God's word, for a state of consciousness fol-
lowing death, and following it immediately.
K, in any measure, they seriously accede to
that conclusion, it is adapted, by its intrinsic
importance, to attract or urge them further ;
76 IMPORTANCE OF FUTURITY.
for I see not how minds, even really suspecting
thus much, can with any colour of reason con-
temn or treat lightly the proposals of revealed
truth. If we are even at all lihelu to exist
after death, can it seem a matter of small
interest to investigate, as far as may be, what
we are to become — how to fare — with whom
to meet or sojourn ; — in that approaching state
" what dreams may come," — whether " of tor-
ture" or " the touch of joy ;" — and, above all,
what will be the circumstances and experience
of the full and final awaking ? But where
shall any light be obtained on these points,
except purely from scriptural sources ?
Yet that very weightiness of the matter
seems to be one reason — though perhaps
unacknowledged, and sometimes even latent
to those who are under its influence — why, by
some persons, researches on the mind are
depreciated, and physical science exclusively
preferred : namely, that the former lead
towards the contemplation of thoughts and
interests of graver hue or more momentous
import than they incline to dwell upon.
This is somewhat as if an inquisitive mer-
chant should cultivate a taste for anatomy or
PHYSICAL SCIENCE SECONDARY. 77
entomology, but avoid books or conversations
on political economy or finance ; half conscious
how these might indirectly remind him, that
it were well to look more closely into his own
ledger, or more frequently scrutinize his scale
of domestic expenditure.
True wisdom will incline us to welcome,
first and most, those inquiries which have
some bearing on our deepest interests and our
chosen aims.
To direct our researches exclusively to the
qualities and phenomena of matter, were to
forget all by which we perceive or explore
them — our own mind or spirit, and that
Infinite Spirit who is its Author.
If these existed not, what of real or perma-
nent in the universe could remain ? And
since these exist, what studies or sciences
beside can so intimately and intensely con-
cern us
If our present mortal condition be, in
some figurative sense, a " dream of life," — as
poetry has termed it, — or, as a far higher
authority avers, " a vapour that appeareth and
vanisheth away ; " if the next or intermediate
life be (in a different and stricter sense) a
H 3
78 THE CHRISTIAN. THE SCEPTIC.
state of dreaming or of contemplative reverie,
inexpressibly vivid and exalted ; if there be,
moreover, beyond both these, a waking blessed-
ness, which all who by God's help abjure
their pride and self-sufficiency may be " made
meet" to share, — then what shall be thought
even of our curiosity or love of knowledge,
unless it have, some way, a reference to that
state, where, with the rapid excursiveness of
the sublimest dreams, shall be combined the
clearness, continuousness, and progression of
the highest waking thoughts ?
Every the most indirect or reflected ray
which can be brought from science or ex-
perience to illustrate that great prospect,
must have some value. The prospect itself
is seen but as in an obscure and mystic
glass : yet there are in it features and aspects
of unearthly brightness : while the sceptic's
is altogether desolate and dim ; chill " shadows,
clouds, and darkness " resting on it, whatever
may be his intellectual power or imaginative
range.'
If inquiries or researches, in rvhatever
region, tend to support the highest truths and
1 Sec Note D, at tlic cud ol' this volume.
THEIR CONTRASTED PROSPECT. 79
noblest expectations, they have thus an in-
direct and accessory worth which is beyond
all computing ; — if not so, they must become,
even to the most ardent votaries of science, of
piteously small worth ere long.
The sceptic, by his own confession, is
" borne darkly, fearfully afar." If we follow
his flight, he leaves us gazing as on some vast
and brilliant " firemist," or some immense
but formless nebula : — while the believer
carries us amidst the warmth and harmony of
heavenly orbs, and hails them as the "man-
sions of his Father's house."
If each were but a dream, who would not
choose the Christian's ? what right and earnest
mind must not long to have it stamped with
the signet of reality ? who not prefer those
godlike visions which reveal the great First
Cause as a reconciled Father, and the divinely
opened way to filial union with Him who is
the Origin and Giver of all good, and thus to
an unfailing tenure of blessedness in full per-
petuity ?
Lideed, were this but a dream, then must
happiness, nay existence itself — as is feigned
in the hallucinations of a self-blinding philo-
80 HOPES OF TRUE THEISTS.
sophy — be but a mere dream likewise. Then
might we fitly deplore, with the author of
AdonaiSjthe rueful enigma of man's destiny : —
"Woe is me,
Whence are we, and why are we P Of what scene
The actors — or spectators ? "
But it cannot be so. The prospects of the
Cliristian rest on the basis of large and com-
plex evidence. The Deity is their author,
and His perfections their guarantee. Else,
weak and depraved man has dreamed or con-
ceived of something more great and good than
we can know that God has anywhere purposed
or devised. To imagine this were to deny a
God ; for it were to exclude the Perfect.
But if in Him, the Perfect, we really believe,
our belief involves the ennobling, inspiriting
persuasion, that whoever seek happiness in
the way which He prescribes, shall be "satis-
fied, when they awake, with His likeness."
ESSAY II.
ESSAY 11.
SECTION I.
In attempting to prosecute an inquiry of this
kind, one may encounter some discourage-
ment even from the casual question sometimes
heard in society, — what will be really under-
stood of the matter after all? — words in-
timating a belief of hopeless obscurity in the
subject, which we are constrained to acknow-
ledge has some degree of correctness. For,
without doubt, these phenomena of dreaming
are of a character peculiarly shadowy, vague,
and irregular; involving causes and operations
which utterly elude research. But this will
hardly be deemed a reason for not exploring
84 MYSTERY UNIVERSAL.
them, unless almost all studies should be re-
nounced on account of that impervious dark-
ness which soon and surely meets us, in
ascending or descending towards their several
objects.
Whether we contemplate — as is our duty
and our glory — the Infinite and Self-existent,
— or pass by a boundless descent from that
sole underived and self-sustaining Majesty
to the loftiest of created minds, — and thence,
without pausing at any step in the vast gra-
dation of lowlier spirit and of organized
matter, drop suddenly to a mere ultimate
atom, or a particle physically indivisible, —
the same unanswerable questions arise, con-
cerning the atom as concerning its Creator,
— what is it ? how does it subsist ? At the
lowest conceivable point of entity, as well as
at its glorious primal source, the same secrets
baffle us. Whether we bow before the Supreme
or trace diagrams in the sand, whether we
speak of the cedar or hyssop, of thoughts or
of dreams, we touch everywhere the veil and
verge of mystery ; and not to discern this,
were rather to vegetate than to think.
A different objection to the line of inquiry
IMPERFECT THOUGHTS IN DREAMS. 85
here pursued is current in some circles, and
is also found in books. It is to this effect,
— that dreams, physiologically considered,
plainly arise from broken remembrance and
diverse sensation acting on the nerves and
brain; shaped by the incidents of the past
day ; modified by health and diet ; produced
often by casual sound, or contact, or position
of the limbs ; and accordingly that the action
of our mind is then exceedingly imperfect;
as the utterly trivial and confused quality
of most dreams evinces. All this we may
generally admit ; without at all allowing it to
follow, either that every dream arises from
physical causes because very many do so, or
that the action of the mind is necessarily
feeble and confused in sleep because such is
most commonly the fact. It is much less
equitable than it is easy, to assert that some
have meant to represent the mind as having
in sleep powers equal or superior in all
respects to those of its waking state. Even
the learned and original, though somewhat
paradoxical. Sir Thomas Browne must not
be taken in too literal and large a sense. I
doubt not he wished, as he affirms, to pursue
I
86 GALEN. ANTONINUS.
sometimes in dreams his studies and devotions,
— as having experienced more vivid and
exalted thought in dreaming than when awake.
But we do not read of his wishing to prescribe
in dreams, or recommending his patients to
seek remedies in that way : — although Galen
and Hippocrates appear to have had faith in
such a method,^ and no less a person than the
emperor Marcus Antoninus wrote, " I am
thankful that remedies were pointed out to
me in dreams, for spitting of blood and for a
giddiness in my head, as I remember was the
case at Caieta and at Chrysa." ^
But there have been adduced in the fore-
going pages various and striking testimonies^
for the fact of intellectual power and activity
exercised in dreams ; which opposite instances,
were they ever so numerous, cannot overturn.
If we wished to prove intellectual power
in the negi^o race, (which was once denied,) —
and if, in an assembly for debate composed of
a hundred negroes, we found the most speak
' Millingen's Medical Curiosities, p. 307, and Peter Martyr,
loc. com. p. 20.
2 Graves's Antoninus, book i. p. G'i.
3 Pp. 28—37, above.
NEGRO MIND. RECAPITULATION. 87
rather childishly, and some even incoherently,
but yet a few who discussed the matter well,
and one or two who even spoke acutely on
both sides — keenly refuting points which
themselves had plausibly raised, (as some-
times happens in our dreams,) — we ought not
surely to measure the capacity of the negro
mind from the instances in which it was
undeveloped, but from the few which proved
what it could attain.
It may be advantageous very summarily to
review the chief topics and ultimate aim of
the preceding Essay.
After reference to the opinions on dream-
ing of some ancients and moderns, proofs were
offered, first, of the rapidity of thought in
dreams; second, of the mental power and
inventiveness evinced. An inquiry followed
on the probable manner of the soul's acting,
both in sleep and in the intermediate state.
After some notice of the objections to these
theories, the great application of the facts
was urged and vindicated, as reinforcing all
other proofs and probabilities both of a con-
scious life to come, and of the continuous
88 FURTHER DESIGN.
sequence of that conscious life through and
after the event of our mortal dissolution.
If these things were, with any fair measure
of conclusiveness, shown, we must see that
there has been an important design of Pro-
vidence in rendering dreams a part of the
human constitution and experience: since
they have conduced to infuse — in the absence
of revealed truth or in aid of traditional and
obscure disclosures, and even in support of
historical revelation which so many are dis-
posed to neglect or repudiate — the sense of a
spiritual and prescient power, and of a future
life; those great sanctions of moral obliga-
tion.
It will now be one of my further aims to
show, tliat this design of dreams, or of the
dreaming faculty, in general, has been also
pursued and promoted in the special character,
circumstances, and issue of some dreams in
particular. No doubt such dreams — like
divine miracles and prophecies — have given
rise, from the weakness and craft of mankind,
to many erring fancies, and many corrupt
imitations and false pretensions for gain : but
just so has the religious principle (or instinct
WHICH ABUSES DO NOT DISPROVE. 89
of worship) led, in the fallen mind of man, to
all the like deluding results. Are we to infer
thence, with Lucretius, that the religious
principle is deceptive and pernicious ? None
but virtual atheists can admit that inference.
Neither is a parallel inference admissible in
the case before us.
i3
90 MISUSE OF DREAMS.
SECTION II.
The object, however, of this Essay, as was
stated in the former, is twofold ; namely, to
discourage a fanciful and superstitious misuse
of dreams, as well as to vindicate the prevail-
ing impression that some have been ordered
for important ends by the providence of the
Supreme Ruler.
I would address myself first to the former
object ; adverting to those superstitions con-
cerning dreams, which in ancient times con-
spicuously prevailed, and which, to a certain
extent, are still subsisting. It was inevitable,
that from the singularity of some dreams, and
from what sometimes occurred — to say the
least — in seeming fulfilment of them, — there
would arise a desire to conjecture and inter-
pret, or to have this done by sagacious pro-
fessors; and that the covetousness and cunning
of men, ever on the watch for lucre, would
minister to this desire.
Accordingly we find, from all history, that
DIVINATION . MAG I. 91
divination by dreams had become in the
earliest ages a sort of profession. It formed
one branch of the occult art of soothsaying,
much resorted to by royal, noble, and opulent
personages. Thus the Egyptian Pharaoh
dreamed, " and his spirit was troubled, and he
called for all the magicians of Egypt and all
the wise men thereof, and told them his
dream ; but none could interpret it."^ Thus
the royal builder of Babylon "commanded
to call the magicians and the astrologers and
the sorcerers and the Chaldeans, for to show
the king his dreams."^ The same class of
sages is mentioned by Herodotus. He relates,
that a dream of Astyages, King of Media, con-
cerning his daughter Mandane, as explained
by the Magi, the interpreters of dreams, gave
the monarch great alarm.^
Cicero cites, from Dinon's Persian history,
the interpretation given by the Magi of a
dream of Cyrus, who had seen the sun at his
feet and tried to grasp it ; and Quintus Cicero,
1 Gen. xli. 2. ' Dan. ii. 2.
3 Herod, lib. i. c. 107, 109, Taylor's translation, pp. 51, 52.
He speaks also of the Magi interpreting a dream to Xerxes,
ibid. p. 485.
92 ASTYAGES. NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
telling a dream of his own, when Proconsul
of Asia, adds, " it was foretold to me by the
skilful in that science in Asia, that the events
would follow which did happen." ^
While this was likely to be a very gainful
profession, when the prognostications and
their issues met the wishes of the great, it
was, like other offices about despots, perilous
also. Astyages, from the revolt of his grand-
son Cyrus, learned that he had been misled
by the second interpretation of his wise men,
who at first had declared his dream to portend
that his grandson would usurp the throne,
but afterwards pronounced it fulfilled in his
having played the king among village boys ;
— and then " his first act, on sustaining a
defeat from Cyrus, was to empale those
Magian interpreters." ^
Although the historical accuracy of this nar-
rative may be questionable, it doubtless de-
scribes what might be expected from such a
prince ; which is confirmed by Nebuchadnez-
zar's procedure, who, when the Chaldeans failed
' De Divinatione, lib. i. cc. 23, 28. 0pp. t. ix. 3759, 3764.
3 Herod, lib. i. cc. 120, 122, 130, Taylor's version, pp.
62, .59, 63.
PERILS OF DIVLNEKS. JULIAN. 93
to divine what his dream had been, became
" very furious, and commanded to destroy
them." 1 Andrew Baxter truly observes,
'' though they seemed to be the first favourites,
yet their post was not very desirable; for if
they happened to mistake in some great
matter, it was at the peril of their lives."
Still these hazards did not deter men from a
profession, which, besides its great gainfulness
led, in case of success, to high reputation and
reverence.2
Plutarch tells us that a grandson of the
great Aristides (Lysimachus) plied constantly
near the temple of Bacchus at Athens, having
certain tables by which he interpreted dreams
for a livelihood,^
The emperor Julian, in a much later age,
"chose his favourites among those skilled in
occult science ; and those who pretended to
* Dan. ii. 12 ; verse 13 is rendered by the Septuagint and
Vulgate, " they were slain."
2 Timnrinhis autobiography, in times comparatively modern,
writes of the interpreters and learned of his cotirt as expound-
ing his dreams ; and the editor of that curious work refers to
the dreams of Tippoo Sultan as given in his published letters,
by Col. Kirkpatrick, in 1811.
^ Plutarch in Aristides. Wrangham, vol. iii. p. 187.
94 DELOS. HEATHEN PRIESTS.
reveal secrets of futurity were assured of
present honour and affluence." ^
This gain was often made by the priests.
Thus Brizo, who had the care of dreams, was
worshipped in Delos, and boatfuls of all sorts
of things were offered to her, except fish.^
It may be the assistant interpreters reckoned
fish in a small island no luxury, but rather
suited for fasts than festivals.
The offices are named together by Achilles.
" Haste we to consult
Priest, prophet, or interpreter of dreams,
Por dreams are also of Jove," 3
Readers of the ^neid will remember that
the good king Latinus in perplexity went to
the oracle of Faunus, where
" The priest on skins of offerings takes his ease,
And nightly visions in his slumher sees.
Hitlier— t' invoke the God — Latinus hies.
Offering a hundred sheep for sacrifice ;
^ Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. ii. p. 377.
2 Athenseus, lib, viii,, in Potter's Greek Antiq. vol. i. pp.
306,307.
a Tliad, book i. 1. 83, Cowper ; (1. 03, Greek.)
FEES FOR DIVINATION. 95
With whose soft fleeces (as the rites required)
Spread for his couch, — he lay in rest retired.
No sooner were his eyes in slumber bound.
Than from above a more than mortal sound
Invades his ear," &c. ^
So at the oracle of Amphiaraus at Oropus,
the inquirer, reposing on the victim's skin,
" expected a revelation by dream." ^ Now
whether the oveipoTroXog (versed in dreams)
meant in Homer — as Mr. Pope thought ^ — " a
good dreamer" for himself or others, or
whether an interpreter of dreams, there was
doubtless gain in view. If the priest in any
case filled both offices, the implicit faith thus
shown by the inquirer may lead us to suppose
a more willing and large oblation. But were
the sage a ragged fortune-teller, or a white-
robed sacrificer, — and whether the king brought
a whole flock, or the peasant slept on his only
lamb's skin, — the diviner or the conductor of
the rites was not without fee. It is true when
Penelope's dream about her geese was ex-
pounded by her own Ulysses in disguise, no
reward is represented by the poet as given or
1 jEneid, vii. 1. 86, Dryden's version altered.
2 Potter's Greek Antiq. vol. i. p. 294.
3 Pope's Hiad, vol. i. p. 16.
96 DREAM OP PENELOPE.
promised ; but doubtless the good queen must
have felt an ample one to be due, if the
stranger's words should be verified. I venture
to introduce this curious passage.
Penelope says to the unknown : —
" But I have dreamed. Hear and expound my dream !
— My geese are twenty ; which within my walls
I feed with sodden wheat ; — they serve to amuse
Sometimes my sorrow. — From the mountains came
An eagle, huge, hook-beaked, — brake all their necks
And slew them : scattered on the palace floor
They lay, and he soared swift into the skies.
Dream only as it was, I wept aloud ;
Till all my maidens, gathered by ray voice,
Arriving, found me weeping still, and still
Complaining, that an eagle had at once
Slain all my geese. But to the palace-roof
Stooping again, he sat, and with a voice
Of human sound, my tears forbidding, said —
' Take courage, daughter of the glorious chief
Icarius ; no vain dream hast thou beheld.
But, in thy sleep, a truth. Tlie slaughtered geese
Denote thy suitors ; and myself who seem
An eagle in thy sight, am yet indeed
Thy husband, who have now, at last, returned,
Death— horrid death— designing for thera all.'
He said : then, wakuig at the voice, I cast
An anxious look around, and saw my geese
JJesidc their tray, all feeding as before.
INVENTED DREAMS. 97
Her then Ulysses answered, ever-wise —
* O Queen, interpretation cannot err
Unless pen'ersely, since Ulysses' self
!So plainly spake the event. Sure death impends
O'er every suitor; he shall slay them all.' " ^
It is obvious that dreams would be very
often invented, by persons having no regard
to truth, with a view to influence those whom
it was their interest to flatter or to guide. One
of the most eminent Romans has been thought
capable of this. " Cicero attending Csesar
into the capitol, happened to relate to his ac-
quaintances a dream of the preceding night —
that a boy of noble aspect, sent down from
heaven, and with a golden chain, had stood at
the doors of the capitol, and Jove had deli-
vered to him the ' flagellum' ^ — and then, sud-
denly seeing Augustus, who as yet was
unknown to most, but whom his uncle Caesar
had sent for to assist at a sacrifice, he affirmed
that he was the very youth whose image had
in his sleep appeared before him." These are
the words of Suetonius. ^ Plutarch mentions
' Odyssey, book xix. 1. 647, Cowper's version.
2 A classical friend informs me that the " flagellum," sco\irge,
is still found among the insignia of the Egyptian Deities.
3 Vit. August, c. 94.
K
98 CICERO. JULIUS CiESAR.
the dream also, though with circumstances
considerably different.^ But Cicero himself,
in his work " of divination," when taking the
incredulous side and making rather light of
his own famous dream about Marius, has these
words — " to myself truly, except that 3Iarian
dream, nothing remarkable of the kind has
occurred."^ Now this treatise was written
after Caesar's death. " If therefore," observes
Andrew Baxter, " what he has said be true,
Suetonius makes him pay court to Julius
Cassar by telling a fictitious dream concerning
the boy Augustus his adopted heir." ^ But,
although Cicero did pay court to Caesar, and
even composed (strange to say) an epic poem
in honour of him,* I would rather suppose
this dream invented after the death of both.
The early divination of his subsequent great-
ness, by such a man as Cicero, would be a
story sure to please Augustus when sovereign;
of whom Suetonius writes, that he " neither
neglected his own dreams nor those of others
1 Vit. Ciceron. Wrangham's translation, vol. vi. p. 331.
2 De Divinat. lib. ii. c. 68. Opp. t. ix. p. 3835.
3 Baxter on the Soul, p. 221.
* Lif(! by Middleton, vol. i. p. 4-35.
AUGUSTUS. SOOTHSAYER. 99
concerning him :" nay, that this renowned
prince and warrior "regarded it as a dire
omen, if his shoe in the morning was put on
amiss, the left for the right." ^ When super-
stition could so possess a powerful and culti-
vated mind, we shall not wonder that it
pervaded the multitude.
A dream which Cicero has cited from Chry-
sippus seems invented on purpose to satirize
the cupidity of interpreters. " A person tells
a soothsayer that he has dreamed of an egg
hanging from his bed curtain. The diviner
answers, that a treasure is under the bed. He
digs, and finds some gold, surrounded with
silver : on which he sends the diviner a small
portion of the silver, who thereon facetiously
inquires, — what, nothing of the yolk V
Nihilne, inquit, de vitello ? -
But still, as has been already said, neither
the potency nor childishness of superstition,
nor the trickery and covetousness which foster
it, can show the principle of religion to be
' Sueton. Vit. August, cc. 91, 92.
2 De Divinat. lib. ii. c. 65. 0pp. t. ix. p. 3833.
100 FICTIONS NO DISPROOF.
groundless or hurtful, or indeed less than im-
mensely valuable. A thousand juggleries or
illusions cannot prove that there have been
no real miracles : and thus millions of futile
dreams, with thousands of fictitious ones, can-
not disprove that there have been dreams
indicative of divine prescience, and kindly
ordained by God's providence. Rather, as the
strength of superstition shows it to be a graft
on that real sentiment of religion which is
implanted and rooted in our nature, — so do
the prevalent impressions of mankind about
dreams — while in great part erroneous — afford
some presumption that dreams have been at
times divinely sent and fulfilled.
FALSE DREAMS CONDEMNED. 101
SECTION in.
We have, however, direct scriptural proof
of this ; and in proceeding to my second ob-
ject — the investigation of such dreams as
appear to have been in some special sense pro-
videntially ordained — we shall have first to
consider the revealed or implied uses of those
recorded in the JEEoly JBible.
I would premise, that we find general decla-
rations there as to the divinely directive or
warning or prophetic character of some dreams,
and as to the illusion and deceit which cha-
racterise others. Thus to Aaron and IVIiriam, —
" If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah ^
will make myself known unto him in a vision
— will speak unto him in a dream." ^ Thus
to Jeremiah, — " I have heard what the pro-
phets said that prophesy lies in my name,
saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.—
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a
^ Numb. xii. 6.
k3
102 USES OF THE TRUE. LABAN.
dream ; and he that hath my word let him
speak my word faithfully. What is the chaif
to the wheat ?" ' And in a letter to the cap-
tives in Babylon they are solemnly enjoined,
"Let not your prophets and your diviners
deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams
which ye cause to be dreamed." ^ Such false
dreams and dreamers, it should be observed,
were denounced chiefly as aiming to pervert
the Hebrews to idol worship. But Moses
himself, whose law unsparingly condemns
them,^ distinctly records — as other sacred
writers also do — various dreams of divine
origin. These may be in some sort classed,
according to the end or use which appears in
them severally to be more specific or pro-
minent.
Some were evidently ordered for the imme-
diate protection of the servants of God : as
those of the king of Gerar, which procured
the rescue of Sarah :* that of the Syrian shep-
herd Laban, which deterred him from seve-
rities against Jacob : ^ and that which warned
* Jer. xxiii. 25, 33 ; compare Deut. xiii. 1.
' Ibid. xxix. 8. ' Dcut. xiii. 1,5.
* Gen. XX. 3, 6. 5 Qcn. xxxi. 24, 29.
i
JACOB. JOSEPH. THE MIDIANITE. 103
the Eastern Magi against the perfidy of
Herod. '
Some were for the special encouragement
of good men in the undertakings assigned to
them. Thus Jacob, in a lonely perilous jour-
ney, was cheered by the dream of the mystic
ladder and the promise uttered from its sum-
mit ; ^ and again, when, in his later years, he
and his were invited into Egypt, the Almighty
spoke to him " in the visions of the night,"
and encouraged him to go.^ Thus the dreams
of Pharaoh's household,^ with Joseph's inter-
pretation of these, and the subsequent dreams
of the monarch, brought the young Hebrew
out of durance, and procured him power to
benefit both his own kindred and the whole
Egyptian people.^
The singular dream of the Midianite sol-
dier, — that a barley cake had overturned a
tent,^ — interpreted by his comrade as fore-
showing the victory of Gideon, — was received
by that rustic leader as a fresh token of
heavenly aid ; and animated him, with his
1 Matt. ii. 12. 2 Gen. sixviii. 12, 15.
3 Gen. xlvi. 3, 4. * Gen. xl.
5 Gen. xli. ^ Judges vii. 13.
104 SOLOMON. ST. PAUL.
little band, to assail and scatter a mighty-
host.'
The dream of Solomon, in which he ac-
knowledged his own insufficiency, entreated
wisdom from above, and received a gracious
answer,^ was adapted to strengthen him in the
difficulties of his opening reign, and in fidelity
to the Most High.
So when, many ages after, St. Paul at Co-
rinth was divinely addressed " in the night by
a vision," ^ and enjoined fearlessly to proclaim
the truth, new energy was doubtless given to
his effiDrts in that corrupt city. And a pre-
vious "vision in the night"* at Troas, of a
Macedonian entreating " help," had so vividly
impressed him as a divine call that it prompted
his first sailing to the coasts of Europe.
^ I might mention here the dream told to his troops by
Judas Maccabseus before liis great victory over Nicanor — that
on the intercession of the good high-priest Onias, the prophet
Jeremiah appeared in great majesty and presented him a sword
of gold, saying take this holy sword, a gift of God, (3 Mace.
XV. 11, 16) — but the accuracy of the 2d book of Maccabees
being impeached by Dean Prideaux, (Connexion, vol. iii.
p. 364,) it can hardly rank with sacred histories.
2 1 Kings iii. 5, 14. ^ Acts xviii. 9, 10.
* Acts xvi. 9.
PHARAOH. NEBUCHADNEZZAR. 105
A primary object of some dreams, with their
interpretation and fulfilment, appears to have
been that of impressing Heathen sovereigns
and their subjects with reverence for the true
God and respect for his servants. Pharaoh's
dreams, as interpreted, (even before they were
fulfilled,) had this effect.^ He said, of Joseph,
" Can we find as this a man in whom the
spirit of God is ? " and made him his first
minister.
Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the terrible
image, and Daniel's discovery and exposition
of it, forced the proud king to own, " Of a
truth your God is a God of gods, and a Lord
of kings, and a Revealer of secrets." ^
Several dreams were of a scope distinctly
prophetic, and were signally verified in after
years ; sometimes even in distant ages.
Thus Joseph's — of the sheaves making
obeisance to his sheaf, and of the heavenly
luminaries doing him homage,^ — must have
strongly indicated to his family, after that
strange rise to dignity and power which
followed, the divine preordination of his lot
and theirs.
1 Gen. 3di. 38, 39. 2 ^an, ii. 47, 3 Gen. xxxvii. 5, 11.
106 ABRAM. DANIEL. ELIPHAZ.
The earlier vision of Abram, when a " deep
sleep fell upon " him, and the long bondage
and wonderful deliverance of his descendants
were in that state foretold to the patriarch/ had
the same instructiveness for after generations.
Daniel's "dream and visions of his head
upon his bed," ^ interpreted, during their con-
tinuance, by one to whom in vision he applied,^
were prophetic of the great revolutions of
empire, the rise and fall of Antichrist, and
the final triumph of pure Christianity. The
first dream of Nebuchadnezzar embraced the
same objects.*
Some appear to have been designed simply
for the forcible and solemn impression of
religious truth ; as that which Eliphaz relates
to Job : " A thing was secretly brought to me,
in thoughts from the visions of the night,
when deep sleep falleth on men : — an image
was before mine eyes — silence — and I heard
a voice, — ShaU mortal man be more just than
God? shall a man be more pure than his
Maker ?" * With this the language of Elihu to
I Gen. XV. 12. 2 Dan. vii. 1. "' Dan. vii. 16.
4 Dan. ii. 28--4-5. •'» Job iv. 13, 10.
ELIHU. JOB. VISIONS. 107
Job remarkably corresponds : — " In a dream,
in a vision of the night, when deep sleep
falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the
bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and
sealeth their instruction, that he may with-
draw man from his purpose, and hide pride
from man." ^ Job himself also speaks of this,
though in an impatient spirit, as among the
methods of divine chastisement. " Thou
scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me
through visions." ^ I would here remark,
that there seems no good ground for the dis-
tinction made by the learned Calmet, or his
editor, between dreams and visions, as if the
latter had been more clear or important than
the divinely ordained dreams. That all visions
were not dreams is obvious :^ witness that of
the burning bush ; and of the angel who rescued
Peter ; with others. But all divinely ordained
dreams might, I apprehend, be termed visions.
1 Job xxxiii. 15, 17- 2 Job vii. 14.
3 For this reason I have not referred to the supposed
" trance" of Balaam, (the word is not in the Hebrew,) to the
trance or ecstasy of Peter, and to certain visions of Paul and
Ananias ; because there is no intimation that these occurred
in sleep.
108 DREAMS CALLED 'VISIONS.'
They had, no doubt, an emphasis and vivid-
ness which entitled them to that name ; and
accordingly we have found in Job the terms
"vision of the night," "visions," "visions of
the night," employed in close conjunction
with "deep sleep" and "dreams " ; and Daniel,
writing in Chaldee, describes his " dream " as,
in other words, the " visions of his head upon
his bed." ^ So, when he related, many years
before, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, he thus
addressed the astonished king : — " Thy dream,
and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are
these." ^ The terms, in both cases, appear used,
in the original, as synonyms ; or one expresses
the state of dreaming, the other the objects pre-
sented in a dream. And, let it be remembered,
this dream of Daniel consisted of the four great
beasts emerging from the sea, representing
four great monarchies — the Ancient of days,
the flaming throne, the Son of man, and his
universal sway. And to the prior dream of
the king of Babylon it was a parallel, shadow-
ing out the same events.^ Any predictions,
1 Dan. vii. 1. 2 Dan. ii. 28; compare vii. 1.
3 Bishop Newton. Dissertations on the Prophecies, vol. i.
p. 441.
THEIR PLURALITY OF USES. 109
therefore, more vast in scope or momentous in
import than these dreams conveyed, the scrip-
ture hardly offers. I remark, further, that
some of the dreams mentioned, while it has
been attempted to class them according to
what may seem their primary object, have in
fact combined sevei^al of the uses enumerated.
We may take, as the fullest instance, that of
Nebuchadnezzar, last referred to, concerning
the " teiTible image," and " the stone that
smote" it. That dream, with its discovery
to Daniel in a correspondent " night vision,"
raised the young Hebrew to be a "great man"
and " ruler ;" procuring, of course, his power-
ful influence for the many thousand captives
of his nation. Thus, likewise, he and they
were strengthened (as subsequent heroism
evinces) in faithfulness to the worship of their
Ood. The effect of these same dreams on the
heathen monarch has been already pointed
out ; and the far reaching comprehension of
their predictive scope has just been noticed,
in referring to Daniel's parallel dream during
the reign of Belshazzar. Each has wonder-
fully displayed the divine foreknowledge, and
attested the inspiration of the prophet.
110 PROPHETICAL DREAMS.
Such testimonies must needs assure Chris-
tians, that it pleased God in ancient times to
make dreams signally instrumental to the
designs of His providence. And as for the
last-mentioned, (recorded in the book of
Daniel,) I invite those who are not Chris-
tians — but possess intelligent and inquiring
minds — to study and explain the far-extend-
ing prescience which they manifest.
The dreams which ministered to the
guardianship of our Saviour's infancy, form a
class quite peculiar, to which there will be
here no occasion for adverting 5 but with
them may be mentioned that which so deeply
affected the wife of Pilate, and which we may
well believe strengthened that governor's
purpose to avouch the innocence of the won-
derful person accused before him.
I
DREAMS OF ANCIENT HEATHENS. Ill
SECTION IV.
It will be next endeavoured to consider
the probable uses of some dreams recorded
in ancient secular history. We have found
already, in reviewing those of scripture, that
several of them were sent to heathens and
idolaters. Such was Abimelech, king of the
Philistines. Laban set a high value on his
household "gods."^ Pharaoh and his officers,
no doubt, worshipped Osiris and the bull Apis.
Nebuchadnezzar raised a colossal idol of gold.
The wife of Pilate had, in all likelihood, been
brought up in the Roman polytheism.^ Now
while other specific ends were severally an-
swered by the dreams of these heathens, one end
was common to them all ; that of impressing the
1 Gen. xxxi. 19, 30.
2 Felix, when procurator of Judeea, married Drusilla, a
Jewess, daughter of Herod Agrippa, (see Lardner's works
vol. i. p. 17,) hut this was prohably a rare occurrence.
112 SOME UKEAMS OF HEATHENS
parties and those around them with a solemn
sense of the power and prescience of Jehovah.
This appears to have been always the ultimate
object. Where rescue from danger was the
primary aim, that rescue might have been
wrought or that danger averted by other
means, had not the purpose been to convince
one or both parties of an interposition imme-
diately divine. And in other cases, such as
dreams of promise or of prophecy, or premo-
nition of death or peril, (whether already
named or to be subsequently adduced,) the
final object must have been, and must be, to
teach emphatically the foreknowledge and
controlling providence of God.
It should be considered, that so far as there
was among heathens any real sense of a di-
vine government, or of religious sanctions for
morality, this arose from a kind of theism,
obscurely held, amidst or beneath their pro-
fessed y?o/?/-theism.
We know, from the collections of Cudworth
and others, that the ancient Persians, Egyp-
tians, Ethiopians, and Greeks, acknowledged
one supreme God, though they worshipped
many inferior forms of being, viewed some-
A
PROMOTED THEISM. 113
times as mere names and personifications of
the Supreme or of His attributes, sometimes
as created and dependent.^ That worship
was a play of the imagination and the passions,
unsustained by reason or faith, and often com-
bined with a sort of atheism : so far at least
as that the First Cause, or real Deity, was
conceived to have no regard to the actions of
men.
Yet there was, in many minds, a different
and better persuasion. Plato and his fol-
lowers, though giving the name of divinities
to lower intelligences, were yet real theists.^
There was also an impression, more deep
and extended than may be commonly supposed,
that the Hebrews worshipped the true and
supreme Deity. This must have been pro-
moted through the East by the decrees of
Nebuchadnezzar and of Darius.^ Tacitus dis-
tinctly records their pure monotheism." At
the same time Philo and Josephus state, that
' lutell. Syst. vol. ii. pp. 406, 552, and thronghout that
volume.
2 See B. Constant, du Polytheisme Romain, torn. i. p. 220.
3 Dan. iii. 29 ; vi. 26.
* Hist. lib. V. c. V.
L 3
114 'worshipping' gentiles.
" scarce any country of note could be men-
tioned in which there were not Jews." ^
There were also many proselytes ; and many
" worshipping " Gentiles, who openly adopted
theism without conforming to the ceremonial
law ; and others, no doubt, who did so
covertly, as a sort of esoteric creed.
Now, while it is certain that heathen philo-
sophy in great part, and the revulsion of many
minds from the vulgar polytheism, combined
to lead men towards a virtual atheism, — it
appears highly probable, that intimations of a
divine prescience and providence by dreams
were among the means which the supreme
Kuler employed to hold in check the ruinous
spread of that godless unbelief which, if un-
curbed, would disorganize human society.
The confession of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled
a vast empire, has been already mentioned as
the eifect of a dream and its discovery.^ We
may remember, also, that other means of
counteracting the atheistic spirit, except by
immediate miracles, were very scanty. Till a
century and a half before Christ, the Hebrew
1 Lardner's Works, vol. i. p. 61 ; 4<to edition. ^ D-m. jj, 4.7,
SOME DREAMS CHECKED ATHEISM. 115
scriptures were not accessible to the heathen.
And when rendered into Greek, they were
probably in very few hands except in the
synagogues of the Hellenist Jews. But im-
pressive dreams, when really fulfilled, formed
a sort of private revelation (communicable by
the testimony of the party) which was in the
nature of prophecy ; and must have had some
considerable tendency to make men theists, or
to keep them so. If some real belief in God's
particular providence were induced by such
di'eams, (as we know was the case with
Nebuchadnezzar,) this is surely an end of
great moment.
Unless we hold that all human affairs pro-
ceed by a mechanical inflexible fate, we cannot
doubt that God by His providence has governed
all nations ; those where scripture truth was
unknown, as well as those where it has been
spread. And, in the absence of it, what so
adapted to create or deepen the impression
of a prescient and governing Power, as the
occurrence and fulfilment of some predictive
dreams ? Such were related (as instances
will be given) of kings, warriors, statesmen,
philosophers, and other eminent persons ; and
116 SOME STRENGTHENED PAGANISM,
would therefore have a proportionably wide
publicity and influence.
It may, however, be objected, that some of
the dreams mentioned in secular history gave
direct support to idolatry ; attesting the know-
ledge and power of some false divinity, or
some way indicating the reverence due. For
examples, we may name the repair of a tem-
ple of Juno Sospita by order of the Roman
senate, in consequence of the dream of Csecilia,
daughter of Balearicus ; ^ and the detection of
a thief who had stolen a golden goblet from
the temple of Hercules, by the repeated dreams
of Sophocles, to whom the god denounced the
criminal.^ It was quite to be expected that
the senate, desirous to uphold established
rites, should profit by a favourable omen or
direction, for repairing a decayed temple.
The dream of Sophocles bears strong marks
of priestly invention.
Indeed, that these and other artifices and
imaginations and coincidences were sedulously
used to fortify idolatry, cannot be doubted.
'' Divination by dreams and impulses," Dr.
^ CicoTo de Diviuat. lib. i. c. ii. 0pp. torn. ix. p, 3742.
2 Ibid. lib. i. c. xxv. 0|»p. torn. ix. p. 3763.
YET COMBATED ATHEISM. 117
Jortin writes, "or the opinion of it, contributed
to keep up paganism in pagan nations : it
contributed also to keep out atheism ; and
there is a sort of paganism which, such as it
is, is far better than atheism." ^ Dr. Parr
also remarks, " superstition has often pre-
served men from crimes ; atheism from weak-
nesses only." "There may, indeed," Dr.
Jortin adds, " have been modes of idolatry
w^hich were worse than atheism, and which,
strictly speaking, were a kind of atheism, as
Bayle and others have truly observed." ^
Now I think it was this worst kind of
paganism, in which idolatry and an atheistic
spirit were mingled, that divinely ordained
dreams were adapted to amend, by infusing
into it a secret reverence for a Power really
prescient and divine. The thinking heathen
knew that his idols were daemons or genii at
the most ; or else, mere powers and produc-
tions of nature personified. But, very often,
^ It is a memorable fact, that Lucretius, the great teacher
of irreligion to the Romans, who proposed to free men from
unhappiness by atheism, at the age of forty-four destroyed his
ovm life.
2 Remarks on Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 84.
118 CRCESUS. ATYS.
he believed in no actually ruling Mind above
these, omniscient, and governing human af-
fairs. Dreams, therefore, receiving a striking
fulfilment, of which he was conscious, or
assured by clear and good testimony, were
among the best means to persuade him of that
ruling, guiding, and controlling Mind. With
such, I think, we may rank the following,
or some of them ; which, though familiar
and even trite to readers of the classics,
ought to be adduced if they support our
argument.
" Croesus, king of Lydia," Herodotus re-
lates, " dreamed that his favourite and accom-
plished son Atys was to perish by the stroke
of a dart. He was so terrified by this dream
as to withdraw the youth from the army, and
to keep out of his way all sorts of weapons.
But Atys, after a while, earnestly entreated
permission to join in the chase of a destructive
wild boar ; alleging that the dream did not
portend danger from a tusk or tooth. The
king, at length consenting, appointed Adrastus,
a Phrygian exile, whom he had greatly be-
friended, to be his son's guardian in this en-
terprise. But tlie unfortunate Phrygian, in
ALEXANDER. PTOLEMY. 119
throwing his weapon at the boar, missed
his aim, and wounded mortally the son of
Croesus."^
The historian treats this dream and its
fulfilment as a severe rebuke of divine dis-
pleasure at the monarch's pride ; who, in
converse with Solon, had presumptuously-
gloried in his wealth and power.^
Cicero and Quintus Curtius mention, that
when Ptolemj, the friend of Alexander the
Great, who afterwards became a great and
good king of Egypt, had been wounded in
India by a poisoned weapon, the king had his
couch placed by him, and while watching fell
into a deep sleep. On waking, Alexander
told his attendants that he had seen, in a
dream, a dragon with a herb or root in its
mouth, which told also the place where it
grew, (not far off,) and that it had such virtue
as would heal his friend with ease. The
herb was procured, and Ptolemy, with many
wounded soldiers, was cured by the applica-
1 Herodot. lib. i. (Clio) c. xxxiv. ; Taylor's translation,
pp, 15, 18.
2 The facts are related likewise in Valerius Maximus, lib. i.
c. vii. p. 93.
120 CYRUS. SOCRATES.
tion.* He lived and reigned afterwards to
the age of eighty-four.
Xenophon writes, that the illustrious Cyrus,
in very advanced age, " being asleep in the
royal palace, had the following dream. There
seemed to advance towards him a person
with more than human majesty in his air and
countenance, and to say to him — Cyrus,
prepare yourself, for you are now going
to the gods. After this appearance in his
dream he awaked, and seemed assured that
his end was near." ^
When Socrates was in prison, Crito went
to visit him at dawn of day, and found him
still sleeping. On his awaking, he told him
that he was informed, by persons who had left
the ship off Sunium — the arrival of which
from Delos was to be the signal for his death,
— that it would arrive on that same day, and
on the morrow, therefore, he needs must die.
Socrates answered, " Be it so, if it please the
gods : but I do not think it will arrive to-day."
" Why," asked Crito, " do you so judge ? "
' De Divinat, lib. i. c. Ixvi. Opp. t. ix. p. 3834 ; and Quint.
Curt. lib. ix. (Vaugelas Traduction, p. 646.)
2 Cyropsedia, near the end.
I
I
CRITO. SIMONIDES. 121
^' Because," rejoined Socrates, "I am to die on
the day after its arrival. I believe, therefore, it
will not come till to-morrow : and I judge from
a certain dream which I have had this morn-
ing, and it was well that you did not awaken
me." " What," said Crito, " was the dream ?"
" It appeared to me," replied Socrates, " that a
fair and comely woman, clad in white gar-
ments, approached me, and accosting me,
said — O Socrates,
" The third day fertile Phthia thou shalt reach." i
These are words (with a change in the
person of the verb) spoken by Achilles in the
Iliad when he threatened to return home.^
Socrates took them as a prediction of the day
of his death, because he judged that to die was
to go home to his own country. And the
dream was fulfilled.
The poet Simonides, when the ship in which
he had sailed touched at a certain shore,
humanely caused the interment of the corpse
of some shipwrecked person which he found
' Platonis Crito, c. ii. ; and Cicero de Divinat. lib. i.
c. XXV. 0pp. t. ix. 3761. Cited also in Jortin's Remarks,
vol. i. p. 78.
2 Iliad, book ix. v. 363. (Covvper's version, 1. 545.)
M
122 SIMONIDES. CICERO.
there. He was warned in a dream that night
by the vision of the mariner, that, if he should
embark the next day, he himself would perish.
Simonides obeyed this warning : the ship
sailed, and all on board perished within his
view. Grateful for this deliverance, he con-
secrated it to enduring remembrance in a
highly elegant poem.' Simonides lived to his
ninetieth year ; and is mentioned by Cicero
as not only a delightful poet but a learned and
wise man.^
I am aware that Cicero afterwards states
arguments against the prophetic character of
dreams, and speaks lightly of his own con-
cerning Marius ; ^ but Dr. Jortin observes,
" whosoever will examine his reasons on both
sides may see, I think, that he has not overset
all the proofs which he had offered." ^ Indeed,
the philosophy of the " New Academy," which
he espoused, tended to scepticism, " disputing
for and against every opinion." ^
^ Valerius Maximus, lib, i. c. vii. p. 91 ; and Cicero de
Divinat. lib. i. c. xxvii. 0pp. torn. ix. p. 37C3.
■■» Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. c. xxii. 0pp. t. ix. p. 3633.
' De Divinat. lib. ii. cc. Ixvii. Ixviii. 0pp. t. ix. pp. 3834-5.
< Remarks on Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 76.
* Middleton's Life of Cicero, vol. ii. p. 497.— "In Cicero's
THEISM AIDED. ARCADIANS. 123
On the whole it appears, that occurrences
such as have been mentioned, happening to
some of the most distinguished ancients, —
men whose royal station and success in arms,
or whose philosophy or literature, made them
known to many lands and successive ages, —
must have contributed towards preventing the
entire extirpation of theism, — of reverence for
a divine Providence ; — assailed as it was, at
once by the absurdities and vices of idolatry,
and by the subtleties of disputers.
It is also of course to be supposed, that
similar occurrences in the far more numerous
ranks beneath, exerted severally a propor-
tionate influence in narrower circles ; com-
pensating, also, by their much greater number,
for a less extensive diffusion of each. Cicero
narrates, that two Arcadians travelling toge-
ther to Megara, the one lodged in a friend's
house, the other at an inn. The former saw
in sleep his companion entreating him to come
to his help, for that the host was about to
pliilosopliical works he personates the Stoic, the Epicurean,
the Academic, &c. by turns ; and, consequently, delivers
their opinions rather than his own." — Broughton on the
Soul, p, 40.
124 DETECTION OF CRIME.
murder him. The sleeper rose, alarmed, but
thinking the dream an illusion, lay down and
slept again. He was revisited, however, by
the appearance of his fellow traveller, im-
ploring that as he had not come to succour
him while yet living, he would at least avenge
his death ; — that he had been killed, cast upon
a cart, and covered with soil ; — that he prayed
of him to be very early at the town gate,
before the cart should leave it. Impelled by
this second dream he went thither at dawn,
and questioned the peasant what was in his
cart ; who fled in terror. The corpse was dis-
covered, and the innkeeper capitally punished.^
Now these we may judge to have been quite
obscure persons. The narrative does not
even give their names ; though it happens to
have found place in the works of a great
writer, and to have come down to us. But
how many may have been such incidents, some
never recorded, all now vanished from every
mind on earth, which yet had influence, in
their day and in their sphere, to impress the
thought of foreknowledge, justice, and com-
' Dc Diviuat. lib. i. c. xxvii. 0pp. torn. ix. p. 37G4.
CREDIBLE BECAUSE SO USEFUL. 125
passion exercised by a hidden yet supreme
Power !
It will be the opinion of some, that too
much credibility has been here ascribed to the
foregoing passages of Grecian and Roman
story, while the criticism of our day discovers
or suspects so many fictitious embellishments
in the historical works of the ancients. It
must not, however, be supposed that the
writer yields an absolute and implicit cre-
dence to such narratives. On the contrary,
he can accord with Cicero's remark, when,
taking the sceptical side, he observes of the
dream of Alexander, " it may be false, it may
be true." So one might perhaps speak of
any other relation of the kind, viewed singly,
and apart from recollection of the ends which
such incidents may have answered.
But when we remember and appreciate the
important utility of such occurrences which
has been above suggested, especially as taking
place in ages and countries not possessed of
revelation, and prone to a species of atheism,
— when we look forward, also, to what will
be presently adduced, the parallel or similar
and strongly authenticated facts which have
m3
126 CREDIBLE BECAUSE SO USEFUL.
occurred in recent times and in our own, —
these considerations greatly enhance, in my
view, the probability that many, at least,
of those ancient narratives were founded in
truth.
I
USES OF DREAMS. 127
SECTION V.
We have now to examine the apparent
uses of some remarkable dreams mentioned in
later biography or in conversation, as having
occurred to Christians or to inhabitants of
Christendom. And since many of these have
been Christians but in name, and not a few,
openly or secretly, unbelievers, the application
of such dreams, if any have taken place of a
specially providential character, would be of
the widest range. They would have impor-
tant uses for real Christians, and not less so
for the nominal and for sceptics.
To this it may be objected, — the age of
miracles is past. A writer whom I have
cited, while professing (with great apparent
sincerity) to believe the divine character of
dreams recorded in scripture, thinks it would
be " little less than profaneness to imagine "
that such things should be " in our own time."
But ^ranting, as I do very readily, that the
128 ' MENTAL ]VnRACLES,'
age of well-attested external miracles has long
been past, —it were an immensely different
thing to hold that the internal influence and
interposition of Deity in the 7nind and thoughts
of man has ceased ; or that what may be
termed mental miracles occur no longer. On
the contrary, every great and sudden change
of character is such an instance : and, indeed,
every case where by some forcible mental im-
pression the course of action is at once and
strongly modified. Such events are not to be
accounted for by fixed, unswerving, me-
chanical laws. If not mif^acles, they are at
least secret actings of Providence, quite
independent of that settled ordinary track
which men are wont to call the course of
"nature." Nor does the written revelation
granted to us supersede the value or utility of
such auxiliary means. Its divine Author
employs various instrumental methods for
awakening men's minds to the weight and
im'port of that revealed truth. Sicknesses,
distressful bereavements, sudden deaths, great
reverses, signal escapes, strikingly conduce to
this. By these the mind is often aroused
from its insensibility or alienation. And no
THEIR INFLUENCE. ROCHESTER. 129
sound reason, I conceive, can be assigned why
remarkable dreams should not be still, some-
times, among those subsidiary means by which
the Almighty " openeth the ears of men and
sealeth their instruction." If, too often, this
effect fail or be very transient, just so is it,
from the stupor or levity of men's minds, with
the other providential means to which I have
referred. But the very learned and very
sceptical Bayle acknowledges, (writing of pre-
dictive or premonitory dreams,) " such facts,
of which the world is quite full, embarrass
the espr its forts (or infidels) more than they
avow." ^
We have a strong example of this in Bishop
Burnet's memoir of Rochester. The earl told
him of a " presage that one had of his approach-
ing death, in the Lady Warre his mother-in-
law's house. The chaplain had dreamt that such
a day he should die ; but being by all the family
put out of the belief of it, he had almost forgot
it ; till the evening before at supper, there
being thirteen at table, according to a fond
conceit that one of these must soon die, one of
' Quoted in the original in Jortin's Remarks, vol. i. p. 79»
and used as a motto to tliis volume.
130 LADY WARRE's CHAPLAIN. GROTIUS.
the young ladies pointed to him, that he was
to die. He, remembering his dream, fell into
some disorder, and the Lady Warre reproving
him for his superstition, he said he was con-
fident he was to die before morning : — but he
being in perfect health, it was not much
minded. It was Saturday night, and he was to
preach next day. He went up to his chamber,
and sat up late, as appeared by the burning of
his candle ; and he had been preparing his
notes for his sermon ; but was found dead in
his bed the next morning. These things, the
infidel earl told the bishop, made him incHned
to believe the soul was a substance distinct
from the body ; and this often returned into
his thoughts."^ Thus a celebrated unbeliever
gives the testimony of his own experience for
the tendency and actual power of such occur-
rences to awaken serious and religious thoughts
in a most reluctant mind. This has led me to
adduce the fact ; and not exactly in its proper
place ; — for I would first offer a few instances
where the immediate object of dreams appears
to have been the presei^vation of life by the
premonition of danger. Grotius, in a Latin
' Burnet's Passages, &c. of John Earl of Eochestcr, p. 20.
i
WARNINGS. SALMASIUS. 131
epistle, writes, " A person at Landrecies, en-
gaged in works there, and lodging near the
town, warned in a dream that he should
beware of a mine of the enemy, rose, and had
scarce gone out when the roof fell in and
destroyed his resting-place. — But if you see
Salmasius, he will relate to you a history
which he received from his father. A person
came to him, entirely ignorant of the Greek
language, but who had heard in a dream these
Greek words : — airSc ovk oacppaivri Ttjv aijv
a\\^v^iav ; " [which mean, literally, — Begone :
dost thou not smell (or scent) thy lifelessness ?]
" and on waking had written down the sounds
of those words in French letters ; not under-
standing them at all. On his application, the
senator Salmasius interpreted the words to
him ; for he is the learned father of a most
learned son. The man quitted his house : —
on the ensuing night it fell." ^
Dr. Abercrombie states the following fact,
1 Grotius, Epist. 405, (2nd series.) Quoted in Jortin's
Remarks, vol. i. p. 79 ; who adds, " Leclerc, in referring to
this, mentions that the elder Salmasius was a counsellor of the
parliament of Dijon." — The younger was a French Protestant,
and distinguished scholar, who wrote a work in defence of our
king Charles the First, which was answered by ]\Iilton.
132 CLERGYMAN. BLACK SERVANT.
of which he says, " there seems no reason to
doubt its authenticity." — " A clergyman had
come to this city (Edinburgh) from a short
distance in the country, and was sleeping at
an inn, when he dreamt of seeing a fire, and
one of his children in the midst of it. He
awoke with the impression, and instantly left
town on his return home. When he arrived
within sight of his house he found it on fire,
and got there in time to assist in saving one of
his children, who in the alarm and confusion
had been left in a situation of danger."^
He adds, "The following anecdotes I am
enabled to give as entirely authentic. A lady
dreamt that an aged female relative had been
murdered by a black servant ; and the dream
occurred more than once. She was then so
impressed by it, that she went to the house of
the lady to whom it related, and prevailed upon
a gentleman to watch in an adjoining room
during the following night. About three in
the morning the gentleman hearing footsteps
on the stair, left his place of concealment, and
met the servant carrying up a quantity of
coals. Being questioned as to where he was
^ Abercronibic, Intell. Powers, p. 292,
I
FRITH OF FORTH. DETECTION. 133
going, he replied, in a confused and hurried
manner, that he was going to mend his mis-
tress's fire ; which at that hour in the middle
of summer was evidently impossible ; and on
farther investigation, a strong knife was found
concealed beneath the coals, — Another lady
dreamt that a boy, her nephew, had been
drowned along with some young companions
with whom he had engaged to go on a sailing
excursion in the Frith of Forth. She sent for
him in the morning, and with much difiiculty
prevailed upon him to give up his engage-
ment. His companions went, and were all
drowned." ^
We may observe, also, that in one of these
instances the preservation of life was attended
by the prevention of crime. Other signal
cases of this kind might be adduced ; together
with some in which the detection of crime
already perpetrated, and the punishment of
the criminal, are attested to have been brought
about by the same secret indication.
In all these instances it should likewise be
not forgotten, that the great collateral object
appears to have been always intended, and
^ Abercrombie, Intell. Powers, pp. 293, 294.
N
134 IMPRESSION OF A
doubtless often fulfilled, of impressing one or
several minds with a more intimate and lively
conviction of powers and agencies supernatural
and divine. Even in dreams which, though
they have had a surprising coincidence with
events, remain obscure as to any special
design, this general object may yet be dis-
cernible.
The following is of that character. A per-
son of rank, whom I met at the house of a
friend, told me that a visitor then in his own
mansion had spent some months lately in
America, leaving his family in England ;
that one night in sleep he had felt a sort of
distressing sensations or forebodings, such as
he had never known before, which so affected
him that he carefully marked down the night
and hour of their occurrence ; and by the next
mail received news from England that his
little boy had died at the precise time when he
had himself been the subject of those peculiar
feelings.
The gentleman who related this to me (as
he had received it) was highly intelligent and
acute, but evidently of a sceptical habit. His
stating the fact without the least question of
DIVINE AGENCY. 135
its certainty and accuracy, showed how clearly
and circumstantially it had been attested to
him. He suggested that it might possibly be
accounted for as a species of distant sympathy
by electricity. One might still ask — who
fixed the invisible communication across the
Atlantic ? what power worked the signals,
and for what purpose ?
The impression on him who had experienced
it was probably much more salutary ; and
then an important end was answered : im-
portant not merely in cases of previous un-
belief, as in that cited of Lord Rochester, but
wherever belief is wavering or dormant. How
many are conscious of such feebleness or
languor of faith in " things not seen," amidst
the various impulses and influences of things
which are seen ; and would welcome what-
ever auxiliary methods might be ordained to
fortify or enliven it. In dreams which remain
to be adduced, this seems to have been always
the principal and sometimes the only apparent
purpose ; and we shall now offer a few in-
stances of a second class, which appear to have
had for their primary object the preparation
of the Christian's mind for an affliction, or
136 PREPARATION FOR DISTRESS.
consolation under it, or encouragement in
some special duties.
The following is the abridged letter of an
esteemed relative : —
" Our dear young friend F — was staying
with us. She had left her father in good
health at home, and neither his age nor a
chronic indisposition to which he was liable
gave reason for apprehension. On a Sunday
morning she came down to us looking unwell,
and to my inquiries answered, ' I have had a
restless night, wdth painful dreams.' Nothing
more was said, for it passed from my mind.
The next morning my husband brought me a
letter from our friend's brother, begging us to
announce to her, as gently as we could, her
father's sudden death from rapid inflammation
on the Saturday evening.
" I went down to lier, and said, ' My dear,
we have some anxious tidings to communicate."
I said no more, for she laid her head on my
shoulder, and exclaimed, ' I know all ; my
dream was true ; my father is dead.'
" When the first anguish was past, she told
me that she had dreamt of koine ; and going in
unexpectedly, had seen a group in bitter
COMFORT UNDER IT. 137
sorrow. All were there but her father, and
the sons were gathered round the mother as if
they were now all that remained to her. That
very scene was then passing in the bereaved
home, and the dream must be regarded as
sent in kindness to prepare the heart of the
affectionate child for her bitter and unex-
pected loss."
To this may be added a dream which I
notice very briefly, because it has been already
recorded by me in print, as taken down from
the lips of a valued domestic, who had once
lived where I now reside.
On one day, a year after the loss of two
young children, she had prayed much to be
relieved from the dejection occasioned by it,
which near friends of my own, since deceased,
had tried in vain to alleviate. On that night
a dream brought both her children vividly
before her, as in a state of social blessedness.
Her words to me, after describing it, were,
*' I had this dream a second time the same
night ; and by means of it my trouble was
taken away, especially my fear about the elder
child." V
* Autumn Dream ; Note vi. p. 169 ; second edition.
n3
138 DODDRIDGE. SPIIUTDAL
In Doddridge's dream of an interview with
the glorified Saviour, (of which the substance
is given in the same volume/) he was thus
addressed, — " This is not heaven : it is only
such a faint and distant representation of the
glory to be revealed, as is suited to your mortal
nature, and is designed to animate you to a
more vigorous and determined zeal in my
service on earth." Accordingly, he stated to
his friends, " that he never remembered to
have felt sentiments of devotion, love, and
gratitude, equally strong " with those which
this dream awakened.
The third and last class of dreams to be
mentioned are those whose object appears to
have been the highest of all : namely, to be
instrumental either in the first moral and spi-
ritual change or " renewing of the mind," or,
in the revival or fixing of prior impressions as
to the importance of revealed truth, and ur-
gency of spiritual concerns.
The same friend who related the premoni-
tion of a parent's death received by her young
visitor, writes thus of herself: — "I was
between eight and nine years old when, after
' Autuuiu Urcain ; Note xxi. p. 186; second edition.
EXCITEMENT OR MONITION. 139
an evening spent with a dear and Christian
friend of my mother, I attained, in the ' visions
of the night,' a remarkable insight into the
meaning of scripture. I dreamt that this
fi-iend explained to me the chapter concerning
the brazen serpent, and opened my eyes to its
typical sense ; pointing out the Saviour ' lifted
up ' as the Healer of mankind. The chapter
became, thenceforth, a favourite one ; and I
never open it, even now, without remembering
that first exposition. There may have been
something in the previous conversation which
led my young mind to dream of this scripture
narrative in a manner so singularly impres-
sive."
The following has been sent to me by a
lady of undoubted accuracy, related to herself
by a gentleman in a northern county. " I
dreamt that I saw a number of happy beings
with wings enabling them to fly far and wide,
indeed far beyond my ken. So earnestly did
I long for the same, that I tried to make them
for myself. Day after day I seemed to labour,
but in vain. Wlien repeated failure was
leading me to give it up, one of these bright
and holy-looking beings suspended her flight
140 INFLUENTIAL DREAM
to tell me that no one could ever make wings
for himself wherewith to soar above ; but, to
those who desired them as anxiously as I did,
wings should be given." — " He told me, "
the lady states, "this dream when we were
riding together, and seemed seriously affected
by it/'
The dream of Africaner, the once ferocious
Namaqua chief, "at a period when his opinions
on religion wavered, and he was about to dis-
miss from his thoughts the grave subjects of
revelation, death, and immortality," appears to
have had a powerful and happy influence on
that remarkable convert. It is thus related
by Mr. Moffat. " He supposed himself, in his
dream, at the base of a rugged mountain, over
which he must pass by an almost perpendicular
precipice. On the left of the path the fearful
declivity presented one furnace of fire and
smoke, mingled with lightning. As he looked
round to flee from a sight which made his
whole frame tremble, one appeared out of
those murky regions, whose voice like thunder
said, there was no escape but by the narrow
path. He attempted to climb it, but felt the
reflected heat from the precipice more intense
!
OF AFRICANER. 141
than that from the burning abyss. When
ready to sink with agony, he cast his eyes
upwards beyond the flaming gulf, and saw
one standing on a green mount, where the sun
shone with peculiar brilliancy. This person
drew near the edge of the cliff, and beckoned
him to advance. Shielding his face with his
hands, he ascended through heat and smoke,
such as he would have thought no human
frame could endure. He at last reached the
long desired spot, which became increasingly
bright ; and when about to address the stranger,
he awoke. Being asked how he interpreted
this dream, he replied that it haunted his mind
for a long time like a poisonous thorn in the
flesh, and he could bear to reflect on it only
when, — as he said with great simplicity, —
* I thought the path was the narrow road
leading from destruction to safety, from hell
to heaven ; the stranger I supposed to be that
Saviour of whom I had heard, and long were
my thoughts occupied in trying to discover
when and how I was to pass along the burning
path ;'— adding, with tears in his eyes, * thank
God, I have passed ! '" ^ And be it observed,
1 Moffat's Missionary Travels in South Africa.
142 REMARKABLE DREAM OF
*' Africaner was a man " (Mr. Moffat testifies)
" who never dealt in such commodities " as
those superstitious dreams to which some of
his weaker and more ignorant countrymen are
addicted.
Major- General Burn, who, after a course
marked by very sceptical opinions and very
dissipated conduct, became a " bright example
of Christian purity, humility, and piety," ^
gives the following statement in his journal,
" About a fortnight after my brother's death,
I dreamed a very distinct and remarkable
dream, which had such a happy effect upon
my heart, that I have ever since looked upon
it as the principal means the Almighty was
pleased to employ in bringing about my con-
version.
"I thought I was sitting, a little before
daylight, with my deceased brother, on the
wall of the parish churchyard, where we had
lived many years together. We remained
silent for some time, and then he asked me if
I would not go with him into the church. I
consented, and walked with him towards the
porch ; but when we had passed through it,
' Preface to his Life, by Olinthus Gregory, &c.
I
MAJOR-GENERAL BURN. 143
and came to the inner door that led into the
body of the church, my brother slipt in before
me ; and when I attempted to follow, (which
I was all eagerness to do,) the door, which
slid from the top to the bottom, like those in
some fortified towns, was instantly let down
more than half way, so that I had now to
bend almost double before I could possibly
enter. But as I gtooped to try, the door sink-
ing lower and lower, the passage became so
narrow that I found it altogether impracticable
in that posture. Determined to get in, if pos-
sible, I at length kneeled down, crept and
pushed more eagerly, but all to no purpose.
Grieved and vexed, yet unwilling to be left
outside, I resolved to throw off my clothes and
crawl ; but being desirous to preserve a silk
embroidered waistcoat which I had brought
from France, I kept that on, in hopes of being
able to carry it in with me. Then laying my-
self on my face, I toiled and strove, soiled my
embroidered waistcoat, but could not get in
after all. At last, driven almost to despair, I
stripped myself, and forced my body betw^een
the door and the ground, till the rough stones
tore all the skin upon my breast, and (as
144 EFFECT OF GENERAL BURN'S DREAM.
I tliouglit) covered me with blood. Indif-
ferent, however, about this, I continued to
strive with more violence, till at last I got
safely through. As soon as I stood upon my
feet on the inside, an invisible hand clothed
me in a long white robe, and, as I turned to
view the place, I saw a goodly company of
saints (among whom was my brother) all
dressed in the same manner, partaking of the
Lord's Supper. I sat down amidst them, and
the bread and wine being administered to me,
I felt such seraphic joy as no mortal can
express. I heard a voice call me thrice by
name, saying I was wanted at home. My joy
was so overcoming that it soon broke the
bands of sleep, and made me start up, singing
the high praises of God."
" So much was I impressed by this re-
markable dream, that irom this day I was
enabled to begin an entirely new life, — as
different from that I liad led for several years
back as it is possible any two opposites can
be." '
' Memoirs of General Burn, slightly abridged, but with
strict adherence to the original, vol. i. pp. 137, 130.
DUTY AS TO DREAMS. VANITIES. 14o
SECTION VI.
It will be justly expected, that after thus
leading attention to the specially providential
and very important character of certain
dreams, I should suggest, as a practical ob-
ject of this Essay, what ought to be our habit
of mind as to singular dreams of our own or
of our friends which may seem to portend
something.
Although the lights of our age have ba-
nished many superstitions into obscure corners,
there may be yet not a few imaginative or
credulous minds on whom this kind of im-
pression has too much sway ; who still need
to be reminded by the royal preacher, that
" in the multitude of dreams there are va-
nities ;" ^ and by the son of Sirach, that " as he
who seizeth a shadow and pursueth the wind,
so is he that leaneth upon dreams ;" — " that
^ Ecclesiastes v. 7.
(>
146 SYLLA. INDIANS.
they are vain and have deceived many, and
they have failed that hoped in them." ^ We
may apprize such persons, also, that it was one
of the worst men of antiquity, Sylla, who, in
his Commentaries inscribed to Lucullus, (as
we learn from Plutarch,) advises him "to de-
pend on nothing so much as what Heaven
should suggest to him in the visions of the
night." ^ Such was the counsel of one, who,
after base profligacy and wholesale cruelties,
died of the most revolting disease.
The fanaticism to which a superstitious
view of dreams — carried to its extreme — may
give rise, appears in Charlevoix's account of
some tribes of American Indians. " They
look upon dreams as a desire of the soul
inspired by some Genius, or an order from
him, and hold it a religious duty to obey
them. An Indian having dreamt of having a
finger cut off, had it really cut off when he
awoke, having first prepared himself for this
important act by a feast." ^
Mr. Mofliit also says of the South Africans,
' Ecclesiasticus, xxxiv. 1,7.
2 riiitaroh in Sylla. Wrangham's translation, vol. iv. p. 110.
3 Quoted ill Dcndy on Dreams, p. 77.
AFKIOANS. CONSTANTIUS. 1^7
" they are very prone to superstitious in-
terpretations of dreams ; some of which are
too monstrous to be permitted an asylum in
the mind. The most ignorant feel pleasure in
hawking about their nocturnal reveries : more
than this, they hear of visiotis, and think they
may have their share : I have heard of some
who had seen an angel behind a bush, or heard
a voice from heaven ; and of others who had
gone to Jerusalem like Mahomet, though not
on an ass, or ascended to the heaven and re-
turned the same night. It has been necessary
to bring other things before their minds, im-
parting genuine currency instead of that false
coin, which, alas ! is sometimes vended in
more enlightened countries than Africa." ^
It is also well to remember, — with thank-
fulness at not being exposed to the caprices of
tyranny, — that there have been periods in the
history of mankind, when it was a most
perilous thing to tell a dream.
Gordon, in his preliminary discourses on
Tacitus, mentions from Ammianus, that even
under Constantius, the second Christian em-
peror, (so called,) there was a " spy for
^ Moffat's South Africa, p. 185, abridged.
148 SPY FOR DREAMS. PETRA.
dreams," a Persian named Mercurius, called
" som7do7' am comes ;^^ and that some dreams
were only to be expiated by the dreamer's
blood. People, far from telling their dreams,
durst scarce own that they slept ; nay, it was
lamented by some that they had not been
born upon Mount Atlas, where, according to
tradition, people never dream." ^
In the reign of an earlier despot, Claudius,
Tacitus himself informs us, the illustrious
Roman knights surnamed Petra being marked
for destruction, "one of them was charged
with a dream, as if he had beheld Claudius
crowned with ears of corn inverted, thus pre-
dicting a grievous dearth. Others have said
that he di^eamed of a crown of vine with
whitening or fading leaves, which he construed
to portend the prince's death in autumn. This
is undoubted, that for some dream both he and
his brother perished." "
But it would, be almost affronting intelli-
gent readers to suppose that they are likely to
pay any serious regard to dreams in ijcneral.
Of the most prevailing character of these, all
reflective minds are aware. We have learned
' Discdiirsps on Tacitiis, p. 80. ^ Tacit. Aiinal. xi.
TRIVIAL DREAMS. ADDISON. 149
experimentally to estimate them, likeMercutio
in the drama, as
" Children of au iclle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the mnd, who woos
Even now tlie frozen bosom of the North,
And, being angered, puffs away from thence.
Turning his face to the dew-dropping South." ^
All have realised the broken and disjointed
yet traceable connexion which they so often
have with recent waking engagements, wishes,
and anxieties ; so that we can ajDpreciate the
poetic fiction of the great dramatist, when,
with a sportiveness characteristic of " fancy's
child," he describes that principle of associa-
tion in dreams under the image of their fairy
patroness and prompter, who comes
" In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,"
and suggests to different classes their several
visions.
Addison has a humorous letter, signed
Titus Trophonius, who says : " Having long
considered whether there be any trade want-
ing in this great city, I do not find in any
quarter an oneirocritic or interpreter of
1 See Note E, at the end of this volume.
o 3
150 ONEIKOCKITIC.
flreain.x. For want of so useful a person
several good people are much puzzled, and
dream a whole year without being ever the
wiser. I hope I am pretty Avell qualified for
this office, having studied by candlelight all
the rules of the art. My grand-uncle, by my
wife's side, was a Scottish Highlander, and
second-sighted. I have four fingers and two
thumbs upon one hand, and was born on the
longest night of the year. My christian and
surname begin and end with the same letters.
I am lodged in Moorfields in a house that for
these fifty years has been always tenanted by
a conjurer. There are some who cannot
sleep in quiet the next night, till something
has happened to expound the visions of the
preceding one. In short, sir, there are many
whose waking thoughts are wholly employed
on their sleeping ones. For the benefit,
therefore, of this inquisitive part of my fellow-
subjects, I shall, first, tell those what they
dreamed of, who fancy they never dream at all.
Next, I sliall make out any dream, on hearing
a single circumstance of it : and expound the
good or bad fortune which such dreams por-
tend. I have several apartments fitted up at
J
DELICIOUS drp:amers. 151
reasonable rates, for such as have not conve-
niences for dreaming at their own houses." ^
Another number of the Spectator reports
many complaints from "delicious dreamers,"
desiring him to silence ''those noisy slaves
who take their early rounds about the city."
" Several monarchs," he writes, " have done
me the honour to acquaint me how they have
been shaken from their respective thrones by
the rumbling of a wheelbarrow. A boisterous
peripatetic hardly goes through a street with-
out waking half a dozen princes to open their
shops or clean shoes, transforming sceptres
into shovels, and proclamations into bills. —
On the other hand, I have testimonies of gra-
titude from many who owe to this clamorous
tribe frequent deliverances. A small-coal man,
by waking one of these distressed gentlemen,
saved him from ten years' imprisonment.
A certain valetudinarian confesses he has
been cured of a sore throat by the hoarseness
of a carman, and relieved from a fit of the
gout by the sound of old shoes."
Much of this is well understood and often
felt; — yet not all this can set aside the proofs
* Spectator, No. 505, vol. vii. p. 119, abridged.
152 now DISCRIMINATE.
and instances adduced, that there are dreams
of a verj different quality. The same differ-
ence may be observed in men's waking
thoughts. What a host of them are vain,
incoherent, and fruitless ! How certain it is,
nevertheless, and how haj^py, that some bear
marks of a higher origin ; that some, in many
minds, have been so influential and effective,
as to leave no doubt of their source; that
some have prompted earnest prayer ; some a
decisive change of purpose ; some the most
arduous and beneficent labours. With respect
to dreams, the author of Ecclesiasticus, in the
very passage before quoted, where he censures
their vanity, makes a remarkable exception :
" If they he not sent from the Most High in
(or for) thy visitation, set not thy heart upon
them." '
There remains, however, the serious prac-
tical difficulty — how shall Ave rightly discri-
minate that which is important from that
which is fallacious ?
Augustin relates, in his " Confessions,"
that his mother had a dream which greatly
consoled her, when he as a youth was in-
^ Ecdcsia.sticus xxxiv. G.
AUGUSTIN. MONICA. 153
volved in licentious vice and absurd IMani-
chaean errors. " She saw herself standing on
a rule or narrow strip of wood, (in 7'e(/iila
lignea,) and a youth of brilliant and joyous
aspect approaching her with smiles, while she
stood mournful and worn out with grief.
He inquired the causes of her sadness and
those daily tears, (as if for the sake of teach-
ing, not of learning,) and was answered that
her lament was over my perdition. He di-
rected her where she might stand (on the
strip of wood) most safely, and admonished
her to watch and look, for that where she was
there also was I. And on watching for this,
she saw me standing close by her on the same
rule or narrow board." He adds : " When she
told me that vision, and I tried to turn it
thus, — that she should not despair of becoming
what I was, she at once said, without the
least hesitation, ^ Not so ; for it was not said
to me. Where he is there also fhoii, but. Where
thou there also he.^ I own that I was more
moved by the divine intimation as given
through the lips of my waking mother, who,
unperturbed by my false interpretation, so
promptly saw the truth, than even by the
154 Monica's distinction.
dream itself, in which that pious woman's joy
— to be fulfilled at length — was so long before
predicted as a solace of her actual pain." ^
AYlien, subsequently, Augustin and his
mother were both solicitous for a particular
temporal object, prayers were offered by her,
at his desire, that something as to this might
be revealed in a dream. But he states, " She
then had only certain tain and fantastic
dreams, induced by the earnestness of her
mind on this subject, which she mentioned,
not with reliance on them as divine, but as
contemning them. For she said that she
could discern, by I know not what mental
taste or perception, {iiescio quo sapore,) the
difference between revelations and mere ima-
ginations in dreams." - It seems highly pro-
bable that, to a humble and devout Christian,
there might be afforded, on some occasions,
such a discriminating power.
For myself, as was intimated, I speak as
one ^^?^taught by experience : never having
had — though often desirous of it — a dream to
which I could attach peculiar weight or signi-
ficance.
' Confess, lib. iii. c. xi. pp. 73, 75. - Ibid. lib. vi. c. xiii.
rKACTICAL DISCRIMINATIOX. 155
One would say, generally, to all who are
likely to be in this manner impressible, — Be
very slow in permitting any dream to prompt
or guide your conduct. And yet we cannot
contend that this rule admits of 7\o exception.
For a dream may be so striking and monitory,
by its peculiar distinctness, and still more by
its reiteration, — and the act or precaution to
which it prompts may be of so lawful and
blameless a kind, as to make the adoption of
it more than justifiable. We cannot censure
the traveller at Megara, (unless it were for
treating the first summons lightly ;) still less
the lady at Edinburgh who procured a friendly
sentinel for her aged relative. We cannot
blame the acquaintance of Salmasius for quit-
ting his abode, nor the poet Simonides for
declining to embark : we commend the Scot-
tish lady who prevailed with her nephew to
put off his boating, and yet more the clergyman
who hastened home in the night to save his
child from flames.
But we should of course say, most deci-
sively, — wherever the dream enjoins or coun-
sels what is contrary to the supreme rule of
scripture, or what is at variance with sound
156 HANNIBAL. TIMUR.
reason and prudence, and favours the dictates
of passion or fancy, — discard it utterly, as a
vain and dangerous illusion. Indeed, there
is all reason to conclude, that the dreams
of some ardent minds were first prompted
and created by the ruling passion, and then
stirred and impelled that passion itself into
strenuous and confident action. So we
may regard the dream of Hannibal, men-
tioned by several Roman writers,^ that he
saw Jove, or a celestial envoy from Jove,
who commanded him to invade Italy, and
was followed by a vast serpent and a terrific
thunder, which the envoy declared to mean
his devastation of that realm. " Gladdened
by that vision," says Livy, " he advanced to-
wards the Pyrenees."
Timur mentions several such dreams of his
own, in one of which he saw the prophet
Mahomet, who gave him a club, which be-
came very long in his hand ; and to this
exhilarating di*eam he attributes his victory
over Bajazet. - On other occasions, he
dreamed that lie heard the voice of an angel
1 Livy, lib. xxi. c. xxii. ; Ciccio ; Valerius Maximixs.
^ Aiitobiog. p. 17.
GENERAL RULE. .157
animating him to war and triumph. These
men, both when awake and in their slumbers,
were under the urgent impulses of a restless
ambition ; it produced their visions, and then
seized on them to stimulate and justify its
own acts.^
Thus, examples give great weight to the
general rule, that it is, usuaUj, most unsafe
and unwarrantable to act on such suggestions.
When dreams are so extraordinary, and so
linked with events ensuing, as to be distin-
guished from the throng of those which are
" vanities," and to claim, therefore, a measure
of serious regard, — it is mainly (as has been
all along pointed out) in the light of corro-
borative enforcements to the great doctrine of
God's ruling providence and the dictates of
his word. Like miracles and prophecies, such
dreams are not primarily meant to induce
outward acts, but that one inward act or sen-
timent, — that livelier persuasion of the Divine
government, which gives increased force to all
the monitions of conscience and of scripture.
^ The dream (perhaps reverie) of Cromwell, in which a
spectre predicted his greatness, may be classed with these. —
See Noble's Memoirs of the Prof ecf oral House.
P
158 REGULATION OF MIND
And it was argued above to be not less cre-
dible, that the Great Disposer of all minds
should occasionally employ these, than any
other impressive means, — as a powerful
appeal in public, a touching interview in
private, the sudden loss of beloved friends,
our personal escape, or theirs, from immi-
nent peril, — in order to rivet the attention,
or unseal the heart, to his own words and
acts of grace.
It may be inquired — how then would you
have us regulate our thoughts and feelings
with regard to such very impressive dreams,
as, if they occur to us, we cannot but suspect
to be divinely ordered ?
I would answer — if a dream really appear
to be of that class which the excellent mother
of Augustin thought she could distinguish, as
sent with some special design of Providence, —
it will be right, I judge, to note down the cir-
cumstances, accurately and simply, without the
least embellishment, — and then dismiss it from
the mind, as one of those " secret things" which
" belong unto God" to solve, or leave un-
solved.
If nothing follow in which a sober judg-
i
AND CONDUCT AS TO DREAMS. 159
ment is constrained to recognise connexion
and correspondence with that dream, (and this
is the more probable issue,) jou will be taugiit
that it had not the significant character which
your fancy or your emotion ascribed to it.
If, on the contrary, there he a sequence
whose undeniable accordance compels you to
assign to your dream a predictive or premoni-
tory character, — then take, thoughtfully and
thankfully, the privilege of this added con-
firmatory indication, that a hidden but om-
niscient Power governs our faculties and the
events around us ; suggests ideas and imagery
to the mind ; foresees and guides in wisdom
the intricate and countless diversities of human
affairs.
But, it may be further asked — suppose such
a remarkable and striking dream — perhaps
reiterated — should urge to an immediate act
or proceeding, (as some did which have been
here related,) would it be right to obey that
practical direction or impulse ?
On this point it is important to observe,
that the few dreams of such a kind which have
been here mentioned as apparently divine ad-
monitions, have been of a cautionary, warning.
160 AFRICANER. BURN. GARDINER.
repressive character, calculated to check or
prevent some evil in prospect. Such were
those lately adverted to as exceptions to the
general rule J We may remark also, that
where the dreams of persons possessing Chris-
tian knowledge have been adapted strongly to
modify the whole subsequent course of life
and action, and have sometimes, as in the
instances of Africaner and of General Burn,
actually done this,^ they have acted only as
reinforcing and enhancing theimpressivenessof
obligations which should have been previously
derived and felt from the import of revealed
truth, and in no way as varying from or con-
travening it. Let it be supposed, — though
a thing not at all to be reckoned on in ordi-
nary experience, — that a very striking and
^ See p. 155.
'-* The well-known case of Colonel Gardiner, which is most
fully attested, and was most extraordinary in its decisive and
permanent effects, has not been referred to, simply because he
regarded it as a vmhng vision. There is reason to suppose
that it was in reality a very vivid dream. In the instance of
General Burn also, the testimony for the incident and its
effects is clear and unimpeachable. The sceptic may term the
occurrences in each case visionary : and so, in some sense,
they were: but can he deny that the vision of a few minutes
was a chief means to the reformation of a whole life ?
KULE OF REJECTION. 161
even reiterated dream prompt you to avoid by
some immediate step a threatened evil to
yourself, or prevent some evil imminent on
another, — if the mode of avoidance or pre-
vention be in no respect adverse to prior rules
of Christian duty, it would be wrong, as I
judge, to neglect an intimation, the compliance
with which can involve no moral fault.
But if your dream flatter and excite a
ruling passion or inordinate propensity, or
wild and injudicious project, its tendency
betrays its source, and marks it for rebuke
and rejection. If it prompt even to a course
which, without being obviously culpable, still
on other grounds appears questionable, it
would be most fanatical to substitute for the
dictates of waking reason, for the counsels of
wise friendship, and the directions of holy
scripture, a sort of guidance so unsound and
illusory.
p 3
162 THANKS FOR REVELATION.
SECTION VII.
While it has been attempted in these
Essays to evince, both in the general pheno-
mena of dreaming and in the ordination of
some particular dreams, uses of no small
moment ; it cannot, I trust, be overlooked
how much we are bound to exercise a deep
and habitual gratitude for living in the day-
light of recorded communications from the
source of truth, and not in that twilight of
antemosaic ages, when isolated visions, and
oral traditions of those, were the chief intima-
tions of God's will and grace to man.
It is true, that in our days we have many
rejecters of this "revealed light; and among
them some who by subtle reasonings would
" attenuate all things into inanity ; " disputing
on mind and matter, time and space, till they
reduce, in their " vain imaginations," the
universe to a vision, and life to a mere som-
IDEALISM. HUME. HEGEL. 163
nambulism, or something less.^ I refer,
chiefly, to that " transcendental " philosophy
of the Germans which has acquired an ex-
tending influence, of late years, in other
countries and in our own.^
Amidst such delirious reveries of self-
bewildering thinkers, " mad with logic," ^
truly we may learn yet more and more to
cleave to that steadfast record, which assures
of God's holy Providence, of a divine Re-
demption, of heavenly succours, of a real and
blessed future.
Be it also not forgotten, but a matter of
devout and admiring observation, that the
starry night, ever the season of dreams, and of
old the scene of prophetic visions, unfolds in
all centuries and all regions immense revela-
tions of Omnipotence ; giving glimpses of the
^ See " Hegel's method " — of " absolute idealism," which is
" nothing but Hume's scepticism in • a dogmatical form ; "
denying both " mind and matter." — Biograph. Hist, of Philos.
2nd series, vol. iv. p. 210.
- Theories approaching to these were entertained by some
of the Greeks. See Note F, at the end of this volume.
3 Even their modern biographer applies to them the line —
" Gens ratione feros, et mentem pasta chimaeris."
— Lev)es's B'log. Hist, ubi
164 STARRY NIGHT. PLAYFAIR.
visible yet latent wonders of innumerable
worlds ; so that a host of celestial realities is
ever partially brought into our view, yet with
a boundless sphere of dream and mystery
beyond, in what their remoteness conceals.
It has been said, probably from more than one
astronomer's chair, that the powerful and
exploring intellect of the great discoverers in
science has taken a sublimer flight than the
most daring fancy of the poets.^ Most true :
but still, it is the believer alone — as was ob-
served in the former Essay — who carries
with him the warmth of heavenly hope into
the loftiest regions and disclosures of ever-
widening science.
Let us hear our own Christian poet of "the
night," as he exclaims —
" O death divine, that giv'st us to the skies ! —
From nature's continent, immensely wide,
Immensely hlest, this little isle of life,
' That remark was pointedly expressed hy the very able
Professor Playfair, from his Edinburgh chair of Natural
riiilosophy, in 1813 ; when he compared the achievements of
Galileo's and Nevrton's reason, with those of Ariosto's and
Milton's fancy. It was cited (from my MS. notes of liis
lecture) in a former volume — Christian Encouragement, § iii.
p. G6, 3d edition.
YOUNG. LESSONS FROM NIGHT. 165
This dark incarcerating colony,
Divides us. Happy day that breaks our chain,
That manumits ; that calls from exile home ;
That leads to nature's great metropolis,
And readmits us, through the guardian hand
Of elder brothers, to our Father's throne ;
Who hears our Advocate, and through his wounds
Beholding man, aUows that tender name."
And again —
" O what a confluence of ethereal fires
IFrom urns unnumbered, down the steep of heaven.
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight !
Nor tarries there ; I feel it at my heart ;
My heart at once it humbles and exalts ;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies."
TVe should deeply ponder, also, the great
lesson which he deduces.
" Why such magnificence in aU thou seest ?
— Of matter's grandeur, know, one end is this ;
To teU the Rational who gazes on it
— Guard thou the important yet depending fate
Of heing, brighter than a thousand suns !
One single ray of thought outshines them all !
And, if man hears obedient, soon he'U soar
Superior heights, and on his purple wing
Rising where thouc/ht is now denied to rise.
Look down triumphant on these dazzling spheres ! "
I return, for a moment, to that comparison
by the Scottish philosopher, which may be
166 REALITIES
summed up in the brief sentence — Realities
transcend all dreams.
His remark, uttered the third part of a
century ago, has since received new and em-
phatic confirmations from the new explorings
of science. Dreams the most celestial or
eccentric, imaginings the most exalted or ex-
treme, are abundantly outgone by the ascer-
tained and visible facts of creation : how much
more, it is inevitable to conclude, by the
realities which are " not seen."
What are the visions, the reveries, or the
fictions of men, — the most oriental stretch of
mythic hyperbole, — the most ultramundane
dream of the astrologer Cardan, — or the boldest
flights of a Dante, — when compared with
the telescopic distinction of confused nebular
light into constellations or clusters of starry
globes ; or with that recent fact, the new
planet of Leverrier, whose distance, — not in-
calculable, but the astonishing subject of
successful calculation, — gives us a new stan-
dard for estimating the immensities of God's
Avorks, and tlie exceeding broadness of His
one law and sovereignty, by the amazing
vastness of our one solar system, — one amidst
SURPASS ALL DREAMS. 167
systems whose multitude must baffle human
research.
Since then even visible realities thus tran-
scend our most excursive dreams, how much
more, I repeat, the i/zvisible ! and how should
hallowed ambition, tempered by profound
humility, aspire to rise from man's frail ima-
ginations towards his Maker's real and eternal
grandeur, and from all visionary and evanes-
cent good towards the permanent " certainty
of waking bliss !"
I
NOTES.
NOTE A, p. 32.
KUBLA KHAN.
The reader may wish for the remaining lines pre-
served by the poet ; which are these : —
" A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her sjTuphony and song,
To such a deep dehght 'twould win me,
That, with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And aU who heard should see them there,
And aU should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes,' his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice.
And close your eyes with holy dread.
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of paradise."
All who loved the poet, or who honoured his genius,
must have earnestly wished that in those early days
he had restricted himself to genuine and harmless
170 OPIUM. KENIL WORTH.
" milk " or ''honey," instead of indulging in pernicious
stimulants. Most devoutly did he himself wish this
when he felt their fatal eliects ; and after he was at
last so happily rescued from that baneful snare of
opium, which had once attracted him as if it were
" the milk of paradise ; " but proved, as we learn from
what he confessed and recorded, a wine of demons, a
very " cup of trembling." ^
It is probable, since he writes of having taken an
*' anodyne," that the " vision in a dream " arose under
some excitement of that same narcotic : but this does
not destroy, even as to his particular case, the evi-
dence for a wonderfully inventive action of the mind
in sleep ; for, whatever were the exciting cause,
the fact remains the same : although, doubtless,
where there has been no stimulus of the sort, the
instances are still more to our purpose. Such a one is
the following : a piece kindly supplied me by a lady,
— " composed by herself in sleep, after reading Sir
Walter Scott's ' Kenilworth.'"
KENILWORTH CASTLE.
(Composed in sleep.)
■ In the tower I stood, and looked out on the lea,
Which slept in tlie moonlight peacefidly.
Ah ! many a moon lias passed away,
And many a head been strewed with gray,
Since these walls, which now echo the owlet's cry,
First reared their strength in the azure sky.
The bat now dwells where the dancers shone.
And the passing wind sighs for music gone ;
And in place of the torch's glaring blaze.
The quivering moonbeam gently strays.
I
^ See his most afTecting letters of A\m\, May, and June,
1814, in "Cottle's early recollections" of him. — Vol. ii. iip.
156, l(;i, 100,180.
LA MOTHE LE VAYER. 171
The Queen who once looked from these casements higli,
Where the long grass now waves rank and drj-,
Has passed away as a passing moan :
E'en her name is worn from the fretted stone.
And Surrey and Leicester, where are they ?
Oh ! tell me their tale, thou castle gray :
For they clnng to their Queen as the ivy round thee,
But they propped her not so faithfully.
I hear you speak in the night wind's sigh,
In the hat's leathern wing flitting quickly by,
In the thrilling sound of the night bird's cry,
Startling the silence fearfully.
They say that Time has been mowing here.
And that Death has been hurling his fatal spear."
I can conceive that the very connectedness and
sobriety of these pleasing lines, may induce suspicion
or misgiving in some readers as to the certainty of
their having been really the product of a dream, and
merely noted down (like Coleridge's) from memory
on awaking. With myself, who possess full attesta-
tion for the veracity and accuracy of the poetess, such
doubts can have no admission : and had that lady
consented to let her name be attached to the piece, the
same confidence would be felt by the whole circle of
her friends.
NOTE B, p. 36.
LA MOTHE LE A'AYER.
*' He was supposed to have a strong disposition to
scepticism, and bore with calmness the imputations to
which his opinions exposed him : once, when walking
in the gallery of the Louvre, he overheard a person
whisper to his friend, ' There goes a man without
religion : ' to which he replied, ' I have religion
enough, friend, to pardon your insult.' He was a
172 LA MOTHE. ZIMMERMANN.
great writer ; one of his works was a ' Treatise on the
Virtue of Pagans/ which was answered by Arnauld.
La Mothe's bookseller complaining tliat his book did
not sell, ' I know a secret,' said the author, ' to quicken
the sale ;' — he procured an order from government for
its suppression ; which was the means of selling the
whole edition." — llees's Cyclopaedia, art, Mothe le
Vayer (from Moreri),
This latter anecdote, while it shows his ready wit
and resource, and suggests a lesson on the bad policy
of trying to repress opinion by coercion, betrays at the
same time his lax \iews in morals : but, in the former,
he may be really considered as affording a pattern for
all believers, and, to some, a tacit but keen reproof.
NOTE C, p. 72.
zimmermann's dream.
It appears from Tissot's Life of Zimmermann, that
his wife was not really deceased when the above dream
occurred to him. We are to interpret the announce-
ment of her death merely as an incident of the
dream: which, in my judgment, renders that itself
the more remarkable ; since it was not occasioned
by emotions or promptings of the imagination
arising from an actual bereavement, but arose
independently of any such event. The first wife of
Dr. Zimmermann died in 1770, five years after this
dream happened, according to the statement of
Lavater.
NOTE D, p. 78.
THE SCEPTIC AND THE CHRISTIAN
We may take, as the type or exemplification of
sceptical prospects — and it cannot be deemed an unfair
I
THE SCEPTIC. ADONAIS. 173
or unfavourable one— Shelley's beautiful monody on
Keats, entitled ''Adonais;" a painfully instructive
poem from a hapless teacher, evincing, in him, the
insuppressible though hopeless sighs and yearnings of
humanity for a future life and tender recognition.
One might even think, if his wretched reveries
of pantheism and absorption were not known and
unconcealed, that some phrases strongly indicate the
hope of life and reunion to come ; as when he exclaims —
" — Peace ; peace ; he is not dead, he doth not sleep-
He hath awakened from the dream of life."
" — Mourn not for Adonais : — thou young dawn
Turn all thy dew to splendour ; for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone."
" — The soft sky smUes, the low wind whispers near ;
'Tis Adonais calls ! O hasten thither,
No more let hfe divide what death can join together."
And then —
" The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ;
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the eternal are."
But what this "star " and this "abode" are meant
—though most unfaithfully even as figures — to de-
signate, must be gathered from these other lines which
precede : —
" He is made one with Nature : there is heard
His voice in aU her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird :
He is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in hght, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move
"Which has withdrawn his being to its own."
q3
174 THE CHRISTIAN. LYCIDAS.
This, doubtless, is as exquisite poetry as can be had
without the element of real hope in it. It breathes
the essential spirit of wild and half-smiling melan-
choly. One might almost call it the nitrous oxide of
literature. Or if we liken it to a stream, it is a spark-
ling fascinating current, which flo'ws smoothly to the
whirlpool of despair.
Compare with this the spirit of Milton's monody
on Edward King, the son of Sir John King, secretary
for Ireland. It is remarkable that in this case the
subject of the elegy had been drowned at sea, and in
the former case the X)oet soon underwent a like
calamity.
" Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more j
Tor Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk tliougli he be beneath the wat'ry floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks liis beams, and with uew-spangled ore
Plames in the forehead of the morning sky.
So Lycidas sank low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of him that walked the waves.
Where, other groves and other streams along.
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain liim all the saints above
In solemn troops and sweet societies.
That sing, and singing in tlicir glory move.
And wipe tlie tears for ever froiiitItiS',^6^.'' -
Even should it be critically adjudged that these
lines of our elder bard have less of grandeur or cxqui-
siteness in them as mere poetry, one pities those who
do not prize in them the majesty of truth and hope ;
that spiritual sunlight which alone can really "turn
all dew " of grief " to splendour ; " while the sceptic's
most aspiring and far-reaching beams are but as cold
undulations of ether in the wilderness of space.
DREAMS MISTAKEN FOR FACTS. 175
NOTE E, p. 149.
''CHILDREN OF AN IDLE BRAIN."
It may be added, that in the minds of some young
children, and in others which, for want of strength or
discipline, remain in adult years still childish, the
impression of a dream on the memory appears to be
sometimes confounded with a remembrance of real
occurrences; and thus comes to be related as such. It
is the inversion of what Pascal has observed sometimes
happens to travellers in new scenes, who are apt to
feel and say, "Methinks I am dreaming." ^ And it
must be suspected as a possible illusion by some who
have not undergone it ; since the remark is not uncom-
mon after telling what seems both to the hearer and
narrator difficult of belief, — surely I cannot have
dreamed it. — Lamentable, however, as well . as lu-
dicrous is the case, when such confusedness as
leads to mistaking impressions in sleep for realities,
at once deludes the party himself, and creates for
him an ill reputation with others for incredible
stories; that is, in fact, for lying. Probably some
portion of what is judged as falsehood or rhodomon-
tade, takes rise from this transmutation of dreams, by
some vague and perplexed actings of memory and
fancy, into supposed and believed facts. .^ly acute and
observant friend, Mr. Bullar of Southampton, writes
to me thus : — " I have lately had with me one''of'my
lively little grandchildren, of three years old, who
sometimes made out such narratives of what she had
been doing or seeing as I could only account for on the
supposition that her memory had mixed up her dreams
with her waking thoughts. I think I can sometimes
trace that this may have been, occasionally, my own
case in childhood. I forget who it was, (though I
' Thoughts, p. 75. Glasg. cd. 1838.
176 BLACK SAM.
suspect it may have been Lavater,) that kept what he
called, in antithesis to " Diary," a " Nocturnal," regis-
tering his dreams, and then analysing the " stuff they
were made of," from detecting fragments of one train
of thought " tacked to another, as in a patchwork quilt."
This hint of thoughts or incidents " tacked " together,
— (which curiously accords with the Greek term
"rhapsodies," applied even to Homer's poems,) — well
describes the most frequent character of dreams. It
helps us, also, to understand how, in unsteady and ill-
regulated minds, (not to say in some superior to those,)
things real may have had the unreal so tacked to
them, that they have come to be thought all of a piece,
and the voyager or soldier has told " of hairbreadth
'scapes and moving accidents," founded on and con-
nected with some which really did occur, but which
themselves cawnot have occurred.
A gallant naval officer, the late Captain Sir T.
Byard, (maternal ancestor to some esteemed con-
nexions of mine,) who commanded the Bedford at the
battle of Camperdown, related, in a company where I
as a schoolboy Avas an eager and attentive listener, that
he had had on board his ship a negro servant called
Black Sam, Avho was used to assert, and persist in the
assertion, that he had once jumped off the Peak of
Teneriffe into the ship. Captain Byard added, —
" I think he had told this story till he really believed
it himself."
Now this Black Sam, though of Othello's hue, we
may well believe had nothing of the Moor's talent or
fascination; but was noted only as a professed and
resolved liar, which, too probably, he might be: still
it seems not 2»iprobable, that in this instance he had
unawares " tacked " (rhapsodized) the remembrance of
a dream to a real occurrence ; and so " believed " his
own "lie." It is not unlikely that he had made, with
some of his ship's officers, a mountain excursion
towards the peak, nor that he had afterwards vividly
dreamed of jumping from that height into the ship,
i
DELUSION. IDEALISM. 177
which he had really looked at thence, anchored in
the roads below. One may readily conceive how, in
an untaught, fanciful, and superstitious mind, the real
excursion and the dreaming extravagance had become
one and inseparable; his vanity flattered by the ima-
gined feat, and his credence made obstinate by his
hearers' raillery. Such a delusion, supposing that it
happened or that it may happen, would be a useful
lesson as to the importance of " keeping " the mind
" with diligence," lest its dreams or fancies mingling
with fact and imposing on itself, should niin its claim
to soundness and truthfulness, and lead many to judge
us "deceivers," when we may be, in great part,
" deceived, '
XOTE F, p. 163.
transce:tdental philosophy,
idealism.
The imagined annihilation both of mind and matter
by a self-bewildering philosophy,- advocated in the
sceptical writings of Hume, and since more laboriously
in the speculations of Fichte, Hegel, &c. — was, how-
ever, familiar to the subtle genius of the ancient Greeks.
It is very remarkable, that not merely the Eleatics,
the Pyrrhonists, &c. disputed in this manner, but that
even Plato, the most religious of the philosophers,
" has given them some countenance, by hinting it as
a thing not quite impossible, that human life is a con-
tinued sleep, and that all our thoughts are only
dreams. [Trorepov Kad^vSofxev, Kal irdvra a hiavosfx^Qa
oveipcoTTouev.^ This scepticism (which I am inclined
to think most persons have occasionally experienced
in their early years) proceeds on principles totally
different from the doctrine of Bishop Berkeley, who
asserts, with the most dogmatical contidence, that the
" existence of matter is iiiipossihle, and that the very
178 IDEALISM.
supposition of it is absurd." ' The good bishop firmly
held the existence of mind, and of the supreme mind.
He had, as Pope says, " every virtue under heaven ; "
and a modern writer remarks, "it is still a moot point
whether he was greater in head or heart." — Yet the
same pen tells us, " he paved the way to scepticism :"2
on which the reflection arises, how unhappy would
that excellent Christian and divine have heen, had he
foreseen that his theory might minister to such a
result ; and how important is it to limit speculation
within the boundaries of common sense.
NOTE, (supplemental,) p. 91.
" A DREAM OF CYRUS, WHO HAT) SEEN THE SUN AT HIS FEET
AND TRIED TO GRASP IT."
The contents of this note, (or part of it,) if I had
seen earlier the interesting facts and statements which
it offers, would not have been inserted as a note, but
in Section V. of the second Essay.* Coming as the}^ do
from the pen of a venerable person, of whose piety and
chaiity I have had most pleasing and edifying proofs,
in his own parish, both from personal intercourse and
from Striking testimony, I feel that none can be more
highly attested.
The Kev. Henry Woodward, Rector of Fethard, in a
recent brief autobiography, entitled " Some passages of
my former life,"^ after narrating his own experience
(in 1804) of a mighty spiritual change, writes — "I
think that the conviction which above all others
cheered my heart was, that the grand transition had
already taken place; that I had passed the Kubicou ;
' DiifTiild Slownrt. Vliilosopliical Essays, (Essay ii.) p. 11 H.
2 ];0\v('s's Biojiijipli. Hist, of riiilos. vol. iv. pp. 4, 32.
•■' At p 1 1.0.
KEV. HENRY AVOODWAKD. 179
that I was not to wait till death for the commencement
of the eternal day, but that I had already seen the
outgoings of the morning; that the sun that now
arose would never go down ; that I had awoke from
sleep, and would never close my eyes again." He
afterwards adds, " I would mention the following fact,
as illustrative of the manner in which the whole
current of my mind was changed. Some time, I
forget how long, before that — to me — all-important
period, I dreamt that I saw the sun arise, and then,
after it, another sun ; and I awoke in a state of inex-
pressible horror. A few days after the transition
which I am now describing, I had a repetition of
precisely the same dream ; and I started from my
sleep in almost an ecstasy of joy. I shall make no
further comment upon it than this, that it seemed to
me as if an all-gracious God had said, ' You see by the
different effects of this dream what a change has passed
upon your mind. You now have nothing to fear,
though the hills were removed, and the mountains
were cast into the depths of the sea.' " ^
It will be obvious to discerning and Christian
readers, that this might well have been classed with
some dreams adduced in the preceding pages, as
instrumental to the " renewing of the mind," or " in
the revival or fixing of prior impressions of revealed
truth." But, being obliged to offer it as a note,
I connect it with the dream of Cyrus, as exhibiting
the contrast between the " visions " of a heathen
prince, — prompted by the ruling passion, — and those
suggested by heavenly influence to a spiritually
awakened mind, as it began to seek " healing "
warmth and lustre in the "wings" of "the Sun of
Righteousness."
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