to be wholly inscrutable by any means human reason can apply to them.

It may seem strange to many of our readers, that we should preface the subject of Sleep and Dreams by phrases thus grave and forbidding in their tenor. Acts so familiar, and periodically habitual in our lives, might be thought of easy interpretation. The sleep of the rocking-cradle, of the bed, of the arm-chair or carriage, witnessed in their ever-recurring routine, would seem to tell all that can or need be known on these subjects. But it is this very familiarity which disguises their nature, and begets indifference to the greatest marvel of our existence. This, indeed, is one of the numerous instances where we look heedlessly upon phenomena become habitual to us, but which, seen as solitary or infrequent events, are the subjects of admiration or terror. We gaze with careless eye on the daily march of the Sun through the heavens, on the midnight magnificence of the starry sky. Our wonder and awe are reserved for the comet or the eclipse. We witness the flowing and ebbing of the ocean and river tides at their calculated times, ignorant or indifferent to the fact that these changes express the action of the greatest law of the universe. Travelling by railroad, we look with idle eyes on those thin wire lines, traversing the air beside us, which at the very moment are carrying currents of electricity under human bidding-the instantaneous transmitters of human language and thought. We think and speak, we see and hear, breathe and walk, indifferent as to the nature of these marvellous functions, or how their unceasing work is carried on. And well it is for our happiness, and for the integrity of the functions themselves, that it should be so. The mere act of mental attention to any one of them, is enough to alter or disturb its natural action-a fact of supreme importance in human physiology.

All this is eminently true as regards the subject before us. An habitual indifference to the phenomena of sleep is found as much among men of general intelligence as in the mass of the unthinking world. Assembled in the morning round the breakfast-table, we laugh and jest over tales of the dreams of the night; not reflecting that these wild and entangled vagaries-illusions as to persons, time, and place-are part and parcel of that continuous personal identity, which at other times manifests itself in acts of reason, discourse, and deliberate functions of the will. We are jesting here upon things which have perplexed the philosophy of all ages. No less a problem than the intimate nature of the human soul is concerned in these phenomena. Where more than a fourth part of life, even

in its adult and healthiest stages, is passed in sleeping and dreaming, these functions must be taken as an integral and necessary part of our existence-not less natural than our waking acts, and associated with them by various intermediate phenomena, to which we shall presently allude. These phenomena, indeed, may be said really to maintain that unity of the thinking and conscious being which in other ways they seem so strangely to disturb. A line of rigid demarcation between the states of waking and sleeping might well appear to dissever this unity. But no such line exists; and it may readily be shown, under appeal to individual experience, that these various states endlessly commingle and graduate into each other; thus affording mutual illustration, and, as we believe, a more intimate knowledge of the mysteries of the human mind than can be obtained from any other source.

It would hardly be worth while to preface what we have to say on Sleep and Dreams, by citing what ancient writersphilosophers, physicians, and poets-have bequeathed to us on the subject. The phenomena were to them the same as to us-the dream, perhaps, more exciting to the imagination from its connexion with various superstitions of the age. Seeing, indeed, the tendency of their mythology and poetry to deify whatever is wonderful in man or nature, it is not surprising that they should clothe these great functions of life with a personality, vague indeed in kind, but such as to satisfy the popular and poetic feeling of the time. Nor can we wonder that they should have been the subjects of superstitious belief, seeing how variously and strangely these functions are blended with the spiritual part of our nature. Even now, when science imposes so many new checks upon credulity, the inspired dream-the "Ovap EK Atòs-has its occasional place among other still less rational beliefs of the world.

Aristotle, whose chapters on Sleep and Dreams rank foremost of all that the ancients have left us on the subject, says on the question of inspiration of dreams, that it is not easy either to despise the evidence or to be convinced by it' (OUTE καταφρονῆσαι ῥᾴδιον, οὔτε πειθῆναι). But with his wonted sagacity, he indicates the reasons which justify distrust as to a Divine interposition, thus partial and frivolous in its alleged ministrations to man. He sees clearly that the event is often the parent of the prophetic dream, and that in the endless and complex relations of human life, it must needfully happen that coincidences often occur without any real relation of the events so associated. These chapters of Aristotle well deserve perusal as evidences of the clear and acute intelligence of this great

philosopher. We have acquired more knowledge of the physiology of sleep as a vital function, but in its connexion with dreams are little advanced beyond what he has told us.

Cicero, in his Second Book De Divinatione,' discusses the question whether there be a divine influence occasionally embodied in dreams still more largely and conclusively. Čalled upon to confront strong popular superstitions, he meets them fairly and boldly. But beyond this negative conclusion, his treatise does little to illustrate the phenomena or philosophy of the functions in question.

While revelling in the beauty of the poetry, ancient and modern, which has found a theme in sleep and dreams-and none more fertile for fancy to work upon-we cannot look for any fresh knowledge from this source. Lucretius, indeed, with his supreme mastery of verse, comprises something of the philosophy of dreams in his grand description of them. From Homer and the Greek dramatists down to Virgil, Ovid, Statius, &c., we have abundant passages, finely describing or invoking sleep, but it is the poetry only of the subject. We must not, however, quit this topic without referring to those many striking passages in Shakspeare where the genius of the man revels in the wild, fantastic world of our sleeping existence. He grasped human nature too universally to leave untouched this wonderful part of it. We need but refer to the passages in Henry IV.,' Richard III.,' Romeo and Juliet,' Macbeth,' and Midsummer Night's Dream,' in proof of what we are saying. The memory of our readers will furnish them with numerous other passages on the subject from English, German, and Italian poets; but none, we think, so abounding in thought and poetry as those of Shakspeare.

We have already stated our reason for taking M. Maury's volume as the text for our article. We learn from his preface that he has zealously devoted himself to the subject for a long series of years; embodying his researches in successive publications, of which this is the latest. These researches comprise certain curious methods of experiment, ingeniously devised, and, as far as we know, never systematically used before. We cannot better illustrate these methods than by giving his own words. After speaking of the need of long, continuous, and cautious observation, to obtain any assured results, he adds:

'Je m'observe tantôt dans mon lit, tantôt dans mon fauteuil, au moment où le sommeil me gagne. Je note exactement dans quelles dispositions je me trouvais avant de m'endormir; et je prie la personne qui est près de moi, de m'éveiller à des instants plus ou moins

éloignés du moment où je me suis assoupi. Réveillé en sursaut, la mémoire du rêve, auquel on m'a soudainement arraché, est encore présenté à mon esprit, dans la fraîcheur même de l'impression. II m'est alors facile de rapprocher les détails de ce rêve des circonstances où je m'étais placé pour m'endormir. Je consigne sur un cahier ces observations, comme le fait un médecin pour les cas qu'il observe. Et en relisant le répertoire que je me suis ainsi dressé, j'ai saisi entre des rêves qui s'étaient produits à diverses époques de ma vie, des coincidences, des analogies dont la similitude des circonstances qui les avaient provoquées m'ont bien souvent donné la clef.'

M. Maury goes on to state the necessity of having a coadjutor with him in this inquiry, not solely for the purpose here mentioned of being awakened at particular times, but also for the due observation of what may be called the utterances of sleep. Sounds made and words spoken by the sleeper, must be recorded in relation to the dreams afterwards remembered. Even simple attitudes and movements of the body, especially such as express agitation, require the same record, and for the same purpose. M. Maury mentions his own habits as to sleep, as being singularly favourable to these methods of observation: and we are well disposed to believe in the results thus obtained. Nevertheless, the chances of error are so great in this land of shadows, that we should be glad to find the research taken up by others, with such variations as individual temperament may suggest. It is obvious that the latter point is one of singular importance. The sleep and dreams of one man interpret only partially and doubtfully those of another, and we must check as well as multiply the proofs before setting down anything as certain. In common life, the very nature of a dream gives a sanction to a loose or exaggerated relation of it. No one is disposed to quarrel with the relater for filling up gaps in his dream with the little parentheses needed to complete his story; or, if a little of the marvellous be brought into the subject-one of those strange coincidences to which the vision of the night contributes its part-we generally find truth more deeply trespassed upon. Stories, vague and loose in their origin, are made more compact by successive additions, and often go on from one generation to another, acquiring a sort of spurious credit from age, and from the impossibility of refuting them by any living evidence.

We come now more directly to the subject before us, embodying, as M. Maury has done, under a single title our consideration of these great acts of life-Sleep and Dreaming. They cannot, in truth, be treated of separately. Their conjunction is so general, if not universal, and they are linked together by such complex ties, that we are almost compelled to

view them as a single function of our being. Still there are certain considerations which must be admitted as possible grounds of distinction. We cannot prove that the conjunction of sleep and dreams is absolute and universal. There may be times and conditions of sleep, in which there is a total inactivity of brain-a complete absence of those images and trains of thought which form the dream. In connexion with this comes the further consideration, that sleep is a necessity of our nature a state required for the rest and repair of functions, both bodily and mental, which are incapable of being repaired in any other way. The same cannot be said of dreams. They depend on functions of the brain, which, though unchecked by the senses and the will, and distorted in their mode of action, are yet identical in kind with those which are exercised in evolving the thoughts and emotions of the waking state. The notion of repair and restoration can hardly therefore be associated with the act of dreaming. Frequent experience, moreover, teaches us that what we call unrefreshing nights' are attended by troublous dreams; and, though this may often admit of other explanation, yet is the fact significant as regards the distinction just drawn. The repose and restoration obtained from sleep would seem to be in an inverse ratio to the intensity of the dreams attending it.

Is there then any condition or moment of sleep absolutely devoid of dreaming? a state in which all thoughts and emotions, whether connected or vaguely incongruous, are annulled, and our mental or conscious existence lost in the simple physical condition of sleep? The import of this question will readily be understood. The answer might seem easy, but is far from being so. Positive proof is wholly wanting, and the only evidence attainable is that derived from the memory of the dreamer, or the observations of those who watch him during those hours of which he has no remembrance. It is certain from such observation, and indeed from common experience, that dreams are of very frequent occurrence, of which all instant memory is lost. Aristotle, in discussing this very topic, puts the question, why some sleep occurs with dreams, other sleep without? or, if always dreaming, why some dreams are remembered, others not? The question, so propounded, marks the clear intelligence of the philosopher. In the memory or oblivion of dreams we trace their connexion with our physical organisation, and thus gain a step, though a slight one, to the better understanding of their nature.

The doubt just denoted as to the universality of dreams during sleep, has continued to our time. If ever resolved, it