Worcester daily spy., 1872-08-19

There are great many instances on record
| of very curious mental work, so to speak, done
| in this automatic conditional state of active
| dreaming, in fact. For instance, DIR. Abercom-
| bic mentions, in his very useful work on "The
| Intellectual Powers" an example of a lawyer
| who had been excessively peTpleXed about
| very complicated question. An opinion was re-
quired from him, hut the question was one of
such difficulty that he felt very uncertain how
his opinion should be given. The opinion had
to be given on certain day, and he awoke in
the morning Of that day with feeling of great
distress, He said to his wife, 81 had dream
and the whole thing in that dream has been
clear before my mind, and | would give any
thing to recover that train of thought" His
wife said to him, "Go and look ON your table,"
She had seen him get up IN the night and 90 to
his table and sit down and write He went to
| his table, and found there the very opinion
| which he had been most earnestly endeavoring
| to recover lying in his own handwriting. There
| was no doubt about it whatever, and this opin-
| ion he AT once saw was the very thing which he
| had been anxious to be able to give.
| Now, there are many cases of this kind, in
which the mind has obviously worked more
clearly and more successfully in this automatic
condition, when left entirely to ITSELF than when
we have been cudgeling our brains, SO to speak,
to get the solution. have paid good deal of
attention to this subject in this way | have
taken every opportunity that occurred to me of
asking inventors and altiStS-creaOrs in various
departments of art-musicians, poets and paint
erS, what their experience has been in regard
| TO difficulties which they have felt and which
they have after time overcome. And the eX-
perience has been almost always the same, that
they have set the result which they have wished
to obtain strongly before their minds just as we
do when we 10 recOlect something we have
forgotten they think of every thing that
can lead to it; but if they do not sue
coed, they put it by for time, and give their
minds TO something else, and endeaVor to OBJ
tam as complete repoSe or refreshment of the
mind upon some other occupation as they can !;
and find that either after sleep, or after some
| period Of recreation by variety Of employment,
lust what they want comes into their heads. A
curious example Of this was mentioned 10 me
few days ago by Mr.. Wenham, a gentleman who
has devoted great deal of time and attention
to the improvement oil the microscope, and who
| is the inventor of that form of binOcular mi.
croscOpe, (by which we look with two eyes and
| obtain stereoscOpic picture) which is in gen
| eral use in this country. The original binocular
| microscope was made upon plan which would
| suggest itself to any optician. | shall not at
| tempt to describe it to you, but it involved the
| use of three prisms, giving a number of reflee-
| tons; and every one Of these reflections was
| attended with certain loss of light and GER
! tain liability to error. And, besides that, the
| instrument could only be used as binocular
| microscope. Now, MIR Wenham thought il might
| be possible to construct an instrument which
| would work with only one prism, and that this
| prism could be Withdrawn, and then we cOu d
use the microscope for purposes TO which the
bluocular microscope could not be applied He
| thought of this a great deal, but he could not
| tmnk OF the form OF prism which would do what
was required. He was going into business as
an engineer, and he put his microscopic studies
aside for more than fortnight, attending only to
his ether work, and thinking nothing of his
| microscope. One evening after his days work
was done, and while he was reading a stupid
novel, as he assured me, and was thinking moth
ing whatever of his microscope, the form of the
prism that should do this work flashed into his
mind He fetched his mathematical instru-
angles which would be required, and the next
morning he made his prism, and found it an
swcred perfectly WE'LL and uron that invention
nearly all the blnocular microscopes made in
this country have since been constructed.-Dr
| Carpenter, IN Popular Science Monthly for
| Sent