Weekly Trinity journal., 1876-09-30

nitz was the first to suggest, as Sir Will
liam Hamilton, Stuart Mill, Herbert
Spencer, and others have also conceded.
The idea, indeed, is old (what idea is
not p, though we are indebted to the
Leipsic philosopher for its clear and sub
stantial presentation. Des Cartes's fun
damental doctrine, II think, therefore |
am" is tar from absolute truth. We of
ten are when we have no knowledge of
the fact. In other words, there is a
sphere beyond our consciousness, and that
sphere is frequently entered in Sleep
Between the spheres of consciousness
and unconscousness thought is perpetu-
ally passing as ftom light into darkness,
and again from darkness into light, but
recognizable alone in light. This princi-
pie, either rejected or misunderstood by
many, elucidates not few Of the phe-
nomena of sleep.
The Countess of Laval, after she had
gone to bed, and the outer world had
slipped away, was in the habit lshe was
somniloqusD of talking n language
which nobody could comprehend, and
which was consequently supposed to be
gibberish. Having fallen seriously i'll, a
nurse from Brittany was engaged for her,
and she at once recognized the strange
her native province. The Countess, who
spoke Briton while asleep, was not ac-
quainted with a word of it when awake,
having no conception Of the meaning of
the phrases she used so volubly in her
dreams.
The enigma was solved by the fact
that she had been born in Brittany, and
placed as a child in family whose mem
bers talked only the ancient dialect. She
had doubtless, learned this in her infancy;
but returning home, where French alona
was used, she so thoroughly forgot her
early speech that it passed out of her
conscious memory.
In a German Coleridge gives
us this narrative with much detail-a
young woman compactly ignorant was
attacked with fever, and in her burning
dreams talked Latin, Greek, and Hebrew
in fragmentary and disconnected phrases; !;
causing the Roman Catholic priest some
times visiting her TO believe her possessed
of a devil. She attracted great attention
from the learned, and her broken SEN
tenccs were written down and translated.
Anything like artfce on her part was
out of the question, and tho mystery for
a while defed divination.
Finally her physician, a, philosopher
resolved to hunt up the girls history,
in the hope that it would throw some light
on the subject. After great trouble and
exertion he discovered that when she was
but eight years old she became an or
phan, and was taken out Of charity by
Protestant minister famed for benevoence
and linguistic erudition. 1t was bis GUS
tom TO pace a small room adjoining the
kitchen in which the girl was employed,
and to read in loud tone from various
ancient authors. His favorito book.
were examined, and in them were found
a number of the passages which the fever
patient had repeated, leaving no doubt
that they had entered her memory, and
had been spoken during her illness in
voluntarily and unconsciously. She had
caught the uninteIligible sounds, and,
years after, had been able to reiterate
them showing that the senses receive,
and keep by the aid OF the mind, what
standing Of.
Avicenna the celebrated Arabian physi-
clan and philosopher, is reputed to have
gotten, in sleep, middle. terms for the
syllogsms he wished, which he had in
effectually sought in his most studious
and reflective wakefulness.
Coleridge, as is well known, composed
during slumber his striking fragment OF
"Kublsh Khan" Margaret of Navarro.
La Fontaine, Voltaire, and other poets
frequently made excellent verses in their
sleep, and remembered them well enough
to put them on paper afterward.
Cabanis, the renowned medico-meta-
physician, often comprehended in his
dreams political questions which had
eluded him at other times.
Condorcet was compelled again and
again to quit abstract mathematical cal
culations, and wait for the inspiration
Of sleep to finish their solution.
Condillac says that while occupied with
his "Treatise upon Sensations" he re-
sumed in his dreams train Of thought
which he had left off before going to bed.
Benjamin Franklin declared that the |
bearings OF political events, which per-
picked him awake, we're revealed to him |
in dreams.
Thomas Campbell, who had been la
boring for eight or ten days TO complete
the couplet in "Lochiel's Warming"
eventually owed the completion to the
kindly visions OF the night.
" Ills tho sunset OF life gives me mystical lore'
had been ringing through his brain
without the corresponding line, when,
A nd coming events cast their shadows before
flashed into his brain with such llunina-
ton that he was aroused, jumped up, and
wrote down the verse.
This is the general story, albeit the
fact, no doubt, is, as professional rhym-
sters will see, that the first line was made
TO fit the second, after the second had
been found.
Giuseppe Tartini, the renowned violin
ist, is best known by his composition en-
titled the Devils Sonata" which he
told Lalande, the astronomer, he wrote