Year: 1871

as theme on which to play variations.
As before remarked, the grounds of choice
among all such subjects cannot be ascer-
tanned; but the prediction of Morpheus
for those which we have not In our wax
ing hours thought most interesting, is very
noticeable. Very rarely indeed do our
dreams take up the matter which has
most engrossed us for hours before we
sleep. A wholesome law ofvariety comes
into play, and the brain seems to decide,
have had enough of politics, or Greek,
or fox-hunting, for this time Now l will
amuse myself quite differently" Very
often, perhaps we may say generally, it
pounces on some transient thought which
has flown like a swallow across it by day
light, and insists on holding it fast through
the night, Only when our attention to
any subject has more or less transgressed
the bounds of health, and we have been
morbidly excited about it, does the main
topic of the day recur to us in dreaming at
night; and that it should do so, ought al
ways, / imagine, to serve as warning
that We have strained our mental powers
little too far. Lastly, there are dreams
whose origin is not in any past thought,
but in some sentiment vivid and pervad-
ing enough to make itself dumbly felt,
even in sleep. OF the nature of the
dreams so caused, we shall speak presently.


The subject of dream being, as we
must now suppose, suggested to the brain
on some such principle as the above, the
next thing to be noted is, How does the
brain treat its theme when it has got it {?
Does it drily reflect upon it, as we are
wont to do awake? Or does it pursue a
course wholly foreign to the laws of wax
ing thoughts? 1t does, conceive, neither
one nor the other, but treats its theme,
whenever it is possible to do so, according
to certain very important, though OBJ
scure, law of thought, whose action we
are too apt to ignore. We have been ac-
customed to consider the myth-creating
power of the human mind as one specially
belonging to the earlier stages Of growth
of society and of the individual. 1t will
throw, l think, rather curious light on
the subject if we discover that this in
stinct exists in every one of US, and exerts
itself with more or less energy through
the whole of our lives. In hours of wax
ing consciousness, indeed, it is suppressed,
or has only the narrowest range of exer-
else, as the tendency, noticeable to all per-
sons not of in the very strictest veracity,
to supplement an incomplete anecdote
with explanatory incidents, or throw q
slightly known story into the dramatic
form, with dialogues constructed out Of
our own consciousness. But such small
play CT the myth-making faculty is moth
ing compared to its achievements during
sleep. The instant that daylight and com.
mon sense are excluded, the fairy-work be-
gins. At the very least, half our dreams
(unless greatly err) are nothing else
than myths formed by unconscious cere
bration of the same approved principles
whereby Greece and India and Scandi
navia gave to US the stories which WE
were once pleased to set apart as " my
thology" proper. Have we not here, then
evidence that there is real law of the
human mind causing us constantly to com
pose ingenious fables explanatory of ths
phenomena around us-a law which only
sinks into allegiance in the waking hour
of persons in whom the reason has beel
highly cultivated, and which resumes it:
sway again over their well -tutored brain


when they sleep?-Francis POaoer COBB, i,


Mac Millan's Magazine.