ARE DIVINE DREAMS TO BE EXPECTED NOW? 51 We approach the conclusion of this part of our subject by asking the question whether God has ceased to reveal Himself and His will by dreams,-does He still occasionally so manifest Himself? Of course the question of power can be answered in only one way. We can understand the propriety of dream-revelation during the infancy and youth of the world. Then, it was fitting that revelations should be multiform; for mankind had to be taught by instance and example that there was no side of their nature which was not en rapport with the supernatural and the divine. This truth must be an article of faith, so long as humanity lasts; but latterly it has been degraded to a considerable extent from its dignity as a practical belief, and it is now very much of a theory to which assent must be given, while-so far as dream-revelation is concerned-it is kept in the background as an elementary one, fitted especially for juvenility and for processes of education. The question of power, we said, can be settled in only one way; for God is Lord of the universe of beingof material and ideal substances. It would be, therefore, to limit Him, to affirm that a revelation by dreams was antecedently impossible,—priggish and impertinent to say that it was antecedently absurd. The unanimous voice, nemine contradicente, must be, that He could so reveal Himself, if He would; the general voice is, that it is possible He does; the more restricted opinion is 52 THE AFFIRMATIVE NOT RIDICULOUS. that He does; and there is, in addition, an inner circle of persons who profess to have personal evidence, not of the possibility, not of the probability, but of the actuality of such illuminations. Such persons, following the canon of Cyprian-who, observing the edification which resulted to divers members of the congregation from revelations in sleep and dreams, was accustomed to attach a great deal of credit to them-appeal to results as evidence of divine operation. And while it must be conceded against such an argument, that in the infinite and multitudinous occurrence of dreams, it would be a wonder if some did not come true,' and that there is yet much to be said, and perhaps even much to be tabulated, about the probability of improbabilia; yet there is no room for the scorner to sit down and mock at men who appeal to beneficial results in morals and religion as an evidence that dream-agency is not yet effete in the economy of God. CHAPTER IV. CAUSES, USES, AND PHENOMENA OF DREAMS. And Phansie, I tell you, has dreams that have wings, Dreams of the, kitchen, and dreams of the cellar.' Ben Jonson. We are now upon the plateau of ordinary life. It is, for the time, an indifferent matter whether exceptional dreams have anything or nothing of divine or angelic sanctity; we have now to do with those dreams which are indigenous to the thinking systems of men asleep. What, then, is sleep? It is primarily and chiefly an affection of the nervous system, in which, through exhaustion, the senses become inactive, and, as it were, dead; while, at the same time, the nutritive systems and the functions essential to life, go on.' In conse 54 PROXIMATE CAUSE OF SLEEP. quence of this inactivity of the sensorium, there arise, (1) loss of consciousness, so far, at least, as regards all connection with, and relations to, external things; (2) loss of voluntary power over the physical and muscular frame; and (3) loss of voluntary control over the operations of the mind; the mind still remaining active, however, and its operations going on, uncontrolled by the will. "The proximate cause of sleep has ever been a disputed question. Depressed nervous energy, exhausted irritability, congestion in the cerebral sinuses, afflux of blood into the pia mater, its reflex towards the heart, deposition of fresh matter in the brain, cerebral collapse, deficiency of animal spirits, vapor quidem benignus,— these and many other hypotheses may be merely convertible terms, and they explain nothing.'* Perhaps this is the place to propound another question: What is a dream ?-what is the word, and what the thing? Etymologically the word has a scant history. In our language and its Teutonic relatives it is a simple and radical one. One or two improbable attempts at classical derivation may be noticed. Skinner, with some ingenuity, would derive it, by metathesis, from the Latin dormire; Casaubon, with more poetry and even less probability, from the Greek Spâμa тoû Blov, • 'Journal of Psychological Medicine,' article The Pathology of Sleep, vol. v. 1852.. ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD 'DREAM.' 55 dreams being, as plays are, a representation of something which does not really happen. Moses Amyraldus and Junius have each enlarged upon this conceit. Another philologer would derive it from the Celtic word trem. Such formal similarities amongst vocables of various significations, and in languages more remotely of kin to one another, are to be regarded as the result of accident, rather than as being of any etymological value. Casaubon's derivation, for instance, includes a proposition to the effect that it is likely that the drama had emerged into human experience before the dream, which is inconceivable. It will be enough for us to exhibit a few forms from which the affinities of our word dream may be understood, and from which it may be concluded that a settlement of ethnological precedence carries with it, in this case, a decision also of philological priority. Dream is an Anglo-Saxon noun, in Saxon, bɲeam, and in both languages having a primary meaning of melody, joy or gladness. The Dutch form is droom, the Swedish dröm, with a direct sub-assumption of idleness and vacuity; and the German traum. Dismissing the word, we may in one sentence epitomize all the current definitions of the thing. For all men are so well agreed upon this matter, that it is rather that their expressions vary, than that their ideas are dissimilar. We shall find enough contrariety of opinion by-and |