Page:Faithhealingchri00buckiala.djvu/129

Rh while asleep, and of the "Devil's Sonata" by Tartini, are paralleled in a small way frequently. Public speakers often dream out discourses: there is a clergyman who, many years ago, dreamed that he preached a powerful sermon upon a certain topic, and delivered that identical discourse the following Sunday with great effect. Such compositions are not somnambulistic unless accompanied by outward action at the time of dreaming them.

SEARCH FOR ANALOGIES different views of dreams are possible, and all have been held and strenuously advocated. The first is that the soul is never entirely inactive, and that dream-images proceed all the time through the mind when in sleep. Richard Baxter held this view, and attempted to prove it by saying, "I never awaked, since I had the use of memory, but I found myself coming out of a dream. And I suppose they that think they dream not, think so because they forget their dreams." Bishop Newton says that the deepest sleep which possesses the body cannot affect the soul, and attempts to prove it by showing that impressions are often stronger and images more lively when we are asleep than when awake. Dr. Watts held the same view, and devoted a great deal of attention to it in his philosophical essays. Sir William Hamilton inclined to the same belief, because, having had himself waked on many occasions, he always found that he was engaged in dreaming.

Baxter's theory is an assumption of which no adequate proof can be offered; and Sir William Hamilton's test is inadequate, because an instant, even the minute fraction that elapses between calling a man's