Philosophical ingenuity has long been displayed in the most learned disquisitions in an endeavour to account for the nature of these phenomena. The strangeness of these visionary perturbations of our rest—their supposed influence on our destinies—their frequent verification by subsequent events—have always shed a mysticprestigearound them; and superstition, ignorance, and craft, have in turns characterized them as the warnings of the Divine will, or the machinations of an evil spirit.
Macrobius divided them into various categories. The first, the meredream,somnium, he considers a figurative and mysterious representation that requires to be interpreted. Dion Cassius gives an example of this in the case of Nero,who dreamt that he saw the chair of Jupiter pass into the palace of Vespasian, which was considered as emblematical of his translation to the empire.
The second distinction he terms avision,visio, or a foreboding of future events. The third he deemedoracular,oraculum, and this was the case when a priest, or a relative, a deity, a hero, or some venerable person, denounced what was to happen, or warned us against it. As an example of this inspiration, for such it was considered, an anecdote of Vespasian is related. Having heard that a man in Achaia had dreamt that a person unknown to him had assured him that he should date his prosperity from the moment that Nero should lose a tooth,—a tooth just drawn from that emperor being shown to him the following day, he foresaw his destinies: soon after Nero died, Galba did not long survive him, and the discord that reigned between Otho and Vitellius ultimately placed the diadem on his brow. These inspirations were considered by Cicero, and various philosophers, as particularly appertaining to the shrine of the gods; those who sought that heavenly admonition were therefore recommended to lie down in temples. The Lacedæmonians sought slumber in the temple of Pasithea; Brizo, the goddess of sleep and dreams, was worshipped at Delos, and her votaries slept before her altars with their heads bound with laurel, and other fatidical symbols; hence divination by dreams was calledBrizomantia. Supplications were offered up to Mercury for propitious visions, and a caduceus was placed for that purpose at the feet of beds; hence was it called ἑρμῖες.
Diodorus informs us that dreams were regarded in Egypt with religious reverence, and the prayers of the devout were often rewarded by the gods with an indication of appropriate remedies. But the confidence in supernatural agency and the power of magic, was only deemed a last resource, when human skill had been baffled. Some persons promised a certain sum of money for the maintenance of sacred animals, consecrated to the divinity whose aid they implored. In the case of infants, a certain portion of their hair was cut off and weighed, and when the cure was effected an equal quantity of gold was given to the successful intermediator.
The fourth division wasinsomny,insomnium, which was characterized by a disturbed repose, caused either by mental or bodily oppression, or solicitude. The fifth class of dreams was thephantasmorvisus, which takes place between sleeping and waking, in a dozing and broken slumber, whenthe person thinks himself awake, and yet beholds fantastic and chimerical figures floating around his couch. Under this class is placed theephialtes, or night-mare. Macrobius represents the phantasm and the insomnium as little deserving of attention, being of no use in divination and prediction.
When these notions prevailed, the interpretation of dreams became a profitable trade; and it is a lamentable truth, that, to the present day, it is considered a speculation upon credulity. We find in Plutarch’s Life of Aristides that there were tables drawn out for this purpose; and he speaks of one Lysimachus, a grandson of Aristides, who gained a handsome livelihood by this profession, taking up his station near the temple of Bacchus. Rules of interpretation were formed by Artemidorus, who lived in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and he drew his conclusions from circumstances considered either propitious or sinister. Thus, to dream of a large nose, signified subtlety; of rosemary or sage, trouble and weakness; of a midwife, disclosure of secrets; of a leopard, a deceitful person. These interpretations became so multiplied, that at last it was decreed that no dreams which related to the public weal should be regarded, unless they had visited the brains of some magistrates, or more than one individual. But what limits can any enactment assign to the influence of credulity and superstition? Cicero informs us that the Consul Lucius Julius repaired to the temple of Juno Sospita, in obedience to a decree of the senate regarding the dream of Cæcilia, daughter of Balearicus.
In more modern times we have often seen dreams resorted to, in order to assist the speculations of policy and priestcraft; some of them as absurd in their nature as revolting in their interpretation. Monkish records relate that St. Bernard’s mother dreamed that she had a little white dog barking about her, which was interpreted to her by a religious person as meaning “that she should be the mother of an excellent dog indeed, who should be the hope of God’s house, and would incessantly bark against its adversaries, for he should be a famous preacher, and cure many by his medicinal tongue.” Our Archbishop Laurence, to whom we owe the church of Our Lady at Canterbury, was about to emigrate to France under the discouragement of persecution, until warned in a dream, and severely scourged by St. Peter for his weakness. It was on the relation not only of this dream, but on actually exhibiting the marks of the stripes he had received, that Eadbald was baptized, and became a protector of the church. It was in a dream of thisdescription that St. Andrew instructed Peter Pontanus how to find out the spear that had pierced our Saviour’s side, and which was hidden somewhere near Antioch. Antioch was at that time besieged by the Persians, and half famished; but this weapon being carried by a bishop, enabled the besieged to beleaguer Caiban, the Persian general.
The Peripatetics represented dreams as arising from a presaging faculty of the mind; other sects imagined that they were suggestions of dæmons. Democritus and Lucretius looked upon them as spectres andsimulacraof corporeal things, emitted from them, floating in the air, and assailing the soul. A modern writer, Andrew Baxter, entertained a notion somewhat similar, and imagined that dreams were prompted by separate immaterial beings, or spirits, who had access to the sleeper’s brain with the faculty of inspiring him with various ideas. Burton divides dreams into natural, divine, and dæmoniacal; and he defines sleep, after Scaliger, as “the rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation of body and soul.”
Gradually released from the trammels of superstition, modern philosophers have sought for more plausible explanations of the nature and causes of dreams, but perhaps without having attained a greater degree of certainty in this difficult question than our bewildered ancestors. Wolfius is of opinion that every dream originates in some sensation, yet the independent energies of the mind are sufficiently displayed in the preservation of the continued phantasms of the imagination. He maintains that none of these phantasms can prevail unless they arise from this previous sensation. De Formey is of the same opinion, and conceives that dreams are supernatural when not produced by these sensations. But of what nature are these sensations? Are they corporeal impressions received prior to sleep, and the continuances of reflection, or are they the children of an idle brain? Although it is not easy to trace an affinity between the subjects of our dreams and our previous train of thought, yet it is more than probable that dreams are excited by impressions experienced in our waking moments, and retransmitted to the sensorium, however difficult it may be to link the connexion of our ideas, and trace their imperceptible catenation. Moreover, there does not exist a necessary and regular association in the state of mind that succeeds any particular impressions. These impressions only predispose the mind to certain ideas, which act upon it with more or less subsequent energy, and with more or less irregularity,according to the condition in which the predisposing causes have left it. It has been observed that we seldom dream of the objects of our love or our antipathies. Such dreams may not be the natural results of such sentiments. We may fondly love a woman, and in our dreams transfer this soft sensation of fondness to another individual,—to a dog that fondles us, or any other pleasing object. We may have experienced fear—in a storm at sea; yet we may not dream of being tossed about in a boat, but of being mounted upon a runaway horse who hurries us to destruction, or of flying from a falling avalanche. Our mind had been predisposed by fear to receive any terrific impression, and most probably these alarming phantasms will be of a chimerical and an extravagant nature. A man who has been bitten by a dog may fancy himself in the coils of a boa-constrictor. When dreaming, the mind is in an abstracted state; but still is its reciprocal influence over the body manifest, although it is powerless on volition. Vigilance in sleep is still awake; but her assistance is of no avail until the connexion between mind and body is aroused by any alarm from external agents. It is well known that a hungry man will dream of an ample repast. A patient with a blister on his head has fancied himself scalped by Indians in all their fantastic ornaments. Somnambulism clearly proves that the mind retains its energies in sleep. Locke has justly observed that dreams are made up of the waking man’s ideas, although oddly put together. Hartley is of opinion that dreams are nothing but the reveries of sleeping men, and are deducible from the impressions and ideas lately received, the state of the body, and association. I have endeavoured to explain, on the ground of the general effects of predisposition, the anomalies which so often are displayed in these associations. Of the surprising powers of the mind in somnambulism we have many instances too well authenticated to be doubted. Henricus ab Heeres was in the habit of composing in his sleep, reading aloud his productions, expressing his satisfaction, and calling to his chamber-fellow to join in the commendation. Cælius Rhodiginus when busied in his interpretation of Pliny, could only find the proper signification of the wordectrapaliin his slumbers. There is not the least doubt but that the mind is capable of receiving impressions of knowledge, but more particularly inspirations of genius, when the body is lulled in a state of apparent repose. Dreams have been ingeniously compared to a drama defective in the laws of unity, and unconnected by constant anachronisms. Yet certain incoherences are notfrequent: Darwin has justly remarked that a woman will seldom dream that she is a soldier, and a soldier’s visions will seldom expose him to the apprehensions of child-birth. Buffon has observed, “We represent to ourselves persons whom we have never seen, and such as have been dead for many years; we behold them alive and such as they were, but we associate them with actual things, or with persons of other times. It is the same with our ideas of locality; we see things not where they were, but elsewhere, where they never could have been.”
Dugald Stewart has endeavoured to account for these phenomena by the doctrine that in sleep the operations of the mind are suspended, and that therefore the cause of dreams is the loss of power of the will over the mind, which in the waking condition is subject to its control. Now, if this be the case, dreams must consist of mental operations independent of the will. However, it is not the suspension of the will and of the powers of volition that alone constitutes sleep; it is the suspension of the powers of the understanding,—attention, comparison, memory, and judgment. It is in consequence of this suspension of all our active intellectual faculties that we never canwillduring our dreams; in that state there appears to be a resistance of the powers of volition with which the mind struggles in vain, and which is expressed both by moans, and the character of the sleeper’s every feature, which portrays a state of anguish and impatience. In all dreams that are not of a morbid nature, every action is passive, involuntary. This state is widely different from delirium, in which the brain is in a morbid state of excitement; and the body is more susceptible than usual of external agency, while the mind is perplexed by hallucinations of an erroneous nature.
Dr. Abercrombie considers insanity and dreaming as having a remarkable affinity when considered as mental phenomena; the impressions in the one case being more or less permanent, and transient in the other. Somnambulism he considers an intermediate state. Dreams, according to his theory, are divided into four classes: the first, when recent events and recent mental emotions are mixed up with each other, and with old events, by some feeling common to both; the second class relates to trains of images brought up by association with bodily sensations; the third, the result of forgotten associations; and the fourth class of dreams contains those in which a strong propensity of character, or a strong mental emotion, is imbodied in a dream, and by somenatural coincidence is fulfilled. The following interesting cases that fell under Dr. Abercrombie’s immediate notice, illustrate his views and the above classification.
Regarding the first class, Dr. A. relates the following: “A woman, who was a patient in the clinical ward of the infirmary of Edinburgh, under the care of Dr. Duncan, talked a great deal in her sleep, and made numerous and very distinct allusions to the cases of other sick persons. These allusions did not apply to any patients who were in the ward at the time; but, after some observation, they were found to refer correctly to the cases of individuals who were there when this woman was a patient in the ward two years before.”
The following is an instance of phantasms being produced by our associations with bodily sensations, and tends to show how alive our faculties continue during sleep to the slightest impressions:
The subject of this observation was an officer in the expedition to Louisburg in 1758, who had this peculiarity in so remarkable a degree, that his companions in the transport were in the constant habit of amusing themselves at his expense. They could produce in him any kind of dream by whispering in his ear, especially if this was done by a friend with whose voice he had become familiar. One time they conducted him through the whole progress of a quarrel, which ended in a duel; and when the parties were supposed to have met, a pistol was put into his hand, which he fired, and was awakened by the report. On another occasion they found him asleep on the top of a locker in the cabin, when they made him believe he had fallen overboard, and exhorted him to save himself by swimming. They then told him that a shark was pursuing him, and entreated him to dive for his life. He instantly did so, and with so much force as to throw himself from the locker upon the cabin floor, by which he was much bruised, and awakened of course. After the landing of the army at Louisburg, his friends found him one day asleep in his tent, and evidently much annoyed by the cannonading. They then made him believe that he was engaged, when he expressed great fear, and showed an evident disposition to run away. Against this they remonstrated, but at the same time increased his fears by imitating the groans of the wounded and the dying; and when he asked, as he often did, who was hit, they named his particular friends. At last they told him that the man next himself in his company had fallen, when he instantly sprung from his bed, rushed out of the tent, and was only roused from his danger and hisdream by falling over the tent-ropes. A remarkable thing in this case was, that after these experiments he had no distinct recollection of his dreams, but only a confused feeling of oppression or fatigue, and used to tell his friends that he was sure they had been playing some trick upon him. It has been observed that we seldom feel courageous or daring in our dreams, and generally avoid danger when menaced by a foe, or exposed to any probable peril.
The third class of dreams relates to the revival of forgotten associations. The person in question was at the time connected with one of the principal banks in Glasgow, and was at his place at the teller’s table, where money is paid, when a person entered demanding payment of a sum of six pounds. There were several people waiting, who were in turn entitled to be attended to before him; but he was remarkably impatient and rather noisy, and being besides a remarkable stammerer, he became so annoying, that another gentleman requested him to pay the money and get rid of him. He did so accordingly, but with an expression of impatience at being obliged to attend to him before his turn, and thought no more of the transaction. At the end of the year, which was eight or nine months after, the books of the bank could not be made to balance, the deficiency being exactly six pounds. Several days and nights had been spent in endeavouring to discover the error, but without success, when he returned home much fatigued, and went to bed. He dreamt of being at his place in the bank, and the whole transaction of the stammerer, as now detailed, passed before him in all its particulars. He awoke under the full impression that the dream would lead him to the discovery of what he was so anxiously in search of, and on examination he soon discovered that he had neglected to enter the sum which he had thus paid.
The following singular dreams are examples of the fourth class. A clergyman had come to Edinburgh from a short distance in the country, and was sleeping at an inn, when he dreamt of seeing a fire, and one of his children in the midst of it. He awoke with the impression, and instantly left town on his return home. When he arrived in sight of his house, he found it on fire, and got there in time to assist in saving one of his children, who in the alarm and confusion had been left in a situation of danger.
A gentleman in Edinburgh was affected with aneurism of the popliteal artery, for which he was under the care of two eminent surgeons, and the day was fixed for the operation. About two days before the appointed time, the wife of thepatient dreamt that a favourable change had taken place in the disease, in consequence of which the operation would not be required. On examining the tumour in the morning, the gentleman was astonished to find that the pulsation had entirely ceased, and, in short, this turned out to be a spontaneous cure,—a very rare occurrence in surgical practice.
The following dream is still more remarkable. A lady dreamt that an aged female relative had been murdered by a black servant, and the dream occurred more than once. She was then so impressed by it, that she went to the house of the lady, and prevailed upon a gentleman to watch in an adjoining room during the following night. About three o’clock in the morning, the gentleman, hearing footsteps on the stairs, left his place of concealment, and met the servant carrying up a quantity of coals. Being questioned as to where he was going, he replied, in a hurried and confused manner, that he was going to mend his mistress’s fire, which at three o’clock in the morning in the middle of summer was evidently impossible; and, on further investigation, a strong knife was found concealed beneath the coals.
Dreams, to whatever causes they may be attributed, vary according to the nature of our sleep: if it is sound and natural, they will seldom prevail; if, on the contrary, it be broken and uneasy, by a spontaneous association dreams will become fanciful, and might indeed be called visions, so fantastic and chimerical are all the objects that present themselves in motley groups to the disturbed mind. This derangement in the sensorium may be referred to various physical causes,—the sensations of heat or of cold, obstruction in the course of the circulation of the blood, as when lying upon the back, a difficult digestion. In a sound sleep our dreams are seldom remembered except in a vague manner; whereas, in a broken sleep, as Formey has observed, the impression of the dream remains upon the mind, and constitutes what this philosopher called “the lucidity of dreams.” It not unfrequently happens to us that we have had a similar dream several times, or at least we labour under this impression; nay, many persons fancy that particular events of their life at the moment of their occurrence had clearly taken place at a former period either in reality or in a dream. Morning “winged dreams” are more easily remembered in their circumstantial vagaries than those of the preceding night, for at that period (the morning) our sleep is not sound, and dreams become more lucid. Theserêvasseries, as the French call them, are admirably described by Dryden:
A dream o’ertook me at my waking hourThis morn, and dreams they say are then divine,When all the balmy vapours are exhal’d,And some o’erpow’ring god continues sleep.
That we are more or less impressionable in our sleep is rendered evident by the facility with which even a sound sleeper is disturbed by the slightest noise: the sparkling of a fire, or the crackling produced by the wick of our night-lamp when coming into contact with the water in the glass, the sting of an insect, the slightest admission of a higher or lower temperature, will occasion a broken sleep and its dreams. It has been remarked that the sense of seeing is more frequently acted upon in dreams than that of hearing, and very seldom do we find our smell and taste under their influence. It is possible that this peculiarity may arise from the greater variety of impressions with which the sight is daily struck, and which memory communicates by association or retransmission. Next to feeling, vision is the first sense brought into relation with external objects. When we hear noises, explosions, tumultuous cries, it is more than probable that our dreams partake of a delirious and morbid nature, or of sensorial or intellectual hallucinations, in which the mind is actually diseased, and our perceptions become erroneous: then we speak loudly to others, and to ourselves. When these hallucinations prevail after sleep, the invasion of mania may be apprehended.
Cabanis, in his curious investigations on the mind, has endeavoured to fix the order in which the different parts of our organization go to sleep. First the legs and arms, then the muscles that support the head and back: the first sense that slumbers, according to his notions, is that of sight; then follow in regular succession the senses of taste, smell, hearing, and feeling. The viscera fall asleep one after the other, but with different decrees of soundness. If this doctrine be correct, we may easily conceive the wild and strange inconsistencies of our dreams, during which the waking and the sleeping organs are acting and reacting upon each other.
Corporeal sensations and different organic actions frequently attend our dreams; but these may be attributed to our mode of living, or the indulgence in certain unruly desires and conversations. That man and animals dream of the pursuits of the preceding day there can be no doubt: hence the line,
Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.
The effects of a heavy meal, more especially a supper, indisturbing our rest, was well known and recorded by ancient physicians: and Crato tells us “that the fittest time to repair to rest is two or three hours after supper, when the meat is then settled in the bottom of the stomach: and ’tis good to lie on the right side first, because at that side the liver doth rest under the stomach, not molesting any way, but heating him as a fire doth a kettle that is put to it. After the first sleep ’tis not amiss to lie upon the left side, that the meat may the better descend; and sometimes again on the belly, but never on the back.”
Our ancestors had recourse to various devices to procure sound sleep. Borde recommends a good draught of strong drink before going to bed; Burton, a nutmeg and ale, with a good potation of muscadine with a toast; while Ætius recommends a sup of vinegar, which, according to Piso, “attenuat melancholiam et ad conciliandum somnum juvat.” Oppression from repletion will occasion fearful dreams and the night-mare; and bodily sufferings, when exhaustion has brought on sleep, will also be attended with alarming and painful visions.
Levinus Lemnius recommended to sleep with the mouth shut, to promote a regular digestion by the exclusion of too much external air. The night-mare is admirably described in Dryden’s translation of Virgil:
And as, when heavy sleep has closed the sight,The sickly fancy labours in the night,We seem to run, and, destitute of force,Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course:In vain we heave for breath; in vain we cry;The nerves, unbraced, their usual strength deny,And on the tongue the falt’ring accents die.
In the Runic theology it was regarded as a spectre of the night, which seized men in their sleep, and suddenly deprived them of speech and of motion. It was vulgarly called witch-riding, and considered as arising from the weight of fuliginous spirits incumbent on the breast.
Somnus ut sit levis, sit tibi cœna brevis, is the ancient axiom of our distich,
That your sleep may be light,Let your supper be slight.
Notwithstanding this rule of health, it is nevertheless true that many persons sleep more soundly after a hearty supper; and, most unquestionably, dreams are more frequent towards morning than in the beginning of the night. In my opinion, I should apprehend that the sound sleep of supper-eaters is to be attributed to the narcotic nature of their potations, more than the meal, although thesiestaof southern countries might be advanced in favour of a contrary opinion.
When philosophers speak of dreams being mental operations independent of the will, they speak vaguely, for the operations of the mind when we are awake are too frequently uncontrolled by volition. Did we possess this power over our rebellious thoughts, who would constantly ponder on a painful subject? Our thoughts cannot be suspended at will, and their influence has been beautifully described by Shakspeare:
My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,My soul the father; and these two begetA generation of still breeding thoughts.
Volition has no more power over thought when we are awake than sleeping; and, despite all metaphysical and psychological speculations, it cannot be demonstrated that the mind does not retain its full energies during sleep, only they cease to be regulated by judgment, and are not, to use Locke’s words, under the rule and conduct of the understanding; and even on this opinion it has been fairly observed, that much of incongruity which is supposed to prove suspension of reason, and much of the wild discordancy of representation which appears to prevail during our sleep, may arise from the defect of memory when we are awake, that does not retain the impression of images which have passed across the mind in light and rapid succession, and which, therefore, exhibit but a partial and imperfect sketch of the picture that engaged the attention in sleep. The well-known fact that the impressions of our dreams are oftentimes more vivid and correct, when some time has elapsed, than on our awakening, tends to confirm this hypothesis; and these recollections are the more vivid when they bear any analogy to circumstances that come to pass.
Sir Thomas Brown was of opinion that sleep was the waking of the soul; the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and that our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleep. He thus expresses himself in his Religio Medici: “At my nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, andcan only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed.”
Dreams have been considered as prescriptive in various diseases. Diodorus Siculus relates that a certain Scythian dreamed that Æsculapius had drawn the humours of his body to one place, or head, to have it lanced. When Galen had an inflammation of the diaphragm, we are told that he was directed in a dream to open a vein between the thumb and the fourth finger—an operation which restored him to health. Marcus Antoninus asserted that he learned in his dreams various remedies for spitting of blood. It is related of Sir Christopher Wren, that, when at Paris, in 1671, being disordered with “a pain in his reins,” he sent for a physician, who prescribed blood-letting, but he deferred submitting to it, and dreamed that very night that he was in a place where palm-trees grew, and that a woman in a romantic habit offered dates to him. The next day he sent for dates, which cured him. Now, although this cure, brought about by a dream, was considered wonderful, its circumstances offer nothing supernatural. It is more than probable that Sir Christopher had frequently read in foreign works on medicine, that dates were recommended as an efficacious remedy in nephritic complaints; and, moreover, had met in his daily perambulations female quacks, who exhibit themselves to this day in the French metropolis, fantastically attired, and vending their far-famed nostrums. That he should have remembered dates, and that the phantasm of the she-mountebank might at the same time have struck his fancy, were two associations by no means improbable.
It is very likely that all the strange stories of prophetic dreams might be traced to a similar connexion of ideas. I have before observed that dreams do not always assume their complexion from recent occurrences, and our bodily sufferings during sleep bring to our recollection every circumstance that regards the malady. A patient who had a bottle of hot water placed at his feet dreamed that he was walking in great agony in the burning lava of Vesuvius. Similar associations exist when awake: the man whose arm has been amputated constantly refers the pain he experiences to the lost hand, or to that part of the limb which received the injury; and the very same nervous illusion prevails during his slumbers. A case is recorded of an officer who had lost his leg, and, when cold, felt comfort and warmth by wrapping the stump of his wooden leg in flannel.
In various diseases the nature and the period of the invasion of dreams afford a valuable ground of observation to the physician both in his diagnosis and prognosis of the case. In incipient hydro-thorax, for instance, dreams occur at the very moment the patient falls asleep, and he fancies himself suffocated by some impending and destructive weight. Diseases of the heart are accompanied by alarming dreams, from which the patient starts up in great terror. In children the perturbation of their sleep frequently indicates the seat of their sufferings; and the valuable researches on the nervous system by Charles Bell have enabled the medical attendant to read in the features of a sleeping infant whether the malady be in the head, the cavity of the chest, or the abdomen.
If proof were wanting that dreams arise from our waking thoughts, it might be found in the circumstance of those sleepers who divulge their secrets, and verify the lines of Shakspeare:
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,That in their sleep will mutter their affairs.
Reason, therefore, prompts us to reject the idea of dreams being preternatural suggestions. In general, we may consider them as a morbid excitement of the brain, arising either from moral or physical causes, and depending essentially on the condition of our mind and body. Our most lively hopes are ever linked with fears that prey upon us even when most secure; and these apprehensions, recurring in our dreams, prove too often prophetic of the very events we dreaded. The prejudices of early education shed around these forewarnings circumstantial incidents; and fear is the greatest ally of superstition.
If our visions by night are fraught with such singular circumstances, our “day dreams,” orreveries, are frequently attended with strange associations. The impressions received during these ecstatic visions or trances will occasionally act so powerfully upon the mind, that during our waking hours and the usual pursuits of life we cannot divest ourselves of the existence of their reality.
Dr. Arnould has given the following curious account of a case of this kind, as narrated by the individual himself:—“One afternoon in the month of May, feeling himself a little unsettled and not inclined to business, he thought he would take a walk into the city to amuse his mind, and having strolled into St. Paul’s Churchyard, he stopped at the shop window of Carrington and Bowles, and looked at the pictures,among which was one of the cathedral. He had not been long there before a short grave-looking elderly gentleman, dressed in dark brown clothes, came up and began to examine the prints, and occasionally casting a glance at him, very soon entered into conversation with him, and praising the view of St. Paul’s which was exhibited at the window, told him many anecdotes of Sir Christopher Wren the architect, and asked him at the same time if he had ever ascended to the top of the dome. He replied in the negative. The stranger then inquired if he had dined, and proposed that they should go to an eating-house in the neighbourhood, adding that after dinner he would accompany him up St. Paul’s. It was a glorious afternoon for a view, and he was so familiar with the place that he could point out every object worthy of attention. The kindness of the old gentleman’s manner induced him to comply with the invitation, and they went to a tavern in some dark alley, the name of which he did not know. They dined and very soon left the table, and ascended to the ball just below the cross, which they entered alone.
“They had not been there many minutes, when, while he was gazing on the extensive prospect and delighted with the splendid scene below him, the grave gentleman pulled out from an inside coat-pocket something like a compass, having round the edge some curious figures; then having muttered some unintelligible words, he placed it in the centre of the ball. He felt a great trembling, and a sort of horror came over him, which was increased by his companion asking him if he should like to see any friend at a distance and to know what he was at that time doing, for if so, the latter could show him any such person. It happened that his father had been for a long time in bad health and for some weeks past he had not visited him. A sudden thought came into his mind, so powerful, that it overcame his terror, that he should like to see his father. He had no sooner expressed the wish than the exact person of his father was immediately presented to his sight in the mirror, reclining in his armchair and taking his afternoon sleep. Not having fully believed in the power of the stranger to make good his offer, he became overwhelmed with terror at the clearness and truth of the vision presented to him, and he entreated his mysterious companion that they might immediately descend, as he felt himself very ill. The request was complied with, and on parting under the portico of the northern entrance, the stranger said to him, ‘Remember you are the slave of the man of the mirror.’”
He returned in the evening to his home, he does not know exactly at what hour; felt himself unquiet, depressed, gloomy, apprehensive, and haunted with thoughts of the stranger. For the last three months he has been conscious of the power of the latter over him. Dr. Arnould adds, “I inquired in what way his power was exercised? He cast on me a look of suspicion mingled with confidence, took my arm, and after leading me through two or three rooms and then into the garden, exclaimed, ‘It is of no use—there is no concealment from him, for all places are alike open to him—he sees us—and he hearsus now.’ I asked him where the being was who saw us and heard us? He replied in a voice of deep agitation, ‘Have I not told you that he lives in the ball below the cross on the top of St. Paul’s, and that he only comes down to take a walk in the churchyard and get his dinner at the house in the dark alley. Since that fatal interview with the necromancer,’ he continued, ‘for such I believe him to be, he is continually dragging me before him in his mirror—he not only sees me every moment of the day, but he reads all my thoughts, and I have a dreadful consciousness that no action of my life is free from his inspection, and no place can afford me security from his power.’ On my reply that the darkness of the night would afford him protection from these machinations, he said, ‘I know what you mean, but you are quite mistaken—I have only told you of the mirror, but in some part of the building which he passed on coming away, he showed me what he called a great bell, and I heard sounds which came from it, and which went to it, sounds of laughter, and of anger, and of pain; there was a dreadful confusion of sounds, and I listened with wonder and affright’—he said, ‘this is my organ of hearing; this great bell is in communication with all the other bells within the circle of hieroglyphics, by which every word spoken by those under my control is made audible to me.’ Seeing me look surprised at him, he said, ‘I have not yet told you all, for he practises his spells by hieroglyphics on walls and houses, and wields his power, like a detestable tyrant as he is, over the minds of those whom he has enchanted, and who are the objects of his constant spite within the circle of his hieroglyphics.’ I asked him what these hieroglyphics were, and how he perceived them? He replied, ‘Signs and symbols which you in your ignorance of their true meaning have taken for letters and words, and read, as you have thought,Day and MartinandWarren’s blacking. Oh! that is all nonsense! they are only the mysterious characters which heplaces to mark the boundaries of his dominions, and by which he prevents all escape from his tremendous power. How I have toiled and laboured to get beyond the limits of his influence! Once I walked for three days and three nights, till I fell down under a wall exhausted by fatigue, and dropped asleep; but on awaking I saw the dreadful sign before my eyes, and I felt myself as completely under his infernal spell at the end as at the beginning of the journey.’”
Dr. Pritchard remarks on this singular case of insanity, that this gentleman had actually ascended to the top of St. Paul’s, and that impressions there received being afterwards renewed in his mind when in a state of vivid excitement, in a dream or ecstatic revery, became so blended with the creation of fancy, as to form one mysterious vision, in which the true and the imaginary were afterwards inseparable.
It is also possible that this person, being of a nervous and susceptible disposition, had been struck, when on the dizzy height of the cupola, with a vertigo, or fit, during which these phantasms had struck him in so vivid a manner as to derange his intellects—the loud and terrific sound of the bell adding to the horror of his situation. It is well known that persons have recollected circumstances that occurred around them during an epileptic and an apoplectic attack. Our worthy visionary was for two years an inmate of a private asylum.
In regard to the verification of dreams, they may be easily accounted for by that proneness that most men, especially if of a weak and impressionable state of mind, experience in courting the object of their hopes or fears. Thus have the absurd prognostications of fortune-tellers been too frequently fatal, as we may work up our thoughts to such an intensity as to bring on the very death that we apprehend. Dr. Pritchard relates the case of a clergyman, in an indifferent state of health, who, when standing one day at the corner of a street, saw a funeral procession approaching him. He waited till it came near him, saw all the train pass him, with black nodding plumes, and read his own name on the coffin, which was carried by, and entered, with the whole procession, into the house where he resided. This was the commencement of an illness which put an end to his life in a few days.
During a severe fever, in the peninsula, my nightly rest was constantly disturbed by the threatening appearance of animals with fearful horns and antlers, incessantly hovering about me. For a long time after my recovery the spectralillusion continued, and every horse or mule that passed by me appeared to be armed with immense horns.
It is to be feared that, notwithstanding the ingenuity of the many physiologists who have sought to investigate the nature of dreams, we shall never come to any satisfactory conclusion, since we follow too frequently the example of the German philosopher, Lesage, who, in his endeavour to throw some light on this obscure subject, sought to ascertain the intermediate condition of the mind when passing from the waking state into sleep, a transition which never has been, and, most probably, never can be ascertained, since sleep, to a certain degree, is a suspension of all power of attention, perception, volition, and every spontaneous faculty.
Amongst the various moral and physical remedies introduced by the priesthood and physicians for the benefit of society, flagellation once held a most distinguished rank. As a remedy, it was supposed to reanimate the torpid circulation of the capillary or cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular energy, promote absorption, and favour the necessary secretions of our nature. No doubt, in many instances, its action as a revulsive may be beneficial; and urtication, or the stinging with nettles, has not unfrequently been prescribed with advantage. As a religious discipline, for such has this system of mortification been called, it has been considered as most acceptable to Heaven; so much so, indeed, that the fustigation was commensurate with the sinner’s offence. Under the head of Dæmonomania I have endeavoured to show that whipping was equally agreeable to the evil spirit, who delighted in flogging the elect.
It appears that at this period a belief prevailed that heavenly mercy restored the grace that had been forfeited, commuting for temporal punishment that which else would have been eternal. The monks of Fonte Avellana, for instance, had decreed that thirty psalms, said or sung, with an accompaniment of one hundred stripes to each psalm, would be considered as a set-off for one year of purgatory; and, by this calculation, the whole psalter, which would havedemanded fifteen thousand stripes, would have procured a relief of five years from the fiery ordeal. It was no doubt under this impression that St. Dominic the Cuirassier, so named from his wearing, day and night, an iron cuirass next his skin, and which he never took off, adopted this same covering when, upon entering into priest’s orders, his parents presented the bishop who ordained him with a rich fur garment, an offence for which the holy man wished to atone by donning an iron vestment.
This said madman belonged to the congregation of Fonte Avellana, the monks of which never touched either wine or oil, and, during five days of the week, lived upon bread and water; moreover, every day after service they flogged each other. Dominic, in extenuation of his family’s offence in having presented his diocesan with a luxurious gown, lashed himself at the rate of ten psalters, and thirty thousand lashesper diem; by which he calculated that he was redeeming three thousand six hundred and fifty years of purgatorial tormentsper annum: but, in addition to this wholesome allowance, he humbly petitioned his superior to allow him, during Lent, a supplementary punishment of one hundred years, when his day’s work was two psalters and a half, and thirty-four thousand five hundred lashes. This punishment did not seem sufficient in his eyes to propitiate the Creator; and St. Pietro Damiano informs us that, during the Lenten days, he actually recited the psalter two hundred times, with acrescendoaccompaniment of sixty millions of stripes. It was on this occasion that Yepes shrewdly observed, that he marvelled less at a man’s head being able to retain so many verses than that his arm was able to carry on such a flagellation; or, to use his own words, how his flesh, unless made of iron, could resist such a castigation. This blessed man must have been endowed with powers that were increased by exertion, since we find that his ambition gave him such energy, that once beginning his operations in the evening, and singing and flogging, and flogging and singing,con amore, through the day and night, at the expiration of twenty-four hours he had gone through the psalms twelve times, begun them a thirteenth time, and proceeded as far asBeati quorum, the thirty-second psalm; having inflicted upon himself one hundred and eighty-three thousand one hundred stripes, thereby reducing purgatorial stock to the amount of sixty-one years, twelve days, and thirty-three minutes, to a fraction.
It would be perfectly idle and absurd for any freethinker to doubt this fact, recorded by an eyewitness—PietroDamiano, a saint, and moreover a cardinal; and Calmet himself maintains that no man should dare to doubt a saint’s assertion, more especially when speaking of another beatified person. Notwithstanding this assertion, a stiff-necked arithmetician calculated that, if during these twenty-four hours the saint had given himself two blows every second, the number of lashes would only have amounted to one hundred and seventy-two thousand eight hundred, being ten thousand three hundred short of the amount stated! However, this difficulty was overcome by Father Castaniza, who makes up the amount by maintaining that he made use of cats with ten tails, and therefore had actually a balance in his favour in hiswinding-sheet.[28]
Ubi stimulus ibi affluxus, has been a physiological axiom since the days of Hippocrates; and flagellation thus employed is only a modification of blistering, or exciting the skin by any other irritating method. The moral influence of flagellation in the treatment of different diseases has been appreciated by the ancients: it was strongly recommended by the disciples of Asclepiades, by Cælius Aurelianus, and since by Rhasis and Valescus, in the treatment of mania. No doubt, the terror which this castigation inspires may tend materially to facilitate the management of the insane. To the present day this opinion has prevailed to a revolting degree, and it is no easy matter for the humane physician to convince a keeper of the cruelty or inutility of this practice. Seldom or never does this harsh management become necessary: I had charge of a military lunatic asylum for a considerable time, and, with one exception, never found myself warranted in causing corporal punishment to be inflicted, notwithstanding the association of ideas of discipline which such a chastisement must have produced amongst men then exposed to the capricious infliction of the lash. The case to which I allude was one of a Sergeant N—, who had twice attempted my life, and who fully remembered every circumstance in the remissions of his malady; so much so, indeed, that doubts were entertained in the minds of the casual visiter as to the real condition of his mental faculties; and in the establishment now under my superintendence a keeper is discharged when convicted of having struck a patientunder any circumstances.
To return from this digression: the authoritative power of man over the brute creation is daily witnessed, even with unrulyand ferocious animals; and there are, no doubt, cases where bodily punishment becomes indispensable, when the body will feel what the judgment cannot comprehend. Boerhaave relates the case of a hypochondriac who swore that his legs were made of straw; but an officious servant-maid, who was sweeping the room, struck him across the shins with her broomstick, and soon brought him to a sense of his erroneous impression.
Flagellation draws the circulation from the centre of our system to its periphery. It has been known in a fit of ague to dispel the cold stage. Galen had observed that horse-dealers were in the habit of bringing their horses into high condition by a moderate fustigation; and therefore recommended this practice to giveembonpointto the lean. Antonius Musa treated a sciatica of Octavius Augustus by this process. Elidæus Paduanus recommends flagellation or urtication when the eruption of exanthematic diseases is slow in its development. Thomas Campanella records the case of a gentleman whose bowels could not be relieved without his having been previously whipped.
Irritation of the skin has been often observed to be productive of similar effects. The erotic irregularities of lepers is well authenticated; and various other cutaneous diseases, which procure the agreeable relief that scratching affords, have brought on the most pleasurable sensations. There exists a curious letter of Abelard to his Eloisa, in which he says, “Verbera quandoque dabat amor, non furor; gratia, non ira; quæ omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent.”
This effect of flagellation may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy that exists between the nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial excitement appears in some degree natural: it is observed in various animals, especially in the feline tribe. Even snails plunge into each other a bony and prickly spur that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of the wasp, frequently breaks off and is left in the wound.
In the monastic orders of both sexes, flagellation became a refined art. Flagellation was of two species, the upper and the lower; the upper inflicted upon the shoulders, the lower chiefly resorted to when females were to be fustigated. This mode was adopted, according to their assertions, from the accidents that might have happened in the upper flagellation, where the twisting lash might have injured the sensitive bosom. In addition to this device, nudity was also insistedupon. In the article Dæmonomania I have recorded various abominations of the kind. Nor was it only amongst religious orders and their followers that this custom obtained. It was practised by ladies of high rank amongst their commensals and attendants. Brantome gives us a curious and quaint account of this amusing castigation. Mademoiselle de Limeuil, one of the queen’s maids of honour, was flagellated for having written a pasquinade, in company with all the young ladies who had been privy to the composition. And on another occasion he tells us: “J’ai ouï parler d’une grande dame de par le monde, voire grandissime, mariée et veuve, qui faisait dépouiller ses dames et filles, je dis les plus belles, et se délectait fort à les voir, et puis elle les battait du plat de la main, avec de grandes clacquades et blamuses assez rudes; et les filles qui avaient délinqué en quelque chose, avec de bonnes verges, et elle les clacquait ainsi selon le sujet qu’elles lui en donnaient, pour les faire ou rire ou pleurer.”
The minions of Henry III. of France, and other princes, were decked in white robes, then stripped, and whipped in procession for the gratification of their royal masters. Not unfrequently the ladies themselves were the executioners in cases where any man had offended them; and the adventure of Clopinel the poet is worth relating. This unfortunate wight had written the following lines on the fair sex:
Toutes êtes, serez, ou fûtes,De fait ou de volonté putes;Et qui bien vous chercheraitToutes putes vous trouverait.
This libellous effusion naturally excited the indignation of the ladies at court, who decided that Clopinel should be flagellated by the plaintiffs without mercy; and it is difficult to say to what extent they might have carried their vengeance but for a timely witticism of the culprit, who piteously addressing the angry yet beauteous group around him with uplifted arm and rod, humbly entreated that the first blow might be struck by the honourable damsel who felt herself the most aggrieved. It is needless to add that not a lash was inflicted.
Medical men were frequently consulted as to the adoption of the upper or lower discipline, as flagellation on the shoulders was said to injure the eyesight. It was from the fear of this accident that the lower discipline was generally adopted amongst nuns and female penitents, as appears by the following rule: “Quippe cum eâ de causâ capucini,multæque moniales, virorum medicorum ac piorum hominum consilio, ascesim flagellandi sursum humeros reliquerint, ut sibi nates lumbosque strient asperatis virgis, ac nodosis funiculis conscribillent.”
In a medical point of view, urtication, or stinging with nettles, is a practice not sufficiently appreciated. In many instances, especially in cases of paralysis, it is more efficacious than blistering or stimulating frictions. Its effects, although perhaps less permanent, are more general and diffused over the limb. This process has been found effectual in restoring heat to the lower extremities; and a case of obstinate lethargy was cured by Corvisart by repeated urtication of the whole body. During the action of the stimulus, the patient, who was a young man, would open his eyes and laugh, but sink again into profound sleep. His perfect cure, however, was obtained in three weeks.
The life of all flesh is the blood thereof.On this doctrine, expressed in the Mosaic books, many of the olden writers founded their hypothesis that blood was the principle of life. It is, however, more than probable that this opinion was derived from a more ancient ritual than the Levitical code, since we find a similar belief among the Parsees, Hindoos, and other Oriental nations of very remote antiquity, who no doubt owed the practice of abstaining from blood to the early patriarchs.
The Greeks and the Romans, if we take the expressions of their poets as being conclusive, entertained similar notions regarding the vital fluid; and the “purple death” of Homer and “the purple life” of Virgil, are phrases evidently applicable to this theory, which Critias, Empedocles, and their sects maintained. This opinion, however, does not appear to have dictated the expressions made use of by Moses. When he says “the life of all flesh is the blood thereof,” it merely signifies that when the blood is abstracted death ensues; a circumstance that must have been daily and hourly observed. It is probable that this injunction was promulgated to check the barbarous custom of devouring raw meat, whichseems to have prevailed long before the Jewish legislator. We read in Genesis ix. 4, “Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat.” From this circumstance we may infer that, like the Abyssinians of Bruce’s time, the Jews were in the habit of tearing and cutting flesh from live animals. Saul’s army was guilty of a similar practice. It therefore behoved their legislators to oppose a custom that increased the natural ferocity and cruelty of the nation they ruled.
This theory of the ancients has been frequently revived in modern times, and has not a little contributed to increase the mystery that veils the nature of our existence. Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, was a convert to this doctrine; Hoffman also adopted it; and Huxham not only fully believed in it, but sought the immediate part of the blood that constituted life, and fancied that he had discovered it in its red particles. It was John Hunter, however, who first established the system on any thing like a rational basis, although his arguments on the subject have led to much doubt and illiberal controversy. “The difficulty,” says he, “of conceiving that blood is endowed with life while circulating, arises merely from its being a fluid, and the mind not being accustomed to the idea of a living fluid. I shall endeavour,” he continues, “to show that organization and life do not in the least depend upon each other; that organization may arise out of living parts and produce action; but that life can never arise out of or produce organization.” The errors of this doctrine are obvious, and have led many ingenious physiologists into a maze of idle wandering. The fact is, that life is the instrument of organization, or, in other words, organization is the result of life. The embryo could not be developed, did not the fluid that animates it possess a principle of vitality which it communicates to a body previously organized. In this confusion the word “life” has sometimes been applied to the power, and at others to the result. Without organization, life cannot be transmitted; and the moment the principle of life ceases, a disorganization, more or less rapid, ensues.
The doctrine of the vitality of the blood has very lately been maintained by several physiologists. Professor Schultz speaks of an active vital process which can be seen constantly going on between the individual molecules of the blood and the substance of the vessels; but Muller asserts that, during ten years, he examined the circulation of the blood in variousparts, at every opportunity and with different instruments, but had never seen what Schultz describes—the constant assimilation, disappearance, and new formation of the globules; nor had Rudolphi, Purkinje, Koch, and Meyer, been more successful in their investigation; and Muller further maintains that the motion of these red particles in the circulation is purely passive, which may be proved by compressing the vessels of the limb, or the limb itself.
Eber and Meyer pretended that these red particles were infusory animals. On this important and curious subject I shall quote Muller’s opinion: “The question whether the blood be living fluid or not, calls to mind a critical state of our science. Every thing which evidences an action which cannot be explained by the laws of inorganic matter, is said to have an organic, or, what is the same thing, a vital property. To regard merely the solids of the body as living, is incorrect, for there are strictly no organic solids; in nearly all, water constitutes four-fifths of their weight. Although, then, organic matter generally be considered as merely ‘susceptible of life,’ and the organized parts as ‘living,’ yet the blood also must be regarded as endowed with life, for its action cannot be comprehended from chemical and physical laws. The semen is not merely a stimulus for the fructification of the egg, for it impregnates the eggs of the Batrachia and fishes out of the body; and the form, endowments, and even tendencies to disease, of the father, are transferred to the new individual. The semen, therefore, although a fluid, is evidently endowed with life, and is capable of imparting life to matter. The impregnable part of the egg, the germinal membrane, is a completely unorganized aggregation of animal matter; but, nevertheless, is animated with the whole organizing power of the future being, and is capable of imparting life to a new matter, although soft, and nearly allied to a fluid. The blood also evidences organic properties; it is attracted by living organs, which are acted upon by vital stimuli. There subsists between the blood and the organized parts a reciprocal vital action, in which the blood has as large a share as the organs in which it circulates.”
This doctrine is, no doubt, ingenious, but I do not consider it as conclusive. It is not because that in inflammation, the blood becoming solid, forming pseudo membranes, which are shortly after supplied with a proportion of blood-vessels, blood possesses life. If this adventitious coagulation were not supplied with blood, it would prove a foreign body; butit is not, therefore, shown that the circumstance of its possessing vitality after its formation is a proof of the life of the blood; it only shows that the secretions of the blood are endowed with a susceptibility of life, when having assumed a solid form, needing vessels for its support. I shall not dwell longer on a professional question of great interest, but which would need a development foreign to the nature of these sketches.
The Greeks had distinct appellations for the cause and result of life; the former they termed ψυχὴ the latter ζωὴ. The essential nature of life is, and most probably will ever remain, an impenetrable mystery. Living matter is endowed with a property which we call life; but to find out to what we may venture to attribute this property, is a vain and hypothetical attempt. Equally vain and absurd have been the endeavours to ascertain whether life began at the creation to be subsequently transmitted from parent to offspring, or owed its origin to a spontaneous generation from matter. Many ancient philosophers considered matter as eternal: such was the doctrine of the Pythagoreans; amongst whom we must particularly notice Lucanus Ocellus, whose system, developed in a work written in the Attic dialect, was adopted by Aristotle, Plato, and Philo-Judæus. This work was first translated into Latin by Nogarola. These doctrines led to the unanswerable question, What was this matter—thisinvisa materia—from which every thing visible has proceeded? Has it existed from all eternity, or has it been called into being by the Creator? Has it uniformly exhibited its present harmonious arrangement, or was it once a waste and shapeless chaos? Was this matter endowed with intelligence as a whole, or in its separate fractions?
The eternity of matter was maintained by these philosophers from the belief thatno thing could be created out of nothing, and that no thing could ever return to nonentity. Such was the doctrine of the Epicureans, of Democritus, and of Aristotle. The poets were of the same belief; and Lucretius expresses himself as follows:
Ubi viderimus nihil posse creariDe nihilo, tune, quod sequimur, jam rectiùs indePerspiciemus.
Persius maintains the same idea:
GigniDe nihilo nil, in nihilum nil posse reverti.
This dogma was no doubt transmitted to the Greeks from the East; and, to the present day, it is a doctrine of theBrahminical creed, clearly expressed in the following terms in their Yajur Veid: “The ignorant assert that the universe in the beginning did not exist in its author, and that it was created out of nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure! how could something arise out of nothing?” The fathers of the church embraced a similar belief; and Justin Martin says that “the word of God formed the world out ofunfashioned matter. This Moses distinctly asserts, Plato and his adherents maintain, and ourselves have been taught to believe.”
Such was the doctrine of the schools that professed the eternal nature of matter. Other philosophers supported as warmly a different opinion. Thales of Miletus, Zeno of Citium, Xenocrates, and Dicearchus the Messenian, insisted that the human race had a first origin at a period when mankind did not exist. According to this hypothesis, the universe is an emanation or extension of the essence of the Creator. Zeno and the Stoics attribute this creation to the universal elements of fire and water. Anaximander the Milesian asserted that the primitive animals were formed of earth and water mixed together, heated and animated by the solar rays; these aquatic creatures became amphibious, and were gradually transformed into the human races. Strange to say, this extraordinary idea has found proselytes even in our days, and was advocated by Professor De Lamark in his Zoological Philosophy. This fancy pervades the poetry of the ancients. Homer makes Tethys, the wife of Ocean, the daughter of Uranus and Terra, the first parents; and Hesiod, in his Cosmogony, raises Venus and Proteus from the foam of the sea.
The vital and intellectual fire of the ancients that animated all living beings was admitted by most of their physicians, especially by Hippocrates, Galen, and Aretæus. Aristotle describes an universal creative agent in all the elements, the source of life upon earth, and of the celestial movements in the firmament. Descartes, in modern times, maintained that a vital flame existed in the heart of every animal. This fire, and the genial warmth that it diffused, was considered the soul of the universe; and on this subject Gassendi expresses himself as follows: “Si quis velit talem calorem etiam animam dicere, nihil est similiter quod vetet.”
It was natural for man, even in an uncivilized state, to attribute to solar heat the same influence on animals as was manifest in its actions upon plants. When life had fled, the inanimate corpse was cold, and caloric was thereforeconsidered the principle of vitality. It was from this conviction that we find the sun and fire objects of adoration both in ancient times and amongst savages to the present day. Fire is idolized by the Tartars, and various African tribes. The Yakouts, a Siberian horde, believe that the deity of good and evil has taken his abode in this supposed element. The Columbian Indians were fire-worshippers; and Pallas informs us that the Chinese on the confines of Siberia held it in such religious respect, that they never attempted to extinguish it even when their dwellings were burning.
The doctrine of man and the universe having been created an emanation of the Creator, renders the Creator material, or matter itself; matter being considered intelligent, and susceptible of this organization. This was the belief of the Brahmins, and was no doubt transmitted to the Academic and Eleatic schools of Greece by Pythagoras. We find in the Yajur Veid, already alluded to, the following passages, that clearly demonstrate this belief: “The whole universe is the Creator, proceeds from the Creator, and returns to him. The ignorant assert that the universe in the beginning did not exist in its author, and that it was created out of nothing. O ye, whose hearts are pure! how could something arise out of nothing? This first being alone, and without likeness, was theAllin the beginning. He could multiply himself under different forms. He created fire from his essence, which is light.” And further: “Thou art Brahma! thou art Vishnu! thou art Kodra! thou art the moon! thou art substance! thou art Djam! thou art the earth! thou art the world!”
These Brahminical doctrines were, beyond doubt, also held by the Greeks. In a poem ascribed to the fabled Orpheus we find the following lines, translated by Mason Good with as much correctness as elegance:
Jove first exists, whose thunders roll above,Jove last, Jove midmost; all proceeds from Jove.Female is Jove—immortal Jove is male;Jove the broad earth—the heavens’ irradiate pale.Jove is the boundless spirit, Jove the fire,That warms the world with feeling and desire;The sea is Jove, the sun, the lunar ball;Jove king supreme, the sovereign source of all.All power is his; to him all glory give,For his vast form embraces all that live.
It may be easily imagined that a subject so recondite and obscure must have led philosophers into the wildestspeculations. By some, life was considered as the result of a general consent or harmony between the different organs of which the vital frame is formed; while, as we have seen, many have attributed its phenomena to the blood. That blood, to a certain extent, is endowed with vitality is beyond a doubt; Hunter has endeavoured to prove the fact by various experiments. It is capable of being acted upon and contracting like the solid fibres; this we daily witness when blood is coagulated and comes into contact with the atmosphere. It preserves an equality of temperature in whatever medium an animal may move. He also has shown that this fluid can form solid vessels of every description; and its life is also proved by the death inflicted when any excessive stimulus destroys the muscular fibre. Thus, in a body struck with lightning, the muscles remain flaccid and uncontracted, while the blood preserves its fluidity, and is left uncoagulated.
All this specious reasoning shows that blood is a living fluid, but does not in the slightest degree demonstrate to what principle this vitality is to be attributed. It merely proves that every part of a living animal, whether solid or fluid, is endowed with a certain degree of life; but leaves us in impenetrable darkness as to the nature of life. The one cannot be killed without the other; and, as Mason Good justly observes, “that which is at one time alive, and at another dead, cannot be life itself.” It is clear that life cannot exist without blood, but at the same time it is equally evident that the blood is merely a secretion of the living system, and dependent upon the action of the solids, which influence its quantities and properties.[29]
It is from this notion of the vitality of the blood that the absurd idea of transfusing it was first conceived. Transfusion consisted in the injection of the arterial blood of young and healthy animals into the veins of the aged and the debilitated. It was about forty years after the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey that this singular project was tried upon animals, and afterwards upon man. Medicated liquids had already been introduced in Germany into the system by this method, principally by Wahrendorf. Dr. Christopher Wren, an English physician, was the first who proposed the injection of blood, and Dr. Lower put it into practice. The result of his experiments seemed to warrant their adoption. An animal was drained of a considerable proportion of blood, and lay faint and expiring; but the blood of another animal being thrown into the languid system, active circulation was restored, and the patient ran about with as much facility as before the experiment. When too great a quantity of blood was injected, the creature became drowsy, and shortly after died of plethora.
These experiments were reported by the transfusers with many absurd details. In one case a simpleton had become witty by a supply of lamb’s blood; in another, an old mangy cur was cured by the vital fluid of a young spaniel; a blind old dog, transfused by a Mr. Gayant, bounded and frisked about like a young pup. Dr. Blundel seriously conceivedthat this operation might be practised with great advantage in cases of hæmorrhage, more especially in women.
Of late years these curious experiments have again been tried with singular results. Prevost and Dumas have shown that the vivifying power of the blood does not reside so much in the serum as in the red particles. An animal bled to syncope, is not revived by the injection of water or pure serum of a temperature of 68° Fahrenheit into its vessels. But if blood of one of the same species is used, the animal seems to acquire fresh life at every stroke of the piston, and is at last restored. Diemenbach has confirmed these experiments. It is also stated by these physiologists, that revival takes place likewise when the blood injected had been previously deprived of its fibrin.
Another very singular fact has been elicited by these experiments; blood of animals of a different genus, of which the corpuscules, though of the same form, have a different size, effects an imperfect restoration, and the animal generally dies in six days.