man, the most perfect and refined of organisms. Yet, on the other hand, there have been countless sacrifices to science and warm human blood has spurted as freely over its altars as it was ever poured forth for the idols of old; quivering limbs have been dissected as relentlessly as they were ever torn or crushed by Juggernaut's car, and still steel has been unable to find the human soul upon which all the history of the human race has its foundation. Skillfully as doctors have examined the human brain, earnestly as they have probed the arteries of men and animals, the very essence of life has eluded their search and avoided the eyes of science even more successfully than in the days of old when the spirit of man was supposed to ascend in the smoke of sacrificial altars. Back of all anatomy there are processes for which anatomical processes can give no adequate explanation and which physical law can not control. Human history, for instance, is frequently heroic when physical instinct would have made it disgraceful. Men battle for truth when truth leads to dishonor and poverty; martyrs go to the stake for ideals when the flames are torturing realities. The repentance of the sinful, the despair of the guilty, and the peace of God alike defy the investigation of the operator's microscope and knife. Physicians realizing these limitations are turning more and more towards psychological work, yet thus far psychology merely skims the surface of psychic thought and applies itself to rules and mental processes. These rules do not apply to the dreams of deeper slumber, for the larger number of dreams are of psychic, not mental origin.

Freud, the radical, tacitly recognizes these conditions: "Other psychic sources of dreams are unknown,” he states at one time in his book upon "Dream Interpretation,” and at another: “but as a matter of fact no such complete solution of the dream has ever been accomplished in any case, and what is more, every one attempting such solution has found, that in most cases there have remained a great many components of the dream the source of which he has been unable to explain.

The validity ascribed to dream life by some schools of philosophy, the School of Schelling is a distinct echo of the undisputed divinity of dreams in antiquity; nor is the discussion closed on the subject of the mantic or prophetic powers of dreams. This is due to the fact that the attempted psychological explanations are too inadequate to overcome the accumulated material, however strongly those who devote themselves to a scientific mode of thought feel that such assertions should be repudiated." -Freud, "Interpretation of Dreams," Chapter I.

CHAPTER II

"WHO SHALL DECIDE WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE?"

"Tolerance is a genuine, philosophic virtue; the forum, not the arena, should be the resort of students of philosophy."

Psychologists are at loggerheads upon the universality of the dream state. Locke, MacNish and others contend that they do not dream: while many authorities, equally sound, aver that they dream every night; again it is contended that man is perpetually adream, but that only the dreams that rise above the surface of consciousness are recorded by the memory, as they come thereby within the scope of the dreamer's recognition. Many who grant this last hypothesis as correct use it as an argument against the psychic value of dreams.

"Mind," said Titchener, "lapses every night and reforms every morning, but the bodily processes go on in sleeping or in waking. An idea drops out of memory and recurs quite unexpectedly in after years, but the body's processes have been going on without interruption."

This statement, while true and comprehensive as to the outer or physical mind, does not apply to inner or dream conditions. The indiscriminate application of the theory is largely responsible for the scientific error relegating the dream to a chaotic whirl of unformulated ideas, lacking coherence, intelligence or any discoverable connection. Popular opinion, however, has never accepted this scientific decree, but has persistently treated the dream with awe, ascribing to it both symbolic and prophetic value. And, as in manifold instances, popular opinion has proven itself in the right.

Diodorus of Sicily, whose "Bibliotheca Historica," despite its

lack of consecutiveness, is acknowledged authority upon historic matters, regards the Chaldeans as masters of dream interpretation. The Egyptians and Assyrians learned oneiromancy from this people, who in common with the Hebrews held dreams as sacred messages from the gods. Remarkable dreams were recorded side by side with the important historical events. Upon the same authority we learn that it was the custom to investigate the dreams of ill persons and to diagnose the disease accordingly. The perfection attained by the Chaldean sages in interpreting dreams and omens has outlived the nation, and the term Chaldean from being synonymous with potentate, wise man and prophet, has become the pseudonym of a race of nomads, earning a nefarious living through "fortunetelling."

Berthelot mentions the Manuscript of St. Mark in Venice and the papyri at Leyden, in the Louvre and in Berlin, as the most ancient manuscripts known to this day. All were derived from the same source, probably taken from the tomb of some old magician of Thebes, and they are of the same description as the books burned in 296 B. C. as a punishment to the Egyptians. Amongst other things is a recipe that will cause insomnia till the patient dies. Divination by dreams is described and there is a treatise upon this subject by Ptolemy the wise, and another by Cleopatra the resplendent.

Mohammedans hold that dreams form one of the forty-six parts of prophecy and that "the man who undertakes their interpretation should understand the book of God and remember the words of His Apostle, whose name be perpetually blessed! He should comprehend the Arabic proverbs, the etymology of words, the distinction of men and of their habits and of their conditions, be skilled in interpretation and possess a clean spirit, chaste, moral and the word of truth."

Yet despite this eloquent outburst the general influence of the Arabs rather impeded the progress of psychological investigation. Skilled as they doubtless were in certain arts and sciences, healing, astrology, medicine, etc., there seems

to have been a curious paucity of spiritual knowledge and of intuition. Avicenna, for instance, an Arabian physician, the author of the "Canon of Medicine," a work that guided medical minds of Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, attributed dreams to an ultimate intelligence moving in the

moon.

Heraclitus of Ephesus advocated the dominance of mind over spirit. He went to Rome for the purpose of decrying dramatic art, but the evening before his speech he dreamed that he killed the tragedians and the judges who were against him. In accordance with the correct interpretation of his dream he lost his cause and was discredited.

Pythagoras, whose name and teachings have transcended time, and been transmuted into modern thought, held dreams as the index of the soul and as emanations from a divine source. He also ascribed them to physical causes, and instances the morning dream as originating in the liver; patients were warned against lying upon the back or upon the right side lest they constrict the liver, the mirror of dreams. Owing to atmospheric conditions Spring dreams were regarded as best, Autumn dreams as the worst.

Socrates, declared by the Pythian oracle the wisest man on earth, believed in dreams, while his theory of a dæmon, or familiar spirit, is doubtless the forerunner of the modern subconscious self.

"As I fully believe I am commanded to do this (teach the young) by God, speaking in oracles, and in dreams, and in every way by which the divine voice has ever spoken to man and told him what to do." Socrates to the men of Athens (Plato).

Aristotle, founder of the Peripatetic school and tutor of Alexander the Great, is doubtless responsible for the regard in which his illustrious pupil held his own dreamings, many of which are recorded. Cornelius Agrippa quotes Aristotle as referring the cause of dreams to commonsense placed in the fancy, while prophetic dreams set up a mono-idea in the brain;