102 Rev. JAMEs WILLs on accidental Association. 
sometimes awakens from some unintelligible state of mind, which he vainly tries 
to grasp, and which utterly passes from him even while he is trying to comprehend 
it. But the dream thus continued may be, and, from what I have said, is most 
likely to be largely combined with the elements of waking thought. In such case 
it will be distinctly remembered. Further, it may contain the actual conditions 
of present reality,—that is, the light, place, and combination of circumstances, may 
be such as to imply the present scene and time. When this occurs, there arises 
an impression of reality combined with the recollections. Hence, I have no doubt, 
some ghost stories may be explained. 
Some persons may have experienced the recurrence of the same dream, with 
the distinct recollection of the same phenomena. This would be an instance of 
the peculiar community of ideas between two similar states, as already noticed. 
There is another case still more illustrative, though less likely, when it occurs, 
to be distinctly observed. A dream, of which there has been no previous remem- 
brance, is suddenly recalled to mind, even after several days, by the recurrence 
of some slight appearance or impression which it contained. ‘The explanation is 
obvious. Ido not dwell on these facts; where they have been observed the 
application needs no comment, where they have not it is too vague. 
I have now stated the conclusions which, with the help of observation care- 
fully pursued, I have drawn from the assumption of a law of consciousness which 
I consider to be easily ascertained, and to be capable of verification, both from 
reason and observation. That in the process of simple apprehension, there is an 
essential unity at every instant of time ; that this unity is the general condition 
of distinct thought, so that, while it is a primary condition of simple apprehen- 
sion, it is also the result of a habitual process; and that in every distinct idea, 
however various may be its components, there is a virtual or actual unity. These, 
I would submit, may be regarded as ascertained data in the theory of our intel- 
lectual state. 
In stating this theory I have avoided all considerations of the speculative 
theories of authoritative writers. Ihave carefully kept free from definitions or 
from reasonings dependent on the sense of terms, which are definitions in dis- 
guise ; but carefully selecting such facts as I thought likely to be coincident 
with common experience, I have endeavoured to present them in the ordinary 
idioms of the world. 
The real difficulties attendant on this class of investigations, when thus at- 
