DREAMS AND ILLUSIONS. 267 



civilization, thought may, after so many ages' exercise, 

 almost be said to have become part of the organism 

 by the indisputable effect of heredity; and the phe- 

 nomenon of the recurrence to memory of past facts 

 and distant places is obvious and intelligible, since 

 our judgment of them is never subject to illusion, or 

 only in rare instances and in abnormal conditions. 

 But this judgment is less obvious and easy in the 

 case of primitive savages who have advanced little 

 beyond the innate exercise of the intelligence. The 

 rational analysis of the states of consciousness has 

 not been made, and hence their special and general 

 distinctions are seen with difficulty or not seen at all. 

 Consequently the primitive and natural amazement 

 of man must have been great, when by day, and 

 still more in the lonely silence of night, persons, 

 places, and his own past acts recurred to his mind, 

 and he was able to contemplate them as if they were 

 actually present. He was incapable of giving an ex- 

 planation of this marvellous fact in the rational and 

 reflective manner which is possible to psychologists 

 and to all civilized men. This revival of the past 

 appeared to him as a fact in its simple and spon- 

 taneous reality ; he made no attempt to explain it, 

 but it was presented to his consciousness like all 

 other natural facts. The only explanation of the phe- 

 nomenon appeared to him. to be that these images did 

 not recur to the mind by the necessary action of the 

 brain, but that by their own spontaneous power they 



