412 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



impressions which affect those who have no real belief 

 in ghosts and goblins, is the singular intensity of such 

 impressions when aroused (in whatever way) imme- 

 diately on waking. Especially after dreaming, when 

 the dream has been of an impressive nature, the mind 

 seems exposed to ideas of the supernatural. One often 

 finds it impossible to understand, on waking again in 

 full daylight, how the mind can possibly have enter- 

 tained the feelings which had made night hideous or 

 distressing. In remembrance, the matter seems like 

 an experience of another person. 



In passing it may be noticed that we perhaps owe to 

 dreams many of the common ideas about spiritual 

 agencies. Mr. Herbert Spencer accounts for the 

 earliest belief in the supernatural ' by man being led 

 through dreams, shadows, and other causes, to look at 

 himself as a double essence, corporeal and spiritual.' 

 And ?the spiritual being is supposed to exist after 

 death, and to be powerful.' Mr. Tylor also has shown 

 how dreams may have given rise to the notion of 

 spirits ; ' for savages,' says Darwin (stating Tylor's 

 views), ' do not readily distinguish between subjective 

 and objective impressions. When a savage dreams, 

 the figures which appear before him are believed to 

 have come from a distance, and to stand over him, or, 

 " the soul of the dreamer goes out on its travels, and 

 comes home with a remembrance of what it has 

 seen.'" 'Nevertheless,' says Darwin presently, 'I 

 cannot but suspect that there is a still earlier and ruder 

 stage, when anything which manifests power or move- 



