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MAURY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 1 



[CONTRIBUTED TO THE 'EDINBURGH EEVIEW' IN 1873.] 



WE place M. Maury's volume at the head of this 

 article, as one of the most recent and remarkable on 

 the phenomena of Sleep and Dreams. He is among 

 the few authors who have made them the subject of 

 experiment as well as of simple observation. But in 

 reviewing his work we shall have occasion to refer to 

 several others, in which these phenomena are treated 

 of, either especially or as a part of human physiology ; 

 many of them works of much intrinsic value, though 

 not, as we think, wholly exhausting the subject. Atten- 

 tion has been somewhat too exclusively given to the 

 physical causes and conditions of sleep, without adequate 

 notice of the wonderful characters which connect it 

 with the other portion of our existence ; rendering it, 

 through dreams, an interpreter of many of those complex 

 relations of mind and body which have perplexed philo- 

 sophy in every age of the world. Sleep and dreams 

 may justly be deemed one of the great mysteries of 

 our nature. Our knowledge of them is far from having 

 reached the realities of a science. Many of the pro- 

 blems, physical -and pyschological, they involve are 

 among the most profound in mental philosophy, and 



1 Le Sommeil et les Reves. Par L. F. ALFRED MAURY, Membre 

 de 1'Institut. Troisieme Edition. Paris, 1865. 



