372 MAUKY OX SLEEP AND DREAMS. 



is lost. Aristotle, in discussing this very topic, puts 

 the question, why some sleep occurs with dreams, 

 other sleep without? or, if always dreaming, why 

 some dreams are remembered, others not ? The ques- 

 tion, so propounded, marks the clear intelligence of the 

 philosopher. In the memory or oblivion of dreams 

 we trace their connexion with our physical organi- 

 sation, and thus gain a step, though a slight one, to the 

 better understanding of their nature. 



The doubt just denoted as to the universality of 

 dreams during sleep, has continued to our time. If 

 ever resolved, it must be by some such methods as 

 those adopted by M. Maury. He does not himself, in- 

 deed, meet the question in its distinct form, or dwell 

 upon its profound metaphysical relations. Other 

 writers on the subject, among whom we may name Sir 

 Y/illiam Hamilton, Sir Henry Holland, Drs. Carpenter, 

 Laycock, and Macnish, have severally, in one way or 

 other, encountered this problem. Lord Brougham has 

 grappled with it, amidst the many other questions 

 which exercised his bold and facile pen. He considers 

 dreams an incidental not a constant part of sleep a 

 sort of fringe edging its borders. Sir W. Hamilton, on 

 the contrary, believes that no condition of sleep exists 

 without dreaming; but all have felt the difficulty of 

 dealing only with incomplete or negative evidence, and 

 the question remains in abeyance for future research 

 or hypothesis to work upon. 



Hypothesis and speculation may well indeed be 

 awakened by this particular mystery of our nature. 

 In theory we cannot affirm that a total suspension of 



