MAURY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 373 



the mental functions is more impossible than the actual 

 changes they undergo in dreaming, in the delirium of 

 fever, insanity, intoxication, and other morbid condi- 

 tions of the brain. The sleep of the newly-born in- 

 fant cannot be construed otherwise than as a state in 

 which sensorial actions either do not exist, or are 

 limited to some vague recurrence of the simple im- 

 pressions made on the untutored senses. An ordinary 

 fainting-fit leaves no trace behind of anything having 

 passed during the time of deliquium. To the patient 

 this time is a nullity of his being. It may be that the 

 memory only is annihilated, that the mind never 

 actually ceases in its workings ; but this view is little 

 more than a subterfuge to meet a difficulty which we 

 cannot otherwise encounter. 



Plunging thus far into the metaphysical perplexities 

 of this question, whether the mind, or sensorial con- 

 sciousness, is actually lost during certain times of sleep, 

 and recovered^ as far as dreaming can be called re- 

 covery, we are bound to notice a doctrine closely 

 connected with this enquiry, to which the name and 

 writings of Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Lay cock, and others 

 have justly given authority. This is, the hypothesis of 

 6 unconscious cerebration ' so termed, because it sup- 

 poses the brain capable, under certain conditions, of 

 acts or changes, utterly without mental consciousness , 

 yet strictly analogous to those through which it mini- 

 sters to mental functions acts of intellect detached, 

 as it were, from the intellectual personality of our 

 being. This is a bold assumption; but curious cases are 

 produced which might seem to authenticate it. Such 



