MAURY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 403 



the question, What are the materials of these visions of 

 our sleep ? Of what ' stuff are dreams made ? ' The 

 first and natural comment upon the question is, that 

 dreams, like waking thoughts, must be different in dif- 

 ferent minds, and with some explicit reference to their 

 individuality. Such is doubtless the case, and among 

 classes of men as well as individuals. We have already 

 alluded to this curious inquiry, one admitting of the 

 strongest presumption, if not of direct proof. Passing 

 by the dreams of infant life, as inaccessible to observa- 

 tion, can we suppose those of the idle schoolboy to 

 be moulded like the dreams of a man immersed in 

 worldly care and anxieties? or like those of old age 

 wandering vaguely over the memories and feelings 

 of past life ? How are we to compare the dreams 

 of the day-labourer in the field, the factory, or the 

 mine, with those of men whose faculties have been 

 exercised and exalted by literature, science, and the 

 arts; or by the political struggles which enter into 

 the government of the world? The sleeping minds 

 of Bacon and Newton, of Dante, Shakspeare, and Mil- 

 ton, of Michel Angelo and Eaphael, of Julius Caesar 

 and Napoleon, must have been tenanted with visions 

 very different from those of ordinary men. Who, 

 again, can tell us what are the dreams of madness 

 in its many forms, some of these forms having close 

 kindred physiologically with the act of dreaming? 

 The dreams of the idiot may resemble those of early 

 childhood, or the second childhood of old age. What 

 shall we conjecture as to those of the man who has 

 undergone years of solitary confinement, changeless in 



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