70 SENSATION IS 



Every body must have felt the truth of the 

 mind's satisfaction and confidence in its own 

 thoughts, from what occurs in dreams. A man, 

 who dreams that he is flying, or standing on the 

 cross of St. Paul's, or walking on the bottom of 

 the sea, never has at the time any more doubt of 

 the fact than he has of the fact of being himself. 

 That is the mind acting with little more co-opera- 

 tion of the senses than suffices to bring the dream 

 back in waking suggestion ; but still the dream is 

 mentally possible, and certain truth, up to the 

 moment when he awakens, and finds, by actual ob- 

 servation, that he is snugly in his bed. The body 

 takes part in matters at that stage, and thus the mind 

 loses its wings, and is clogged so that it cannot 

 soar. But we are startled at the thoughts of 

 other people, because they are communicated to 

 us in the very same way as we get all our experi- 

 ence, that is, all our knowledge ; and so, if the 

 thought which is communicated to us is in accord- 

 ance with that knowledge, we cannot help be- 

 lieving that it is just and true ; but if it is not in 

 accordance with that knowledge, we can as little 

 help believing that it is absurd or false. It is 

 altogether impossible for us to judge of that which 

 we learn from without by any other standard than 

 that which we have ; and as Tightness and readi- 

 ness in those judgments is that which gives per- 

 fection to our character, we cannot be too constant 

 or too careful in our observation. 



But every sensation, however fleeting it may be, 

 and through whatever material organs it may ap- 

 pear to come, is really an act of the mind, and an 

 act of the whole mind ; because the mind is one, 

 and it is utterly impossible that one can be in two 



