THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



human alike. His world from the very first was a world 

 peopled with ghosts. 



If this be true, then we shall not greatly err if we 

 suppose that the sub-conscious condition of the dream- 

 state has been responsible for almost as important a 

 share in the mental development of our race as has been 

 evoked through the activities of the period of waking. 



For who shall measure at its full worth the power of 

 superstition, which has hung as a blighting pall over 

 the mind of man, distorting his vision, causing him to 

 see unreal forms, to conjure up apparitions, to flee 

 when no man pursueth, to shrink in terror from his 

 own imaginings? 



To-day you and I know that the varied forms we see 

 in the land of nod are but tissue of dreams; we know, 

 but do we quite believe? Is there not still upon 

 us the spell of our ancestry, lurking as just the sem- 

 blance of a doubt away back there in the recesses of 

 our mind ? 



The loved one long since dead, who spoke with us 

 while we slept standing before us in the old semblance, 

 speaking with the old voice are we quite sure that he 

 does not really exist in a super-sensual world? The 

 dear friend by whose sick-bed we stood in imagination 

 last night are we quite sure that he may not be in 

 reality ill? "Nonsense, dreams go by contraries," we 

 say; but the very phrase implies a deep-seated half- 

 belief that the dream has some occult significance. 

 At least we should be happier this morning if we had 

 not had that hideous dream. 



Nor is it our own self-consciousness merely that has 

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