MAGIC LANTERN. 399 



mind, unfamiliar under that aspect, is more than usually 

 vivid from the effect of surprise. Indeed, reality is in 

 much the same condition with us. We meet friends day 

 by day who have been the associates of our lives, and we 

 scarce realize the fact that they have been with us. A 

 familiar face may appear, a familiar step enter the study 

 while we are busily engaged, and pass out again without 

 our recognition, and scarcely with our consciousness that 

 they have been with us. But should any friend long 

 absent appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the same way, 

 surprise and the intensity of special recognition will be 

 evoked at once, and a vividness of the whole incident 

 impressed upon the mind which will produce the strongest 

 impression at the moment, and leave elements for per- 

 manent reflection afterwards when things common have 

 been long forgotten. The vividness of dreams is very 

 much, if not wholly, attributable to the same cause. The 

 will in our mental life to a certain extent directs and 

 controls the current of ideas under ordinary circumstances, 

 and with regard to real incidents, we are in contact with a 

 series of causes, all the associations and results of which 

 are regarded as matter of course, calculated on and looked 

 for. They are therefore looked forward to before they 

 take place, or so far foreknown as to have their interest 

 and novelty exhausted before they occur ; but dreams are 

 things out of the list of anticipation, for they never are, 

 when vivid or impressive, what we expected them to be ; 

 hence the impression of their novelty is not and cannot be 

 forestalled, and they strike us with as much vividness as 

 any surprising or unexpected incident in the eventualities 

 of life. 



Among artificial illusions many ingenious novelties have 

 appeared of late years. The ingenious suggestions of Sir 

 David Brewster, before mentioned, for the improvement of 

 the magic lantern have been all more or less exceeded by 



