THE PHENOMENAL AND THE TRCJE. 185 



the case (no more a mere hypothesis) of dreaming. 

 In dreams, non-existent things are felt as if existing ; 

 we live, to our feeling, a life which is not lived, and 

 amid conditions which are not. And this we do 

 simply through the temporary abeyance or inaction 

 of certain of our faculties. For this is the essential 

 diffejcence between dreaming and imagining. The 

 very same thoughts which constitute a dream might 

 pass through the waking mind in felt unreality, and 

 constitute a poem or a tale. But some of our facul- 

 ties are inoperative during sleep (the power of the 

 will, and probably some others) ; there is a tempo- 

 rary absence of their action ; and, as a consequence, 

 existence is felt as pertaining to that which does not 

 exist. 



If, therefore, in our experience of material things 

 we are feeling that to exist to which existence does 

 not truly belong, the fact is capable of the simplest 

 explanation : it implies merely the absence or com- 

 parative inactivity of some faculty in us; of some 

 faculty belonging to our perfect nature. It is the 

 known effect of such a cause to give a false feeling 

 of existence. 



