GENERAL MEETING. 37 
was a condition to which too little attention had been given; and 
third, that there seemed a possibility of obtaining a slightly erro- 
neous vapor tension with Crova’s apparatus. 
Mr. E. J. Farquuar then read a paper on 
DREAMS IN THEIR RELATION WITH PSYCHOLOGY. 
[ Abstract. ] 
Several theories of dreams were considered and none found en- 
tirely sufficient; not because a new and complete one was to be 
proposed, but because all seemed a little too partial and limiting in 
their scope. After touching on the relation of dreams to sleep and 
to waking, as intermediate between them, discrediting many recorded 
experiments on the ground of their being vitiated by a special pur- 
pose latent in the mind, and pointing out that the usual supposition 
of our being often waked by the intensity of a dream appears to 
put cause for effect, since it must be the fact of waking that effects 
the dream, perhaps by slow degrees—the character of mental opera- 
tions in dreams was discussed. Dissent was expressed from the 
opinion that the dreaming state is devoid of such originating power 
as belongs to the waking; this position was maintained by showing 
_ first, the extreme vividness and lastingness of impression often per- 
taining to dreams, apart from any features of horror; then the 
coherence, far from being unknown among them, yet of a peculiar 
kind ; and, finally, the true significance occasionally appearing in 
them, generally by figurative shape, amounting sometimes to a real 
enlightenment of the mind. Regarding the faculties or aspects of 
mind most apt to display themselves in dreams, it was held that all 
were liable to the exercise in turn, though some of the higher ones, 
especially the moral sense and judgment, less than others; since these 
expressed a rarer and more distinctive force evolved and laid up by 
and for our relations with actual life, while other powers whose 
exercise is less of an expenditure from the most important vitalities 
of mind were freer at the time—the principles of conservation and 
struggle for existence being thought to apply among the mental 
elements. Thus, to a certain degree, the mind may be seen more 
clearly in its true character by means of dreams than awake, 
though in very partial views at a time. Unconscious mental action 
was reviewed in this connection, and it was held that not only the 
lower processes, called reflex, but many of the highest functions 
