8 INTRODUCTION. 



among the Indians of North America. A dream might either 

 be a visit from the soul of the object dreamt of, or it might be 

 one of the souls of the dreamer going about the world, while 

 the other — for every man has two — stayed behind with the body. 

 Dreams, they think, are of supernatural origin, and it is a reli- 

 gious duty to attend to them. That the white men should look 

 upon a dream as a matter of no consequence is a thing they 

 cannot understand.'^ 



How like a dream is to the popular notion of a soul, a shade, 

 a spirit, or a ghost, need not be said. But there are facts 

 which bring the dream and the ghost into yet closer connection 

 than follows from mere resemblance. Thus the belief is found 

 among the Finnish races that the spirits of the dead can plague 

 the living in their sleep, and bring sickness and harm upon 

 them.^ Hei-odotus relates that the Nasamones practise divina- 

 tion in the following manner : — they resort to the tombs of 

 their ancestors, and after ofi'ering prayers, go to sleep by them, 

 and whatever dream appears to them they take for their answer.^ 

 In modern Africa, the missionary Casalis says of the Basuto, 

 " Persons who are pursued in their sleep by the image of a de- 

 ceased relation, are often known to sacrifice a victim on the 

 tomb of the defunct, in order, as they say, to calm his dis- 

 quietude."* Clearly, then, a man who thinks he sees in sleep 

 the apparitions of his dead relatives and friends has a reason 

 for believing that their spirits outlive their bodies, and this 

 reason lies in no far-'fetched induction, but in what seems to 

 be the plain evidence of his senses. I have set the argument 

 down as belonging especially to the lower stages of mental de- 

 velopment, though indeed I have been startled by hearing it 

 myself urged in sober earnest very far outside the range of 

 savage life. 



It is interesting to read how Lucretius, reasoning against 



' Charlevoix, Sist. et Descr. Gen. de la Nouvelle-France ; Paris, 1744, vol. 

 vi. p. 78. 



^ Castren, ' Torlesungen iiber die Einnische Mythologie ;' (Tr. aud Ed. 

 Scliiefner ;) St. Petersburg, 1853, p. 120. 



3 Herod, iv. 172. See Mela i. 8. 



* Casalis, ' The Basutos ;' London, 1861, p. 245. 



