The author of Psychological Inquiries suggests the question: Do dreams answer any purpose in the economy of living We regret that he has not given us a very definite answer, but he obviously inclines to the view that they cannot be purposeless. No one has hitherto offered any certain explanation of the uses of the spleen, of the thyroid gland, or of the supra-renal capsules; yet no one believes the formation of these organs. to be merely incidental, or doubts that they have some special (although at present unknown) function to perform. "Dreams are," he observes, "at any rate, an exercise of the imagination. We may well conceive that one effect of them may be to increase the activity of that faculty during our waking-hours, and it would be presumptu ous to deny that they may not answer some purpose beyond this in the economy of percipient and thinking beings." Dreams have, in all ages and countries, been believed in as indications of the future; and of all forms of superstition, this . is perhaps the most excusable. Whatever is mysterious as to its cause, and beyond the power of the will, appears as supernatural; and what more so than dreams! The thoughts in dreams, too, arise out of the past and present circumstances of the dreamer, and•therefore are not connee• tion with his future destiny, as most other omens are. In the Homeric age, it was firmly held that "dreams come from Zeus." In the most ancient civilized communities of
which we have any record—those of Egypt and Babylon—to interpret the monarch's dreams was one of the most important state offices, and was confided to a college of wise men. A common way of consulting the Greek and Roman oracles (q.v.), was for the inquirer to sleep a night in the temple, after performing sacrificial and other rites, when his questions were supposed to be answered in dreams. Grave philosophers wrote treatises on the interpretation of dreams, as they did on astrology. Even Bacon, although lie confesses that the interpretation of dreams is mixed with numerous extrava gances, yet speaks as if he thought that something might be made of it. In modern times, and among European nations, dreams are seldom heeded except by the very ignorant or superstitions; and "as idle as a dream" has become a proverb. Nothing can be conceived more arbitrary than the pretended rules of interpretation—e.g., "that. to dream of gold is good luck, but of silver, ill." See Brand's Popular Antiquities, by Ellis, where a " Dictionary of Dreams" is given. As to the actual coincidences that. sometimes happen between dreams and events, it is only surprising, considering the countless fancies that are passing through our minds while asleep, that the coincidences are not ten times more numerous than they are.