before us, across the salt marsh that lay between us and Bushire. The sun was high in the heavens ere we were in the saddle again. Leaving orders with the servants to follow with the mules, we made up our minds for a sweltering ride, and spurred away for Bushire. The heat was terrific, and the glare from the blistered, salt-encrusted soil so fierce and blinding, that we were obliged to drop the ends of our turbans over our faces, as a sort of veil. The marsh, without a single vestige of verdure, spread away like a glistening sea to the right and to the left. Any deviation from the beaten track, and one's horse broke through the thin salt crust, and floundered fetlock deep in a spongy soft mud. As we urged on our tired horses at nearly the top of their speed, we seemed possessed of a feeling that any delay on this burning plain would be instant death. We knew that, till we were at the gates of the town, we should not find shelter from the death-dealing rays of the sun large enough to screen a mouse. Before we had ridden half the distance, the white walls of the residency gleamed in detached fragments through a hazy mirage; now far above the horizon of the plain, now again far below it, and apparently close to us. Then the hazy line of brown wall which surrounds the town and the several bastions gradually separated themselves from the wavy plain; some grotesquely elongated objects defined themselves into a string of camels approaching the town. And, finally, Bushire, that had seemed for the last hour but the "baseless fabric of a vision," became a reality, and in a few minutes we were clattering through the gateway, and charging a throng of half-naked Arabs, who were wrangling under its shade over a donkey-load of dates. CAXTONIANA: A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS. By the Author of The Caxton Family.' PART VIII. NO. XI. ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ACTIVE THOUGHT AND REVERIE. IT is the peculiarity of the human mind that it cannot long, at a stretch, endure the active consciousness of its own operations. "It seems possible," says one of the most modest and cautious of physiologists, "that certain cases of madness depend on a cause which can scarcely exist, even in slight degree, without producing some mental disturbanceviz., the too frequent and earnest direction of the mind inwards upon itself the concentration of the consciousness too long continued upon its own functions." "'* It is another peculiarity of the human mind that a man can as seldom say to himself, with success, "Now, I will think exclusively on this or that subject," as he can say to himself, "Now, I will dream of this or that image." Some writer, I forget at this moment whom, declares that he did not know what it was to think till he got his pen into his hand. Pascal, on the contrary, observes that, "in the very act of writing, his thought sometimes escaped him."+ I can recall no moment of my life, 'Chapters on Mental Physiology.' By Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D. 77 (2d edition). Page "En écrivant ma pensée, elle m'echappe quelquefois."- Pensées de Pascal,' Art. ix. out of sleep, in which ideas were not passing through my brain; nay, my own experience confirms the assertion of Kant, "that there is no sleep in which we do not dream, and that it is the rapidity with which ideas succeed each other in sleep that constitutes a principal cause why we do not always recollect what we dream." * But it is one thing to see an undistinguishable crowd-another thing to command its numbers and marshal them into the discipline of an army; one thing to be aware of the images that rise within, and flit from us into space-another thing to form those images into ranks of thought, and direct their march towards a definite object. Thought, as distinct from Reverie -Thought compact and practical, such as can be stamped into record or concentred into action-is generally a mechanical involuntary process, the steps of which we are unable to trace. "The understanding, like the eye, while it makes us to see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself." + The mind, in this, greatly needs the help of some accustomed association in the physical structure. It is strange how frequently it contracts some habit of the body by which it seems to give ease to its vent, or gather vigour for its utterance. Every one accustomed to public speaking knows how much the facility with which his thoughts flow into language, and his language expands into eloquence, is increased by the freedom of gesture it is not only that the action employed by the orator impresses the eye of the audience, but it stimu lates and intensifies the thought of the orator himself, so that, if he has long accustomed himself to ungraceful and rugged gesture, though he may be fully aware of his faultsthough, by the aid of an actor, he might exchange his rude spontaneous movement for an artificial elegance-he feels that, were he to do so, his oratory would lose more than it would gain. It would be long before he would cease to be embarrassed by the consciousness of his effort to suppress the defect which custom had made a part of himself; he would long want that thorough self-abandonment which gave to his rude delivery the merit of earnestness, and lent even to faults the beauty of artless passion and genuine impulse. A counsellor, renowned for the art of his pleading, had a trick of rubbing his spectacle-case while addressing a jury. A foolish attorney who had confided a brief to him thought this action ludicrous, and likely to impair the effect of the pathetic appeals which the nature of the suit admitted. Accordingly, he watched for a sly opportunity, and stole away the spectacle-case. For the first time in his life, the counsellor's tongue faltered - his mind missed the bodily track with which it had long associated its operations; he became confused, embarrassed-he stammered, blundered, and boggled-lost all the threads of his brief, and was about to sit down, self-defeated, when the conscience-stricken attorney restored the spectacle-case. Straightway, with the first touch of the familiar talisman, the mind recovered its self-possession, the memory its clear* Lectures on Metaphysics,' by Sir W. Hamilton, Bart., vol. i. p. 318, 319.—“I have myself," says Sir W. Hamilton, "at different times turned my attention to the point, and, as far as my observations go, they certainly tend to prove that during sleep the mind is never inactive or wholly unconscious of its activity." Baxter has some remarks to the same effect, in a passage of his Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul,' which appear to have escaped the notice of more recent metaphysicians. And appended to that passage, there occurs the following note, which forestalls Kant's observation:-" A very remarkable author, writing on this subject, has these words, 'I suppose the soul is never totally inactive. I never awaked, since I had the use of my memory, but I found myself coming out of a dream; and I suppose they that think they dream not, think so because they forget their dreams."-M. R. Bankes's 'Defence of the Soul's Immortality.' + Locke, Introduction to 'Essay on the Human Understanding.' before us, across the salt marsh that lay between us and Bushire. The sun was high in the heavens ere we were in the saddle again. Leaving orders with the servants to follow with the mules, we made up our minds for a sweltering ride, and spurred away for Bushire. The heat was terrific, and the glare from the blistered, salt-encrusted soil so fierce and blinding, that we were obliged to drop the ends of our turbans over our faces, as a sort of veil. The marsh, without a single vestige of verdure, spread away like a glistening sea to the right and to the left. Any deviation from the beaten track, and one's horse broke through the thin salt crust, and floundered fetlock deep in a spongy soft mud. As we urged on our tired horses at nearly the top of their speed, we seemed possessed of a feeling that any delay on this burning plain would be instant death. We knew that, till we were at the gates of the town, we should not find shelter from the death-dealing rays of the sun large enough to screen a mouse. Before we had ridden half the distance, the white walls of the residency gleamed in detached fragments through a hazy mirage; now far above the horizon of the plain, now again far below it, and apparently close to us. Then the hazy line of brown wall which surrounds the town and the several bastions gradually separated themselves from the wavy plain; some grotesquely elongated objects defined themselves into a string of camels approaching the town. And, finally, Bushire, that had seemed for the last hour but the "baseless fabric of a vision," became a reality, and in a few minutes we were clattering through the gateway, and charging a throng of half-naked Arabs, who were wrangling under its shade over a donkey-load of dates. CAXTONIANA: A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE, LITERATURE, AND MANNERS. By the Author of 'The Caxton Family.' PART VIII. NO. XI. ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ACTIVE THOUGHT AND REVERIE. It is the peculiarity of the human mind that it cannot long, at a stretch, endure the active consciousness of its own operations. It seems possible," says one of the most modest and cautious of physiologists, "that certain cases of madness depend on a cause which can scarcely exist, even in slight degree, without producing some mental disturbanceviz., the too frequent and earnest direction of the mind inwards upon itself the concentration of the consciousness too long continued upon its own functions."* 'Chapters on Mental Physiology.' By Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D. Page 77 (2d edition). + "En écrivant ma pensée, elle m'echappe quelquefois."—' Pensées de Pascal,' Art. ix. out of sleep, in which ideas were not passing through my brain; nay, my own experience confirms the assertion of Kant, "that there is no sleep in which we do not dream, and that it is the rapidity with which ideas succeed each other in sleep that constitutes a principal cause why we do not always recollect what we dream." * But it is one thing to see an undistinguishable crowd-another thing to command its numbers and marshal them into the discipline of an army; one thing to be aware of the images that rise within, and flit from us into space-another thing to form those images into ranks of thought, and direct their march towards a definite object. Thought, as distinct from Reverie -Thought compact and practical, such as can be stamped into record or concentred into action-is generally a mechanical involuntary process, the steps of which we are unable to trace. "The understanding, like the eye, while it makes us to see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself." + lates and intensifies the thought of the orator himself, so that, if he has long accustomed himself to ungraceful and rugged gesture, though he may be fully aware of his faultsthough, by the aid of an actor, he might exchange his rude spontaneous movement for an artificial elegance-he feels that, were he to do so, his oratory would lose more than it would gain. It would be long before he would cease to be embarrassed by the consciousness of his effort to suppress the defect which custom had made a part of himself; he would long want that thorough self-abandonment which gave to his rude delivery the merit of earnestness, and lent even to faults the beauty of artless passion and genuine impulse. A counsellor, renowned for the art of his pleading, had a trick of rubbing his spectacle-case while addressing a jury. A foolish attorney who had confided a brief to him thought this action ludicrous, and likely to impair the effect of the pathetic appeals which the nature of the suit admitted. Accordingly, he watched for a sly opportunity, and stole away the spectacle-case. For the first time in his life, the counsellor's tongue faltered-his mind missed the bodily track with which it had long associated its operations; he became confused, embarrassed-he stammered, blundered, and boggled-lost all the threads of his brief, and was about to sit down, self-defeated, when the conscience-stricken attorney restored the spectacle-case. Straightway, with the first touch of the familiar talisman, the mind recovered its self-possession, the memory its clear The mind, in this, greatly needs the help of some accustomed association in the physical structure. It is strange how frequently it contracts some habit of the body by which it seems to give ease to its vent, or gather vigour for its utterance. Every one accustomed to public speaking knows how much the facility with which his thoughts flow into language, and his language expands into eloquence, is increased by the freedom of gesture it is not only that the action employed by the orator impresses the eye of the audience, but it stimu* Lectures on Metaphysics,' by Sir W. Hamilton, Bart., vol. i. p. 318, 319.—“I have myself," says Sir W. Hamilton, "at different times turned my attention to the point, and, as far as my observations go, they certainly tend to prove that during sleep the mind is never inactive or wholly unconscious of its activity." Baxter has some remarks to the same effect, in a passage of his Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul,' which appear to have escaped the notice of more recent metaphysicians. And appended to that passage, there occurs the following note, which forestalls Kant's observation:-"A very remarkable author, writing on this I never subject, has these words, 'I suppose the soul is never totally inactive. awaked, since I had the use of my memory, but I found myself coming out of a dream; and I suppose they that think they dream not, think so because they for get their dreams.". -M. R. Bankes's 'Defence of the Soul's Immortality.' + Locke, Introduction to 'Essay on the Human Understanding.' ness, the tongue its fluency; and as, again and again, the lawyer fondly rubbed the spectacle-case, argument after argument flew forth like the birds from a conjuror's box. And the jury, to whom a few minutes before the case seemed hopeless, were stormed into unanimous conviction of its justice. Such is the force of habit. Such the sympathy between mental and bodily associations. Every magician needs his wand; and perhaps every man of genius has his spectacle-case. Perhaps some of my readers may have witnessed, and many more will have read the account of, the curious effects which Mr Braid of Manchester produced by what is called "hypnotism," from vos (sleep). Mr Braid rejected the theories of the mesmeriser and phrenologist, and maintained that he could produce, by action on the muscles, phenomena analogous to those with which the phrenological mesmerist startles the spectators. I saw him thus fascinate to sleep a circle of miscellaneous patients by making each patient fix successively his (or her) eyes upon a lancet-case that the operator held between finger and thumb. And when slumber had been thus induced, without aid of magnetic passes, and merely by the concentration of sight and mind on a single object, Mr Braid said to me, 66 Now, observe, I will draw into play the facial muscles which are set in movement by laughter, and ludicrous images will immediately present themselves to the sleeper." He did so gently to one of the sleepers, an old woman; pushing up the corners of her mouth. Presently the patient burst into laughter so hearty, as to be contagious amongst the audience present; and when asked the cause, told (always in slumber) a droll story of something which had happened to her a few days before, and which the muscular action, excited, had at once brought back to the memory. Next, Mr Braid drew down the muscles on the wrinkled face of another old lady-bent her head towards the floor, and joined her hands as if in supplicationimmediately the poor old creature doled forth, "Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners," and if left long enough to herself, would have gone through all the responses in the Litany. Another touch or two of the enchanter's wand-the head thrown upward, the forehead gently smoothed, the eyebrows lifted -and the same old woman thought she was in heaven, and began to describe the beauties of the angels. I believe that Mr Braid has in one respect been more fortunate than his fellow Thaumaturgists, the mesmerisers. He has not been derided as a dupe, nor denounced as an impostor, by sceptical physiologists. His experiments, dating from 1842, have attracted considerable notice, not only in his own country, but perhaps still more scientifically critical on the Continent, and have been confirmed and extended by the experiments of very eminent and cautious philosophers and physicians.* Taking it then for granted that no deception was practised, either by himself or his patients, the hypnotism practised by Mr Braid conveys a striking illustration of the instantaneous and involuntary sympathy between the ideas presented to our inward intelligence, and the slightest threads of that external webwork, behind which sits the soul vigilant and un seen. Certain it is that, of the most valuable of our intellectual acquisitions-viz., those which pass from hoarded savings into the grandeur and uses of reproductive capitalwe can give no methodical accounts. We can number, indeed, the books we have read and the problems we have conned, but that is only to say where we have obtained the materials of fuel. When and how did * See the chapter on Hypnotism, in M. Maury's very comprehensive and enlightened work, 'Le Sommeil et les Rèves,' p. 243. |