Is not this sublime?
Now it is clear that these illusions cannot tend to advance the dignity of mind. Nothing can be more convincing to prove a suspension of judgment. Remember that during this life,—the incorporation of the soul,—we are conscious of it only through the brain. It is not yet emancipated; and it is an error to think, because sometimes we have a brilliant vision, that therefore, if the body were more inactive, the soul would be more ethereal.
Astr. And yet we are assured that Alexander, and Voltaire, and La Fontaine, and Condillac, and Tartini, and Franklin, and Mackenzie, and Coleridge, were wont to compose plans of battles, and problems, and poems, in their dreams, with a degree of vigour and facility, far exceeding their waking studies.
Ev. This very facility proves that there was association from memory, without volition or effort; the mind being in a state of reverie, and the senses quiescent. In this consists the vivid and delightful visions lighted up by our memory in slumber, especially when there is darkness and silence, so that there is no perception; or when the mind is concentrated, and has been reposing, so that its fancy is a novelty.
But this identifying, by Sir Thomas Brown, of reason and fancy, is itself a proof of error. The energy of the first is exercised on data or facts; that of the second, in mere hypothetic amusement.
It were indeed much better that we established either the material hypothesis of Priestley, or his antipodes, Berkeley,—that nature was but a compound of spirits, ideas unfettered by matter; or the visionary scheme of Hume (borrowed indeed from the Hindoo philosopher, Abul Fazel), that there is nought but impression and idea in nature; or even the absolute scepticism of Pyrrho;—than that we should favour the rhapsody of Brown, that the consciousness of waking moments should thus deteriorate reason, and render the mind incompatible with sublunary duties.
Cast. Coleridge, I believe, was so impressed with his own dreaming compositions, that he said, “the dullest wight might be a Shakspere in his dreams.” What may he deserve for such presumption?
Ev. Coleridge was an opium-eater, and the whole intellectual life of this mighty metaphysician was a dream. And you may forget that Coleridge was already a poet, and reasons thus from impressions in his own visions, during the elysium of his anodyne. But the contrasted feelings of Coleridge’s nights at once confirm the monomania of his dreaming; and if you read his “Pains of Sleep,” Castaly, you will not deem them a slight penalty, even for his libel on your sweet Shakspere.
But the conclusions of three sage grave men on this subject will impress your belief more than mine. The mentor of Rasselas, Johnson himself, speaks by the lips of Imlac. —
“All power of Fancy over Reason is a degree of insanity. By degrees, the reign of Fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious, and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture, or of anguish.”