The Philosophy of Mystery

by Walter Cooper Dendy

In the day-dream, a thought or form shall present itself, even at a time when the mind is employed on subjects of a contrasted nature. These thoughts, or forms, are usually fraught with a high degree of pleasure or of pain, or refer to events of vital importance, to the dreamer;—such are the objects of the lover’s idolatry, the anticipation of misfortune, or subjects of prospective felicity. Under this excitement, the influence of external objects is often for a time lost; the retina may be struck by a ray, or the membrana tympani by a vibration, but the mind shall fail in its perception,—no internal impression being made. This cannot arise from a point of the retina, or the expansion of the auditory nerve being pre-occupied, as some have supposed. The idea of material impression must fail in explanation; for, on the instant that the mind is awakened, the external impression is again perceived. The external sense, in this case, is not in fault; nor is its direct influence on the sensorium suspended; for we find that a person will continue to read in this state, as it were mechanically; but the attention is diverted by deep thought, so that the reader, at the end of his task, may have no remembrance of what he has been reading.

Let me tell of a curious little episode of Dr. Darwin’s, which will aid me in my illustration. A young lady was playing on the piano a very elaborate piece of music. It was correctly and scientifically performed, although she was agitated during her task; and when it was over, the lady burst into tears. She had been watching all the time a favourite canary in the fluttering of death; and with this catastrophe her mind was almost wholly occupied, but her fingers did not err in their complicated and delicate motions, which they undoubtedly would have done, if the will or mind alone had directed them.

In sanity of mind, and in mania, the most philosophical distinction is based on the health or disease of memory. The ecstacy of madness may not seem perhaps more irrational than an ecstatic vision, but the maniac will not re-word the matter; whereas the mere visionary will repeat the action of the trance as a dream.

Astr. But there is a sort of somnambulism the reverse of this. In the retreat to Corunna, many of the soldiers, although exhausted by a long march, and having actually fallen asleep, continued to move forwards, leaving their companions behind, who halted and laid down to repose.

Ev. This is the continued association of that excitement which has produced muscular motion. The mind was exhausted and sleepy, the brain was inert; but we believe that the spinal marrow does, of itself, effect motion, while the will and consciousness sleep; and we may also stand and sleep. These soldiers did not walk in their sleep, but slept in their walk.

Astr. I am informed, too, that Richard Turpin, in allusion to his famous flight to York, asserted that Black Bess appeared to gallop unconsciously.

Ev. It is true; and when we reflect on this gigantic feat, we may suppose that the mare gallopped the farther, because her consciousness of fatigue was not awake, and her muscular energy was thus concentrated.

Paralyzed muscles will often quiver when the sound limb is quiet; the brain’s influence being, in this case too, inert, sensation is diminished; but involuntary motion continues from a habit in the muscle, or the excitement of unexhausted irritability, as in chorea, spasm, &c. And in some cases of post mortem galvanism, Dr. Dunbar, of Virginia, passed the galvanic aura along the ulnar nerve of an executed negro, and the fingers instantly quivered, and assumed the attitude and action of one playing on a flute or the strings of a violin.

Astr. It is possible, then, to move without our willing to do so, or being conscious of our act.

Ev. There are believed to be, indeed it is almost a demonstration,—four sets of nerves, traced along the spinal marrow. Two to the brain, of sensation and volition, by which the mind feels what the body touches, and transmits its will to the muscles; two others to the marrow, by which it also is stimulated by outward touch, and by which it excites the muscles to motion.