A monograph on sleep and dream: their physiology and psychologyCox, Edward W. (Edward William)
Science
A monograph on sleep and dream: their physiology and psychology
Cox, Edward W. (Edward William)
Dreams; Sleep
True it is that the phenomena of dream, while throwing so much light
upon the structure of the mind and the manner of its action and going
far to prove the existence of Soul, does not impart to us any knowledge
of the structure of Soul. But we may learn this much, that although it
is imperceptible by any of our senses, which are constructed to perceive
only that form of matter we call molecular, it is not also and therefore
unknowable, as the materialists contend. The existence of Soul can be
proved in precisely the same manner as the existence of electricity
and magnetism and heat are proved, which also are imperceptible by our
senses, but not therefore unknowable. We learn the fact of their being by
their operations upon the molecular structure our senses are constructed
to perceive. In like manner we learn something of their qualities and
powers. The process of proof is identical. If it be admissible evidence
for the one, it is no less admissible for the other. To what extent it
goes in the way of proof of the existence of Soul is, of course, a fair
question for argument and investigation. My contention is only that the
inquiry “if Soul be” must not be permitted to be summarily disposed of by
any such dogmatic dictum of Physicists as that Soul not being perceptible
to our senses is incapable of proving its existence through the senses,
and therefore is, and must ever remain, unknowable and consequently a
vain pursuit and an impossible Science.
In the phenomena of dream we find abundant proof that there is something
other than the sleeping molecular structure that does not sleep—that the
individual “I” preserves its consciousness of identity, its sense of
oneness in dream. This something cannot well be the body contemplating
itself—at once the actor and the spectator. Reason concludes that it must
be one thing contemplating another thing and Psychology contends that
this contemplating thing that wakes and dreams when the body is asleep
is what has been called by many names, but which here is designated as
“Soul,” without affirming anything of its structure, its nature, its
qualities, or its destiny.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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