M. Mélinand makes a remark which the experience of many will confirm, that dreams sometimes throw a light of extraordinary intensity on characters and situations, giving us, perhaps, truer views of certain things than we had ever attained in our waking hours. This, however, would only imply the withdrawal at such moments of influences or conditions which, in our waking life, may have the effect of rendering insight less keen and uncompromising. If, for example, we could in our dreams revert to the standpoint of childhood, we should see many things with a directness which is more or less lacking to our mature cogitations, and pronounce judgments in a correspondingly down-right manner, with perhaps a closer approximation to absolute truth. This, however, would manifestly not imply any extension of our mental range, nor afford any guarantee of the "reality" of the dream life. The intuitions of the novelist or dramatist, when they are true and profound, give a wonderful air of reality to the scenes which the author portrays, but do not make them real. There are various waking states in which our perceptions are more than normally acute; and, as we know, the loss of one physical organ leads frequently to an increase of power in others; but these facts throw little light on the main problem of life, which is how to develop and use our normal powers to the best purpose and with the best results. At the same time it is well not to despise any knowledge that may come to us from dreams in the way of self-revelation or otherwise, but to use it for the strengthening of what is weak and the rectifying of what is wrong. In that way dreams may be made subsidiary to the better government of our higher waking life. As to the conclusion the writer draws, that, as we wake from dreams, so we may some day wake from this life, which is so like a dream, we leave it to the judgment of our readers, merely remarking that it would be very unfortunate if the thought of such an awakening should lead any one to think little of this life, or abate any effort which he can make to render it, if a dream, a happy dream to himself and others. Scientific Literature. SPECIAL BOOKS.