He reflected for a while upon this strange occurrence, but not being able to arrive at any satisfactory explanation of it, he turned his gas down and went to sleep. The next morning he called at my office, as previously stated, to ascertain if possible what pranks his brain had been playing, and if he should regard them as warning of his approaching departure.” In this case the patient was suffering from “a moderate degree of deafness, persistent tinnitus aurium, occasional vertigo, and slight loss of memory.” Towards the close of life, two or three years later, “incoherence, delirium, stupor, and the like, indicated with sufficient certainty the presence of severe cerebral disease.” The remarkable hallucination which he experienced was undoubtedly the product of the morbid changes which were progressing in his brain. These cases form an ascending series which illustrates the receptive and constructive capacities of the human brain when its sensory apparatus has become unusually or morbidly excitable. But this preternatural mobility may display itself in other departments besides those of mere sense-perception. The sphere of pure intellect may thus be invaded by ideas springing from impressions which address the reasoning faculties alone, so that in sleep a dream may lead the judgment to decisive conclusions that were scarcely recognized or heeded during the hours of wakefulness. In this way we may learn to understand how the anxieties experienced by the husband of the Virgin Mary may have ripened into a dream, of intensity sufficient to guide his subsequent action. Nothing could be more natural for one, like him, ignorant of physiology and of second causes in general, than the ascription of such an event to the immediate intervention of the Great First Cause--the only cause which he could rationally apprehend. Hence the universal primitive belief that in dreams God spake to man. Upon this belief was laid the foundation of many of the religious convictions which have grown and ripened with the progress of the race until their shadowy origin has been well nigh forgotten.