There is a funny scrap, I remember to have read, and of which I may shrewdly suspect my friend to be the scribbler. “Whence we may compare the powers of mind to a court of judicature:—the outward senses being as the solicitors that bring the causes; the common sense, as the master of requests, who receives all their informations; and phantasy (or imagination), like the lawyers and advocates that bandy the business to and fro in several forms, with a deal of noise and bustle; reason, as the judge, that having calmly heard each party’s pretensions, pronounces an upright sentence; and memory, as the clerk, records the whole proceedings.” But say, if the dream is but the memory of an impression, are metaphysics to be counted as a _cypher_, in our discussion of the nature of intellect? EV. Nay, the psychologist must ever call metaphysics to his aid, especially when speaking of the health or disorder of mind: there is an intimate blending of metaphysics and philosophy. But believe not, Astrophel, that I presume to develope that mysterious influence which is going on between mind and matter, so essential to the manifestation of the former, _during its earthly condition_. The mystery will ever be a sealed letter to the intellect. It is enough that we have evidence of its existence without yearning for deeper insight of _final causes_. I have assured you that I do not believe thought or reflection, or any act of mind to be _material_, and speak even with all due courtesy to the abstract metaphysician, and the divine who, doubtless from pure and holy motives, would seek to cut the Gordian knot of this sublime enigma. Even Dr. Abercrombie is content with observing that the correction of illusions by the sane mind is by the comparing power of reason, but he leaves the _illusion itself unexplained_. Indeed, the most luminous of pathologists have ever feared to touch organization; Sir Humphrey Davy leaves his beautiful imaginings vague and inconclusive, because he stops short of the brain. The mere psychologist will ever persevere in placing even the _palpable_ causes of illusion beyond the reach of our inquiries. Thus the rhapsodies of Lucretius were a series of professed fables, and the theories of Macrobius a tissue of capricious distinctions, as you may learn from his classification. 1st. ονειρος, _somnium_, dream. A figurative vision to be interpreted. 2nd. οραμα, _vision_. A vision which has afterwards been exactly fulfilled. 3rd. χρηματισμος, _oraculum_. An intimation in sleep of what we ought to do. (I suppose as the shade of Hector appeared to Æneas, warning him, the night before, to escape from the flames of Troy.) 4th. ενυπνιον, _insomnium_. A sort of night-mare. 5th. φαντασμα, _visus_ and _incubus_. Here is a perfect jumble of classification, the first three only being vaunted as prophetic, or inspired; the fourth a night-mare; and the fifth, if it be any thing, a spectral illusion.