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Page 10
I omit the general instances of delusion in fever or delirium, as
well as mere dreams considered in themselves. A delineation of this
subject, however inexhaustible and interesting, is to be passed
over. What is the connexion of sleeping and of waking?
2. I distinctly remember dreaming three several times, between
intervals of two or more years, the same precise dream. It was
not so much what is ordinarily called a dream; the single image,
unconnected with all other images, of a youth who was educated at
the same school with myself, presented itself in sleep. Even now,
after the lapse of many years, I can never hear the name of this
youth, without the three places where I dreamed of him presenting
themselves distinctly to my mind.
3. In dreams, images acquire associations peculiar to dreaming; so
that the idea of a particular house, when it recurs a second time
in dreams, will have relation with the idea of the same house, in
the first time, of a nature entirely different from that which the
house excites, when seen or thought of in relation to waking ideas.
4. I have beheld scenes, with the intimate and unaccountable
connexion of which with the obscure parts of my own nature, I
have been irresistibly impressed. I have beheld a scene which has
produced no unusual effect on my thoughts. After the lapse of many
years I have dreamed of this scene. It has hung on my memory, it
has haunted my thoughts, at intervals, with the pertinacity of an
object connected with human affections. I have visited this scene
again. Neither the dream could be dissociated from the landscape,
nor the landscape from the dream, nor feelings, such as neither
singly could have awakened, from both.
But the most remarkable event of this nature, which ever occurred
to me, happened five years ago at Oxford. I was walking with
a friend, in the neighbourhood of that city, engaged in earnest
and interesting conversation. We suddenly turned the corner of a
lane, and the view, which its high banks and hedges had concealed,
presented itself. The view consisted of a wind-mill, standing
in one among many plashy meadows, inclosed with stone walls; the
irregular and broken ground, between the wall and the road on which
we stood; a long low hill behind the windmill, and a grey covering
of uniform cloud spread over the evening sky. It was that season
when the last leaf had just fallen from the scant and stunted ash.
The scene surely was a common scene; the season and the hour little
calculated to kindle lawless thought; it was a tame uninteresting
assemblage of objects, such as would drive the imagination for
refuge in serious and sober talk, to the evening fireside, and the
dessert of winter fruits and wine. The effect which it produced on
me was not such as could have been expected. I suddenly remembered
to have seen that exact scene in some dream of long--. [Footnote:
Here I was obliged to leave off, overcome by thrilling horror.]
[1815; publ. 1840]
SPECULATIONS ON MORALS
I--PLAN OF A TREATISE ON MORALS
That great science which regards nature and the operations of
the human mind, is popularly divided into Morals and Metaphysics.
The latter relates to a just classification, and the assignment
of distinct names to its ideas; the former regards simply the
determination of that arrangement of them which produces the greatest
and most solid happiness. It is admitted that a virtuous or moral
action, is that action which, when considered in all its accessories
and consequences, is fitted to produce the highest pleasure to the
greatest number of sensitive beings. The laws according to which
all pleasure, since it cannot be equally felt by all sensitive
beings, ought to be distributed by a voluntary agent, are reserved
for a separate chapter.
The design of this little treatise is restricted to the development
of the elementary principles of morals. As far as regards that
purpose, metaphysical science will be treated merely so far as a
source of negative truth; whilst morality will be considered as a
science, respecting which we can arrive at positive conclusions.
The misguided imaginations of men have rendered the ascertaining of
what IS NOT TRUE, the principal direct service which metaphysical
science can bestow upon moral science. Moral science itself is the
doctrine of the voluntary actions of man, as a sentient and social
being. These actions depend on the thoughts in his mind. But there
is a mass of popular opinion, from which the most enlightened persons
are seldom wholly free, into the truth or falsehood of which it
is incumbent on us to inquire, before we can arrive at any firm
conclusions as to the conduct which we ought to pursue in the
regulation of our own minds, or towards our fellow beings; or before
we can ascertain the elementary laws, according to which these
thoughts, from which these actions flow, are originally combined.
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