It was partly the man's misfortune, and partly his fault, that his sleep was beset by these demons. After all, who can expect to have converse with the devil and his agents and be held guiltless? This view was not so very illogical when all is said. But it shows a singular return to the old muddle between the objective and subjective. The notion that we are, in some measure at least, responsible for the general nature of our dreams is in much more accord with modern ideas on the subject than the notion of the objective reality of the apparition. It is argued that we can in some measure determine the nature of our dreams by the subjects that we voluntarily present to our waking thoughts just before going to sleep. There is, however, a great deal of evidence on the other side too. The idea of suggesting to ourselves the subject matter of our dreams by our thoughts as we lay ourselves down to sleep appeals very strongly to a priori opinion. Unfortunately the sardonic translation of a priori, as "in ignorance," is not always far from the truth, and experience shows conclusively that a priori argument in this case is not to be applied very generally.

Almost everybody, we should imagine, has tried the simple experiment, directing his thoughts to one train as he drops off to sleep, in the expectation or hope that his dreaming thoughts will follow obediently. In how many cases has the result been according to the hope? In a very small minority, we may confidently say. Out of the great many with whom the present writer has corresponded on the matter of dreams in general, and certain points of their details in particular, two only maintain their ability to control in any degree their dreaming thoughts by the directions given them as they go to sleep. The great majority confess themselves unable to direct their dreams in any degree at all; while one says that he has found the rule so constant that his dream does not occupy itself with the subject that was most in his mind when he fell asleep, that if there should be any subject of which he fears that it may occupy and annoy him during sleep he purposely fixes his mind on this subject as he puts his head on the pillow, in the certain conviction that whatever other disagreeable topics may occur to him in sleep, his dreams will be free at least of this one.

The way in which we most often make attempts to control our dreams by the direction given to our thoughts as we fall asleep is in the attempt to continue a pleasant dream from which we have been roused, but most of us know how utterly unable we are to give ourselves this pleasure, though it is to be admitted that there are a few exceptional cases of people who claim to be able to renew a pleasant dream at will. If, then, we are to admit that we, generally speaking, have no control whatever over our dreams, we naturally cannot admit that we have any responsibility in the matter. They lie outside the province of ethics altogether, and indeed it is a common remark that in dreams we find ourselves entirely without any moral sense. We have no conscience. This is illustrated by the famous instance cited by Miss F. P. Cobbe (and elsewhere quoted), who has written on dreams most interestingly, of the "mildest mannered villain that ever cut a throat," in other words, of a man of a most harmless and gentle disposition, who dreamed that he ran a friend through the body with a sword, and was so far from being stricken with remorse at his act that he noticed with a kind of artistic satisfaction that the end of the sword stuck out the best part of a foot beyond the poor victims back.

This is a typical instance of its kind. On the other hand, although the moral sense is so utterly lacking in the dream itself, and though we are generally unable to control the course of any particular dream, it is still not impossible, nor improbable, that on the whole a good man will be prone to dream good dreams and a bad man bad dreams - using these epithets in the ethical sense. Although there may be marked exceptions, as in the case of the good man who ran his friend through the body and rejoiced in the skill with which he did the deed, still, on the whole, it is unlikely that the peaceable citizen will as often indulge in dreams of the joys of burglary, let us say, as he who is a burglar to his trade. Dreams will probably, on the whole, be in agreement with the general bent of a man's mind, just as in the case that is referred to elsewhere of the celebrated cricketer whose wife is often startled by his sitting up in bed, throwing up his arm and shouting "No ball!" in a stentorian voice.

Whether this is because he often umpires in boys' matches or because he is, or was, haunted by a constant fear of being no - balled (he was, however, famous for his batting rather than his bowling), in any case the dream is almost beyond doubt the result of the bent of his mind toward things pertaining to cricket This, again, is an instance that may almost certainly be taken as typical and going to prove that on the whole the stuff of dreams is apt to be the stuff of a man's waking thoughts. And perhaps to admit this, though it is not going so far as to admit that a man has any moral responsibility for the sins of thought he commits in dreams, is yet going so far as to admit that dreams, and the subjects with which they are occupied, may be taken as an indication of the general moral state of the dreamer. This is an aspect of the subject that has not escaped the notice of moralising divines. They urge that a man's besetting sin, which he may not have suspected, may be revealed to him by forming a recurrent topic of his dreams, and thus dreams may act as valuable danger signals to a man to show him the temptations which it behoves him specially to guard against.

They may give him indications of his spiritual state, whether we consider such intimations to proceed directly from God, or whether we regard them as a natural consequence of the nature of man and the law under which he lives. All these are curious speculations which are interesting to note, no matter what degree of credence we are disposed to give the theories that they discuss.