Letter VIII.

(a.d. 389.)

To Augustin Nebridius Sends Greeting.

1. As I am in haste to come to the subject of my letter, I dispense with any preface or introduction. When at any time it pleases higher (by which I mean heavenly) powers to reveal anything to us by dreams in our sleep, how is this done, my dear Augustin, or what is the method which they use? What, I say, is their method, i.e. by what art or magic, by what agency or enchantments, do they accomplish this? Do they by their thoughts influence our minds, so that we also have the same images presented in our thoughts? Do they bring before us, and exhibit as actually done in their own body or in their own imagination, the things which we dream? But if they actually do these things in their own body, it follows that, in order to our seeing what they thus do, we must be endowed with other bodily eyes beholding what passes within while we sleep. If, however, they are not assisted by their bodies in producing the effects in question, but frame such things in their own imaginative faculty, and thus impress our imaginations, thereby giving visible form to what we dream; why is it, I ask, that I cannot compel your imagination to reproduce those dreams which I have myself first formed by my imagination? I have undoubtedly the faculty of imagination, and it is capable of presenting to my own mind the picture of whatever I please; and yet I do not thereby cause any dream in you, although I see that even our bodies have the power of originating dreams in us. For by means of the bond of sympathy uniting it to the soul, the body compels us in strange ways to repeat or reproduce by imagination anything which it has once experienced. Thus often in sleep, if we are thirsty, we dream that we drink; and if we are hungry, we seem to ourselves to be eating; and many other instances there are in which, by some mode of exchange, so to speak, things are transferred through the imagination from the body to the soul.

Be not surprised at the want of elegance and subtlety with which these questions are here stated to you; consider the obscurity in which the subject is involved, and the inexperience of the writer; be it yours to do your utmost to supply his deficiencies.

EPISTOLA VIII . Quanam coelestium potestatum in animam actione fiat, ut imagines ac somnia dormienti subrepant.

AUGUSTINO NEBRIDIUS.

1. Festinanti mihi ad rem pervenire, nullum prooemium, nullum placet exordium. Qui fit, mi Augustine, vel qui modus est ille, quo utuntur superiores potestates, quas coelestes intelligi volo, cum eis placet nobis dormientibus aliqua somnia demonstrare? Qui, inquam, modus est; id est, quomodo id faciunt, qua arte, quibus manganis , quisbusve instrumentis aut medicamentis? animumne nostrum per cogitationes suas impellunt, ut nos etiam ea cogitando imaginemur? an ipsa in suo corpore, vel in sua phantasia, facta nobis offerunt et ostendunt? Sed si in suo corpore ea faciunt, sequitur ut et nos alios oculos corporeos intrinsecus habeamus cum dormimus, quibus illa videamus quae illi in suo corpore formaverint. Si vero ad istas res non corpore adjuvantur suo, sed in phantastico suo ista disponunt, atque ita phantastica nostra contingunt, et fit visum quod est somnium; cur, quaeso te, non ego phantastico meo tuum phantasticum ea somnia generare compello, quae mihi primo in eo ipse formavi? Certe et mihi est phantasia, et quod volo potens est fingere, cum omnino nullum tibi facio somnium, sed ipsum corpus nostrum video in nobis somnia generare. Nam cum semel habuerit per affectum quo animae copulatur, cogit nos idipsum miris modis per phantasiam simulare. Saepe dormientes cum sitimus, bibere somniamus, et esurientes quasi comedentes videmur; et multa talia, quae quasi commercio quodam a corpore in animam phantastice transferuntur. Haec pro sui obscuritate, pro nostraque imperitia, ne mireris si minus eleganter minusque subtiliter explicata sunt: tu id facere quantum poteris laborabis.