Joshua Marvel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold
Читать онлайн книгу.
Having stated this very distinctly, the writer proceeded, as if the mere statement were sufficient proof of its incontestability: say that between the sleeper and the operator a strong and earnest sympathy existed; the operator, selecting in his mind some person with whom they are both acquainted, brings his power of will to bear upon the sleeper. (Here the writer interpolated that the experiment would fail if the organs of concentrativeness and firmness were not more than ordinarily large in the operator.) With his mind firmly fixed upon the one object, he wills that the sleeper shall dream of their mutual acquaintance; and as he wills it, with all the intensity he can exercise, he gently manipulates the sleeper's organ of tune-which, by the way, the author stated he believed was the only one of the purely intellectual faculties which could be pressed into service. The sleeper will then dream of the selected person, and his sense of melody and the harmony of sound will be gratified. Then, in a decidedly vague manner, as if he had got himself in a tangle from which he did not know how to extricate himself, the author argued that what one person could do to another, he could do also to himself, and that the effect produced upon another person by physical manipulation may be produced upon one's self by a strong concentration of will. During our waking moments he said, the affective faculties of our mind are brought into play. Thus, we see and wonder; thus, we see and venerate; thus, we see and pity. These faculties or sentiments are excited and make themselves felt without any effort on our part. If, then, circumstances, which previously did not affect us, can thus act upon us without the exercise of voluntary effort to produce sensation; if circumstances, in which we had no reason to feel the slightest active interest, can cause us to venerate, to pity, to wonder-broadly, to rejoice and to suffer-why should we not be able, by the aid of a powerful sympathy and an earnest desire, to bring into reasoning action the faculties which are thus excited by uninteresting and independent circumstances?
Thus far the author: unconscious that he had fallen into the serious error of confounding the affective with the intellectual faculties, and not appearing to understand that, whereas an affective faculty can be brought into conscious action by independent circumstances, an intellectual faculty requires a direct mental effort before it is excited. His essay was not convincing. He wandered off at tangents; laid down a theory, and, proceeding to establish it, so entangled himself that he lost its connecting threads; and had evidently been unable to properly think out a subject which is not entirely unworthy of consideration. However, he had written his book, and it got into Dan's hands and into Dan's head. Joshua did not understand it a bit, and said so; and when he asked Dan to explain it, Dan could scarcely fit words to what was in his mind.
"Although I cannot explain it very clearly, I can understand it," said Dan. "He means to say that a person can see with his mental sight" -
"That is, with his eyes shut," interrupted Joshua jocularly.
"Certainly, with his eyes shut," said Dan very decidedly. "Our eyes are shut when we dream, yet we see things." Joshua became serious immediately; the answer was a convincing one. "And that proves that we have two senses of sight-one in the eyes, the other in the mind. Haven't you seen rings, and circles, and clouds when you are in bed at night, and before you go to sleep? I can press my face on the pillow and say-not out loud, and yet I say it and can hear it-which shows that all our senses are double." (In his eagerness to explain what he could scarcely comprehend, Dan was in danger of falling into the same error as the author of the "Triumph of Mind over Matter" had fallen into, that of flying off at tangents: it was with difficulty he could keep to his subject.) "Well, Jo, I press my head into the pillow, and say, 'I will see rings,' and presently I see a little ball, black, perhaps, and it grows and grows into rings-like what you see when you throw a stone in the water-larger, and larger, all the different colors of the rainbow; and then, when they have grown so large as to appear to have lost themselves in space-just like the rings in the water, Jo-another little ball shapes itself in the dark, and gradually becomes visible, and then the rings come and grow and disappear as the others did. When I have seen enough, I say-not out loud again, Jo, but silently as I did before-'I don't want to see any more,' and they don't come again. What I can do with rings, I can do with clouds. I say, 'I will see clouds,' and they come, all colors of blue, from white-blue to black-blue; sometimes I see sunsets."
"I have seen them too, Dan," said Joshua; "I have seen skies with stars in them, just as I have seen them with my eyes wide open."
"Now, if we can do this," continued Dan, "why cannot we do more?"
"We can't do what he says in this book," said Joshua, drumming with his fingers on the "Philosophy of Dreams."
"I don't know. Why should he write all that unless he knew something? There is no harm in trying, at all events. Let me see. Here is a chart of a head, Jo turning to a diagram in the book. Where is combativeness? Oh! here, at the back of the head, behind the ear. Can you feel it, Jo? Is it a large bump? No; you are going too high up, I am sure. Now you are too much in the middle. Ah! that's the place, I think."
These last sentences referred to Joshua's attempt to find Dan's organ of combativeness.
"I don't feel any thing particular, Dan," he said.
"But you feel something, don't you, Jo?" asked Dan anxiously. "There is a bump there, isn't there?"
"A very little one," answered Joshua, earnestly manipulating Dan's head, and pressing the bump. "Do you feel spiteful?"
"No," said Dan, laughing.
"There's a bump twice as large just above your fighting one."
"What is that bump?" said Dan, examining the diagram again. "Ah that must be adhesiveness."
"I don't know what that means."
"Give me the dictionary;" and Dan with eager fingers turned over the pages of an old Walker's Dictionary. "'Adhesive-sticking, tenacious,'" he read. "That is, that I stick to a thing, as I mean to do to this. Now I'll tell you what we'll do, Jo. I shall sleep at your house to-morrow night, and when I am asleep, you shall press my organ of combativeness-put your fingers on it-yes, there; and when I wake I will tell you what I have dreamed of."
"All right," said Joshua, removing his fingers.
"You will be able to find the place again?"
"Yes, Dan."
"And you will be sure to keep awake?"
"Sure, Dan."
The following night, Joshua waited very patiently until Dan was asleep. He had to wait a long time; for Dan, in consequence of his anxiety, was longer than usual getting to sleep. Once or twice Joshua thought that his friend was in the Land of Nod, and he commenced operations, but he was interrupted by Dan saying drowsily, "I am not asleep yet, Jo." At length Dan really went off, and then Joshua, very quietly and with great care, felt for Dan's organ of combativeness, and pressed it. Joshua looked at his sleeping friend with anxiety. "Perhaps he will hit out at me," he thought. But Dan lay perfectly still, and Joshua, after waiting and watching in vain for some indication of the nature of Dan's sleeping fancies, began to feel very sleepy himself, and went to bed. In the morning, when they were both awake, Joshua asked what Dan had dreamed of.
"I can't remember," said Dan, rubbing his eyes.
"I pressed your combativeness for a long time, Dan," said Joshua; "and I pressed it so hard that I was almost afraid you would hit out."
"I didn't, did I?"
"No; you were as still as a mouse."
"I dreamed of something, though," said Dan, considering. "Oh, I remember! I dreamed of you, So; you were standing on a big ship, with a big telescope in your hand. You had no cap on, and your hair was all flying about."
"Were there any sailors on the ship?"
"A good many."
"Did you quarrel with any of them?"
"I didn't dream of myself at all."
"Did any of the sailors quarrel with me?"
"There wasn't any quarrelling, Jo, that I can remember."
"So you see," said Joshua, "that it is all fudge."
"I don't see that at all. Now I think of it, it isn't likely that I should dream of quarrelling with any one or fighting with any one when I was