And I must ever admire the moral wisdom of Zeno, which (according to Plutarch) induced him to regard a dream as the test of virtue; for, if in his dream his heart did not _recoil_ from vicious suggestions, there was an immediate necessity of self-examination and repentance. I cannot forbear adding, that there is much wisdom in the estimation of his vision, by one of the shepherd kings of Egypt, Sabaco. He dreamed that the tutelary deity of Thebes enjoined him to kill the priests of Egypt, and, for this unmerciful injunction from the gods, that _they deemed him unfit for the throne_, he went into self-exile, to Æthiopia.
EV. The conclusions of these moralists from dreaming impressions were somewhat straightlaced: yet _your_ reflections, Ida, point to the safest mode by which we may reconcile the conflict of the divine and the physiologist, and, above all, evince our devotion to the Creator; namely, to argue on creation as we _see it_, and on revelation as we _see it recorded_.
Yet, with a mock solemnity, dreams and apparitions have been first adduced as proofs of the soul’s immortality; and then, in the same argument, are themselves proved _by_ this immortality; the points of the syllogism are reversed, and we have _petitio principii_, a begging of the question.
This hypothesis of dreaming has formed the basis of certain religious impostures. Among others, of Dubricius and Comedius; and, above all, the fanatical visions of Emanuel Swedenborg, who founded his especial sect, by the declaration of having visited Paradise.
In our analysis of revelation, the conflict of two powerful minds might, on doctrinal points, attack, and in the end annihilate, the faith of each, in their struggle for the victory; which may remind you of the murders both of Protestants and Papists, especially in Ireland, resulting from the wild excitement of fanaticism and bigotry; and the persecutions which have, as history records, sprung from debates on holy subjects. Remember the martyrdom of the amiable and beautiful Anne Ascue, who was burnt at the stake for dissenting from the theological tenets of Henry VIII., regarding the real presence. On the rack, her silence was a model of heroism, for she might have impeached the queen and her ladies; and Wriothesly, the chancellor, it is said, in his rage to extort the secret, _himself_ stretched the wheel, so as almost to tear her body asunder.
