to occur, constructs from them the panorama of a dream.

Nature has thus implanted in the organization of every man means which
impressively suggest to him the immortality of the soul and a future
life. Even the benighted savage thus sees in his visions the fading
forms of landscapes, which are, perhaps, connected with some of his
most pleasant recollections; and what other conclusion can be possibly
extract from those unreal pictures than that they are the foreshadowings
of another land beyond that in which his lot is cast? At intervals he is
visited in his dreams by the resemblances of those whom he has loved
or hated while they were alive; and these manifestations are to him
incontrovertible proofs of the existence and immortality of the soul.
In our most refined social conditions we are never able to shake off the
impressions of these occurrences, and are perpetually drawing from
them the same conclusions that our uncivilized ancestors did. Our more
elevated condition of life in no respect relieves us from the inevitable
operation of our own organization, any more than it relieves us from
infirmities and disease. In these respects, all over the globe men are
on an equality. Savage or civilized, we carry within us a mechanism
which presents us with mementoes of the most solemn facts with which we
can be concerned. It wants only moments of repose or sickness, when the
influence of external things is diminished, to come into full play, and
these are precisely the moments when we are best prepared for the truths
it is going to suggest. That mechanism is no respecter of persons. It
neither permits the haughtiest to be free from the monitions, nor leaves
the humblest without the consolation of a knowledge of another life.
Open to no opportunities of being tampered with by the designing or
interested, requiring no extraneous human agency for its effect,
out always present with every man wherever he may go, it marvelously
extracts from vestiges of the impressions of the past overwhelming
proofs of the realities of the future, and, gathering its power from
what would seem to be a most unlikely source, it insensibly leads us, no
matter who or where we may be, to a profound belief in the immortal and
imperishable, from phantoms which have scarcely made their appearance
before they are ready to vanish away.

The insect differs from a mere automaton in this, that it is influenced
by old, by registered impressions. In the highe