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The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
98
On
16th
October,
1862,
Lord
Brougham
copied
this
extract
for
his
Autobiography,
and
says
that
on
his
arrival
in
Edinburgh
he
received
a
letter
from
India,
announcing
that
G---
had
died
on
19th
December.
He
remarks
"singular
coincidence!"
and
adds
that,
considering
the
vast
number
of
dreams,
the
number
of
coincidences
is
perhaps
fewer
than
a
fair
calculation
of
chances
would
warrant
us
to
expect.
This
is
a
concession
to
common-sense,
and
argues
an
ignorance
of
the
fact
that
sane
and
(apparently)
waking
men
may
have
hallucinations.
On
the
theory
that
we
may
have
inappreciable
moments
of
sleep
when
we
think
ourselves
awake,
it
is
not
an
ordinary
but
an
extraordinary
coincidence
that
Brougham
should
have
had
that
peculiar
moment
of
the
"dream"
of
G---
on
the
day
or
night
of
G---'s
death,
while
the
circumstance
that
he
had
made
a
compact
with
G---
multiplies
the
odds
against
accident
in
a
ratio
which
mathematicians
may
calculate.
Brougham
was
used
to
dreams,
like
other
people;
he
was
not
shocked
by
them.
This
"dream"
"produced
such
a
shock
that
I
had
no
inclination
to
talk
about
it".
Even
on
Brougham's
showing,
then,
this
dream
was
a
thing
unique
in
his
experience,
and
not
one
of
the
swarm
of
visions
of
sleep.
Thus
his
including
it
among
these,
while
his
whole
language
shows
that
he
himself
did
not
really
reckon
it
among
these,
is
an
example
of
the
fallacies
of
common-sense.
He
completes
his
fallacy
by
saying,
"It
is
not
much
more
wonderful
than
that
a
person
whom
we
had
no
reason
to
expect
should
appear
to
us
at
the
very
moment
we
had
been
thinking
or
speaking
of
him".
But
Lord
Brougham
had
not
been
speaking
or
thinking
of
G---;
"there
had
been
nothing
to
call
him
to
my
recollection,"
he
says.
To
give
his
logic
any
value,
he
should
constantly
when
(as
far
as
he
knew)
awake,
have
had
dreams
that
"shocked"
him.
Then
one
coincidence
would
have
had
no
assignable
cause
save
ordinary
accident.
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