Things which puzzled my brain in waking hours were made clear to me in
sleep, and I frequently felt myself blindly impelled to do or to avoid
doing certain things. The members of my family, who found it impossible
to understand my motives of action,--because, in fact, there were no
_motives_,--complacently solved the difficulty by calling me "queer." I
presume there are few persons who are not occasionally visited by the
instinct, or impulse, or faculty, or whatever it may be called, to which
I refer. I possessed it in a more than ordinary degree, and was
generally able to distinguish between its suggestions and the mere
humors of my imagination. It is scarcely necessary to say that I assume
the existence of such a power, at the outset. I recognize it as a normal
faculty of the human mind,--not therefore universal, any more than the
genius which makes a poet, a painter, or a composer.
My education was neither general nor thorough; hence I groped darkly
with the psychological questions which were presented to me. Tormented
by those doubts which at some period of life assail the soul of every
thinking man, I was ready to grasp at any solution which offered,
without very carefully testing its character.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199