Dreams are trains of ideas which present themselves to the mind during sleep. The principal fixture of the state of dreaming is the alleged absence of voluntary control over the current of thought, so that the principle of suggestion has unlimited sway - however, it is possible for some individuals to alter the train of thought and even voluntarily awake from an unpleasant dream. There is usually an utter want of coherency in the images that appear before the mental eye, but this want excites no surprise in the dreamer.
Occasionally, however, intellectual efforts are made during sleep which would be difficult to surpass in the waking state. It is said that Condillac often brought to a conclusion in his dreams reasonings on which he had been employed during the day; and that Franklin believed that he had been often instructed in his dreams concerning the issue of events which at that time occupied his mind. Coleridge composed from 200 to 300 lines during a dream: the beautiful fragment of Kubia Khan, which was all he got committed to paper when he awoke, remains a specimen of that dream-poem.
Dreams are subjective phenomena dependent on natural causes. They generally take their rise and character from external bodily impressions, or from something in the preceding state of body or mind. They are, therefore, retrospective and resultant instead of being prospective or prophetic. The latter opinion has, however, prevailed in all ages and among all nations; and hence the common practice of divination or prophesying by dreams, that is, interpreting them as presages of coming events. Some earlier authorities declared that all our dreams take place when we are in process of going to sleep or becoming awake, and that during deep sleep the mind is totally inactive. This is denied by the majority of philosophers, and has subsequently been shown to be incorrect. Research Dreams
Only Fools and Horses was a British BBC comedy series which run from 1981 until 2003. The series followed the trials and tribulations of wannabe entrepreneur Derek Trotter, his younger brother Rodney and originally their grandfather. When the actor playing the grandfather died, he was replaced by a new but similar character, 'Uncle Albert' the ex-Royal Navy sailor. The Trotter family lived in Peckham, south London, and the series followed their wheeling and dealing - from their famous yellow three-wheeled van - as they attempted to realise their dreams of becoming millionaires. Research Only Fools and Horses
In the German fairy tale Rumpelstilzchen is a passionate little deformed dwarf. The story tells how a miller's daughter was required by a king to spin straw into gold, and the dwarf did it for her, on condition that she would give him her first child. The maiden married the king, and grieved so bitterly when her first child was born that the dwarf promised to relent if within three days she could find out his name. Two days were spent in vain guesses, but the third day one of the queen's servants heard a strange voice singing:
'Little dreams my dainty dame Rumpelstilzchen is my name.'
Alighieri Dante was an Italian poet. He was born in 1265 at Florence and died in 1321. Of a family belonging to the lower nobility, his education was confided to the learned Brunetto Latini. He is said also to have studied in various seats of learning, and it is certain that either at this time or in the course of his wandering life he made himself master of all the knowledge of his time.
He seems to have been quite a boy, no more than nine years of age, when he first saw Beatrice Portinari, and the love she awakened in him he has described in that record of his early years, the Vita Nuova, as well as in his later great work, the Divina Cornmedia, in terms which make it hard to distinguish the real personality of Beatrice from some ideal power of beauty and virtue of which she is to Dante the symbol. Their actual lives at least went far enough apart, Beatrice marrying a noble Florentine, Simone Bardi, in 1287, and dying three years afterwards; while the year following Dante married Gemma dei Donati, by whom he had seven children. At this time the Guelfic party in Florence became divided into the rival factions of Bianchi and Neri (Whites and Blacks), the latter being an extreme party while the former leaned to reconciliation with the Ghibellines. Dante's sympathies were with the Bianchi, and being a prior of the trades and a leading citizen in Florence he went on an embassy to Rome to influence the pope on behalf of the Bianchi.
The rival faction of the Neri, however, had got the upper hand in the city, and in the usual fashion of the time were burning the houses of their rivals and slaying them in the open street. In Dante's absence his enemies obtained a decree of banishment;
against him, coupled with a heavy fine, a sentence which was soon followed by another condemning him to be burned alive for malversation and peculation.
From this time the poet became, and to the end of his life remained, an exile; and his history, first lost by the indifference of contemporaries and then hallowed by the legends of later generations, becomes semi-mythical. He has told us himself how he wandered 'through almost all parts where this language is spoken,' and how hard he felt it 'to climb the stairs and eat the bitterbread of strangers.' During this period he is said to have visited many cities, Arezzo, Bologna, Sienna, etc, and even Paris.
In 1314 he found shelter with Can Grande della Scala at Verona, where he remained until 1318. In 1320 we find him staying at Ravenna with his friend Guido da Polenta. In September 1321 his sufferings and wanderings were ended by death. He was buried at Ravenna, where his bones still lie.
His great poem, the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), written in great part, if not altogether, during his exile, is divided into three parts, entitled Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The poet dreams that he has wandered into a dusky forest, when the shade of Virgil appears and offers to conduct him through hell and purgatory. Further the pagan poet may not go, but Beatrice herself shall lead him through paradise. The journey through hell is first described, and the imaginative power with which the distorted characters of the guilty and the punishments laid upon them are brought before us; the impressive pathos of these short histories - often compressed in Dante's severe style into a couple of lines - of Pope and Grhibelline, Italian lord and lady; the passionate depth of characterization, the subtle insight and intense faith, make up a whole which for significance and completeness has perhaps no rival in the work of any one man.
From hell the poet, still in the company of Virgil, ascends to purgatory, where the scenes are still mostly of the same kind though the punishments are only temporary. In the earthly paradiseDante beholds Beatrice in a scene of surpassing magnificence, ascends with her into the celestial paradise, and after roaming over seven spheres reaches the eighth, where he beholds 'the glorious company which surrounds the triumphant Redeemer.' In the ninthDante feels himself in presence of the divine essence, and sees the souls of the blessed on thrones in a circle of infinite magnitude. The Deity himself, in the tenth, he cannot see for excess of light.
There are many notable translations of Dante's great poem. Amongst English versions we may mention those of Gary, Longfellow, and Dean Plumptre, and an excellent prose translation by Dr. John Carlyle. The Vita Nuova has been admirably translated by D. G. Rossetti in his Early Italian Poets.
Dante's other works are: Il Convito (the Banquet), a series of philosophical commentaries on the author's canzoni; Il Canzoniere, a collection of poems; a Latin treatise, De Monarchia, a work intended to prove the supremacy of the head of the holy Roman Empire; a treatise on the Italian language entitled, De Vulgari Eloquio; and an inquiry into the relative altitude of the water and the land, De Aqua et Terra. Research Alighieri Dante
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist. He was born in 384 BC at Stagira, in Macedonia, died in 322 BC.. He was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy, His father, Nicomachus, was physician to Amyntas II, king of Macedonia, and claimed to be descended from Aesculapius. Aristotle had lost his parents before he came, at about the age of seventeen, to Athens to study in the school of Plato. With that philosopher he remained for twenty years, became pre-eminent among his pupils, and was known as the Intellect of the School. Upon the death of Plato in 848 BC, he took up his residence at Atarneus, in Mysia, on the invitation of his former pupil Hermeias, the ruler of that city, on whose assassination by the Persians in 343 BC, he fled to Mitylene with his wife Pythia, the niece of Hermeias.
During his residence at Mitylene he received an invitation from Philip of Macedon to superintend the education of his son Alexander, then in his fourteenth year. This relationship between the great philosopher and the future conqueror continued for five or six years, during which the prince was instructed in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, logic, ethics, and politics, and in those branches of physics which had even then made some considerable progress. On Alexander succeeding to the throne Aristotle continued to live with him as his friend and councillor until he set out on his Asiatic campaign in 334 BC. He returned to Athens and established his school in the Lyceum, a gymnasium attached to the temple of Apollo Lyceius, which was assigned to him by the state. He delivered his lectures in the wooded walks of the Lyceum while walking up and down with his pupils. From the action itself, or more probably from the name of the walks (peripatoi), his school was called Peripatetic. Pupils gathered to him from all parts of Greece, and his school became by far the most popular in Athens. The statement that he had two circles of pupils, the exoteric and the esoteric has given rise to much controversy.
By some it has been held that Aristotle published during his lifetime popular discourses with a view to make way for his doctrines in Athenian society, then impregnated with Platonic theories, and that these are called exoteric in contradistinction to those in which are embodied his matured opinions. It was during the time of his teaching at Athens that Aristotle is believed to have composed the great bulk of his works. On the death of Alexander a revolution occurred in Athenshostile to the Macedonian interests with which Aristotle was identified. He therefore retired to Chalcis, where he soon after died.
According to Strabo he bequeathed all his works to Theophrastus, who, with other disciples of Aristotle, amended and continued them. They afterwards passed through various hands, until, about 50 BC, Andronicus of Rhodes put the various fragments together and classified them according to a systematic arrangement. Many of the books bearing his name are spurious, others are of doubtful genuineness. The whole are generally divided into logical, theoretical, and practical. The logical works are comprehended under the title Organon (instrument). The theoretical are divided into physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. The physical works (including those on natural history) are on the General Principles of Physical Science, The Heavens, Generation and Destruction, Meteorology, Natural History of Animals, On the Parts of Animals, On the Generation of Animals, On the Locomotion of Animals, On the Soul, On Memory, Sleep and Waking, Dreams, Divination. In mathematics there are two treatises, On Indivisible Lines and Mechanical Problems. The Metaphysics consist of fourteen books: the title (Tametata Physika, 'the things following the Physics') is the invention of an editor. The practical works embrace ethics, politics, economics, and treatises on art, and comprise the Nicomachaean Ethics (so called because dedicated to his son Nicomachus), the Politics, (Economics, Poetry, and Rhetoric). Among the lost works are the dialogues and others to which the term exoteric is applied, and which were published during Aristotle's lifetime. His style is devoid of grace and elegance. His works were first printed in a Latin translation, with the commentaries of Averroes, at Venice in 1489; the first Greek edition was that of Aldus Manutius (published in five volules between 1495 and 1498). Research Aristotle
A Dervish, or Diverse, is a Mulsim devotee, distinguished by austerity of life and the observance of strict forms. There are many different orders of them. Some live in monasteries, others lead an itinerant life, others devote themselves to menial or arduous occupations. They are respected by the common people, and the mendicants among them carry a wooden bowl into which the pious cast alms. One of their forms of devotion is dancing or whirling about, another is shouting or howling, uttering the name Allah, accompanied by violent motions of the body, until they work themselves into a frenzy and sometimes fall down foaming at the mouth. They are traditionally credited with miraculous powers, and were traditionally consulted for the interpretation of dreams and the cure of diseases. Research Dervish
Felicien-Cesar David was a French musician and composer. He was born in 1810 at Cadenet and died in 1876. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1830, and became an ardent disciple of St Simon, Barthelemy Enfantin, and other social speculators. In 1832, with a few companions, he went to the East in order to realize his dreams of a perfect life, but returned disappointed in 1835. He then published his Melodies Orientates, and soon after his most successful work, Le Desert. Other works are: Moise sur le Sinai, Christophe Colombo, Le Paradis, Le Perle du Bresil, Herculaneum, and Lalla Rookh. Research Felicien-Ceasr David
Dr George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher and missionary. He was born in 1685 and died in 1753. He was educated and became a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1707. He went to England in 1713, and soon came to be on friendly terms with Steele, Addison, Arbuthnot, and Jonathan Swift.
In 1713 he went to the Continent as chaplain to LordPeterborough, and travelled as far as Leghorn, but did not stay long. He went abroad again in 1716, this time as tutor to a young man, and his stay lasted four years, the greater part of the time being spent in Italy. In 1721 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Grafton. By a legacy from Miss Vanhomrigh (Jonathan Swift's Vanessa) in 1723 his fortune was considerably increased.
In 1724 he became Dean of Derry. Between 1721 and 1724 he held several offices in Dublin University, and in 1721 had been made DD. He now published his proposals for providing the American plantations with a better supply of religious teachers, and for the conversion of the American natives to Christianity by the establishment of a college in the Bermuda Islands; and subscriptions having been raised, he set sail for Rhode Island in 1728, proposing to wait there until a promised grant of 20,000 pounds had been obtained from the government. The scheme, which was not particularly promising, never got a start, however, and in 1732 he returned to London, where he stayed about two years.
In 1734 he obtained the bishopric of Cloyne, where he spent almost the whole of the remainder of his life. In 1752, giving up the cares of his bishopric, he went to England, and he died suddenly at Oxford in 1753.
George Berkeley holds an important place in the history of philosophy. His new theory of vision was his first remarkable contribution to the subject of philosophy or psychology. In it he maintains that sight gives us nothing beyond sensations that are quite incomplete in themselves, and must be supplemented by tactual sensations, or sensations derived from the sense of touch, and that sight by itself can tell us nothing of distance. By his idealistic metaphysical theory he maintains that the belief in the existence of an exterior material world is false and inconsistent with itself;
that those things which are called sensible material objects are not external but exist in the mind, and are merely impressions made on our minds by the immediate act of God, according to certain rules termed laws of nature, from which he never deviates; and that the steady adherence of the Supreme Spirit to these rules is what constitutes the reality of things to his creatures, and so effectually distinguishes the ideas perceived by sense from such as are the work of the mind itself or of dreams, that there is no more danger of confounding them together on this hypothesis than on that of the existence of matter.
Berkeley was admirable as a writer; as a man he was said by his friend Pope to be possessed of 'every virtue under heaven'. His most celebrated philosophical works are: Essay towards a new Theory of Vision, 1709; a Treatise concerning the Principles of HumanKnowledge, 1710, in which his philosophical theory is fully set forth; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, 1713; Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, 1732; and Theory of Vision, vindicated and explained, 1733. Another publication of some note in its day was Siris, Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water, 1744. Tar-water, the use of which he had learned in America, he regarded as a sort of panacea, good for man and beast, at all times and in all circumstances and all ailments. Other works of his are of a mathematical and theological order. The only complete collection is that of Professor A. CampbellFraser, first edition, three volumes, 1871, with a fourth volume containing Life and Letters; second edition, much improved, with new prefaces, annotations, and Life, 1901. Research George Berkeley
Robert Southey was an English poet and writer. He was born in 1774 at Bristol and died in 1843. The son of a linen draper, he was educated at Westminster and Balliol College, Oxford, by the help of relatives. Influenced by the French Revolution, he developed and advanced ideas in politics and religion, and with Samuel Coleridge, whom he met at Oxford in 1794, cherished vain dreams of establishing what they described as a Pantisocracy or communal republic in the New World. Robert Southey's advanced ideas were reflected in his early literature which included the drama 'Wat Tyler' and 'Joan of Arc', an historical epic. A trip to Spain and Portugal from 1795 until 1796 gave him a lasting interest in those countries. By 1803 Robert Southey was earnestly involved in writing and moved to Keswick in the Lake District where he became friends with William Wordsworth. In 1813 he was appointed poet laureate. Research Robert Southey
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Dreams
