Dreams

Before the dawn of history mankind was engaged in the study of dreaming. The wise man among
the ancients was preëminently the interpreter of dreams. The ability to interpret successfully or
plausibly was the quickest road to royal favor, as Joseph and Daniel found it to be; failure to give
satisfaction in this respect led to banishment from court or death. When a scholar laboriously
translates a cuneiform tablet dug up from a Babylonian mound where it has lain buried for five
thousand years or more, the chances are that it will turn out either an astrological treatise or a dream
book. If the former, we look upon it with some indulgence; if the latter with pure contempt. For we
know that the study of the stars, though undertaken for selfish reasons and pursued in the spirit of
charlatanry, led at length to physical science, while the study of dreams has proved as unprofitable
as the dreaming of them. Out of astrology grew astronomy. Out of oneiromancy has grown—
nothing.