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1076 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
character are contained in Swedenborg’s Private Diary for 1744; but
as no one has yet maintained that that Diary was written by him
for publication, we are more than justified, we are bound, by respect
for the judgment and feelings of the author and the reader, to omit
such passages from his dreams. Those we have omitted are six in
number, viz. those in nos. 72, 112, 125, 164, 191 , and 208. Of
another which Swedenborg says "is pure in itself, but for the merely
worldly understanding impure," we give a general outline, but omit
the particulars.
This, and perhaps some other passages of Swedenborg’s Private
Diary for 1743 and 1744, which we have not omitted, have been
used by Swedenborg’s detractors, both in his own country and
abroad, as a means of raising a charge of immorality against him—
as if a man could be made responsible for his dreams.
It may however be urged that impure dreams are the offspring
of an impure mind. This is by no means a necessary conclusion.
Dreams faithfully enough represent our natural inclinations, but they
are no certain indication of our moral character. Inclinations are in
herited, character is acquired. However strong our inclinations may
be, we are not accountable for possessing them, but only for using
them. The difference between a moral and an immoral man consists
in this : one controls his inclinations and appetites, the other indulges
them. Yet, however perfectly the inclinations and appetites may be
controlled, they are not destroyed. Hence in dreams, when sleep
has suspended volition and even deadened the moral sense, the
natural inclinations and appetites may act without control and
without compunction. And when in these states the inclination and
appetites are active, they have a natural tendency to come into act.
Experience as well as Scripture teaches us that a hungry man
dreams of eating, and a thirsty man of drinking (Is. xxix, 8), and
with the other inclinations and appetites it is the same.
Besides being produced by the spontaneous activity of the in
clinations, common dreams, as Swedenborg says "result either from
the blood or past thoughts" (Adversaria, II, 184). They are thus in a
great measure the products of impressions made upon the senses or
left upon the brain, and are shaped by the imagination from materials
supplied by the memory, which seem then to be the only active
powers of the mind. When Dr. Gregory with a vessel of hot water
at his feet, dreamt he was walking on mount Etna, and Dr. Reed
with a blister on his head dreamt he was scalped by Indians, theirs
were but instances of a common experience, that, in dreams, the
action of the mind is often both caused and shaped by the condition
of the senses. Impressions left upon the brain are still more fruitful
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