idea he will have at any minute, what desire he will have, what word he will speak, what movement his body will perform.
The second is that during sleep it is clear that we have not the least share in what takes place in our dreams. We grant that we are then mere automata, on which an invisible power acts with a force that is as real and powerful as it is incomprehensible. This power fills the mind with ideas, inspires desires, passions, reflections. It sets in motion all the organs of the body. It has happened at times that a mother has smothered, in a restless dream, the new-born child that lay by her side; that a man has killed his friend. How many musicians have composed music during sleep? How many young preachers have composed sermons during their sleep.
If our life were equally divided between waking and sleeping, instead of our usually spending a third of our short career in sleep, and if we always dreamed during sleep, it would then be evident that half of our life did not depend on us. In any case, assuming that we spend eight out of the twenty-four hours in sleep, it is plain that a third of our existence is beyond our control. Add to this infancy, add all the time that is occupied in purely animal functions, and see how much is left. You will admit with surprise that at least half our life does not belong to us at all. Then reflect how inconsistent it would be if one half depended on us and the other half did not.
Conclude, therefore, that the universal principle of action does everything in us.
