He
remarks "singular coincidence!" and adds that, considering the vast
number of dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer than a
fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect.
This is a concession to common-sense, and argues an ignorance of the
fact that sane and (apparently) waking men may have hallucinations.
On the theory that we _may_ have inappreciable moments of sleep when
we think ourselves awake, it is not an ordinary but an extraordinary
coincidence that Brougham should have had that peculiar moment of the
"dream" of G--- on the day or night of G---'s death, while the
circumstance that he had made a compact with G--- multiplies the odds
against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate.
Brougham was used to dreams, like other people; he was not shocked by
them. This "dream" "produced such a shock that I had no inclination
to talk about it". Even on Brougham's showing, then, this dream was a
thing unique in his experience, and not one of the swarm of visions of
sleep. Thus his including it among these, while his whole language
shows that he himself did not really reckon it among these, is an
example of the fallacies of common-sense.
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