At the same moment [Descartes] observed A MAN HE DID NOT KNOW who presented him with some verses beginning with the words Est et Non. These he recommended highly, insisting on the excellence of the poem. M. Descartes told him that he knew what the piece was and that it was among the Idylls of Ausonius, one of the authors in the bulky poetical anthology on the table. Wishing to show it to the man, he began to turn over the leaves of the volume quite certain of being perfectly acquainted with the order and general arrangement of the work. As he was thus searching for the place, the man asked him where he had got the book. M. Descartes replied that he was unable to tell him how he had come by it, but that the moment before he had been handling another that had now disappeared, and all this without his knowing either who had brought it to him or who had taken it from him again. No sooner had he finished saying so, than he saw the book reappearing at the other end of the table. But he found that this Dictionary was somewhat different from what he had seen it to be the first time. Meantime he came upon the poems of Ausonius in the collection of poets he was handling; and being unable to find the piece beginning with the words Est et Non, he said to the man that he knew another passage of the same poet even finer, and that it began with the words Quod vitae sectabor iter? The person asked to have it shown to him, and, Descartes was proceeding to look for it when he came upon several small portrait engravings, and this caused him to remark that the volume was very handsome, but that the edition was not the one he was acquainted with. He was at this point in his dreams when both the man and the books disappeared, vanishing from his phantasy, without his yet awaking. What especially calls for remark is that, in doubt whether what he had just seen was dream or actual vision, not merely did he decide in his sleep that it was a dream, but proceeded to interpret the dream prior to his awaking. He judged that the Dictionary stood merely for the sciences gathered together, and that the collection of poems entitled Corpus Poetarum marked more particularly and expressly the union of philosophy with wisdom. For he did not think that we should be so very much astonished to see that poets, even those who but trifle, abounded in utterances more weighty, more full of meaning and better expressed, than those found in the writings of philosophers. He ascribed this marvel to the divine nature of inspiration, to the might of phantasy, which strikes out the seeds of wisdom (existing in the minds of all men like sparks of fire in flints) far more easily and distinctly than does reason in the philosophers. Continuing to interpret his dream while still asleep, M. Descartes judged that the piece of verse on the uncertainty of the kind of life to be chosen--the piece beginning with the words Quod vitae sectabor iter? marked the good counsel of some wise person or possibly even of moral theology. Thereupon, doubting whether he was dreaming or meditating, he awoke free from emotion, and with open eyes continued the interpretation of his dreams on these same lines. By the poets assembled in the collection he understood revelation and inspiration, by which he hoped to see himself favored. By the poem Est et Non, which is the Yes and No of Pythagoras, he understood truth and error in our human knowledge and in the profane sciences. Finding that he succeeded in fitting in all these things well to his satisfaction, he was so bold as to feel assured that it was the Spirit of Truth that by this dream had deigned to open before him the treasures of all the sciences. There remained to be explained only the little copper-plate portraits which he had found in the second of the two books; and on receiving the very next morning a visit from an Italian painter, he looked no further for their explanation.