i98 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



low may be ufed as a (lick fevcral years, during which time 

 the Vegetable Life appears to be quite extiiid ; and yet, when 

 it is put into the ground, it revives, and puts forth buds and 

 leaves. In the animals that llcep during the winter, there is a 

 total ceflation, at leaft, of the animal and fenfitivc part of them. 

 And there is an inftance, well vouched, and recorded in the Philo- 

 fophical Tranfad:ions, of fnails, which, after being kept in a dry 

 place for above fifteen years, and without the leaft marks of Animal 

 Life in them, were revived, by being put intowater a little warmed*^ 

 Another inftance of the fame kind is recorded of Animalcules that hav-c 

 been difcovcred in the grains of blighted wheat, which, after being 

 kept four years, revived likewife by being moiftened t« Now, if the 

 Vegetable and the Animal Life may be fo long fufpended. Why not 

 the Intelledtual ? Why may not that part of us be in a dormant 

 and quiefcent ftate, while we are in the womb or in a ftate of in- 

 fancy ? Even when we are grown up, it feems often to be at reft 

 in our fleep, when the Animal part of us, and particularly the Phan- 

 tafia, is very adive : We, indeed, fometimes reafon in our dreams, 

 but not always ; and, I believe, our philofophic poet is in the right, 

 ^vho fays, in the paflage above quoted :):, That Reafon retires 



hito her private cell, ivhcn Nature rejls. 



Oft in her abfence viimic Fancy ivakes 



To imitate her ; but tnisjoining fijapes 



Wild "work produces oft, and mojl in Dreatfis. 



And Ariftotle fays, what I am perfuaded, upon inquiry, will be 

 found to be true, that children do not dream : So that even their 

 Phantafia is quiefcent while they fleep. And he fays the fame of 



fome 



• PhiloC Tranfa£lions, vol. *?4. p, 432. 



t See a book publiHied by Henry Baker, F. R.. S. entitled, Employment for the 

 Micrcfcope, p. ijo. 



% V. 167 — I have quoted Milton more than once in this work : For I efteem him 

 not only as the gre.itefl Poet, and belt Writer, in modern tiir.es, both in profc and 

 vcrCe, in Latin and Englifh ; but he appears to me to be exceedingly learned in 

 Anrient Philofophy, as well as in Amiint Arts, and Antient Iliftory. 



