2i8 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



* diately knew the meaning of what (lie faid, it being in the idiom 



' of the natives of that country ; but fhe herfelf, when awake, did 



' not underftand a nngle fyllable of what fhe had uttered in her 



' fleep, upon its being retold her. 



* She was born in that province, and had been nurfed in a family 

 where nothing but that language was fpoken ; fo that, in her firft 

 mfancy, fhe had known it, and no other ; but, when flie returned 

 to her parents, flie had no opportunity of keeping up the ufe of 

 it ; and, as I have before faid, flie did not underftand a word of 

 Breton when awake, though fhe fpoke it in her fleep. 



' I need not fay that the ComtefTe de Laval never faid or ima- 

 ' gined, that fhe ufed any words of the Breton idiom, more than 

 ' were necefTary to exprefs thofe ideas that are within the compafs 

 ' of a child's knowledge of objedls,' &Ci 



I have not the leaft doubt of the fadt, being attefted by a man of 

 fo refpedable a charadler, I think with Mr Stanley, that it is a very 

 extraordinary fa (St in the hiftory of Mind, though I am not furprifed 

 that the Comteffe, who, I fuppofe, was no philofopher, did not think 

 it fo. I will endeavour to explain it upon the principles of the phi- 

 lofophy of Plato and Ariftotle, leaving it to thofe, who believe 

 that we arc nothing but Matter and Mechanifm, to account for it up- 

 on the principles of their philofophy. 



In xht frji place, the reader will be furprifed, when I tell him, as 

 I believe Mr Stanley was when he read my letter in anfwer to his, 

 that I do not think the Gomtefle was dreaming,, though fhe was cer- 

 tainly fleeping ; but fhe was in the ftate of a night-walker or fom~ 

 nambtile, as the French exprefs it: And I have two reafons for think- 

 ing fo. The firft is, that fhe remembered nothing of what fhe had 



uttered 



