236 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



when he is much moved hy the reprefentation, forget himfelf, and 

 imagine thefe pictures to be realities, or, at leaft, not reflect upon 

 the illufion. While he is in that condition, he is truly in a ftate of 

 madnefs ; and the only difference betwixt him and thofe we com- 

 monly call 7nad^ is, that his phrenzy does not lall: fo long, and he may 

 be waked out of it, by the ufe of his reafon, like a man out of a 

 dream ; for, even in dreaming, as Ariftotle has obferved *, the im- 

 preflion may be fo ftrong upon us, that, after we are awake, we be- 

 lieve, for a confiderable time, that what we faw in our dream.s is a 

 reality : And if they are the dreams of a fick man, that impreflion 

 will continue as long as his ficknefs continues, as I myfelf experien- 

 ced in the fever above mentioned that I had not long ago. 



Having faid fo much of the Phantafia in general, and of our wa- 

 king Phantafms, I come now to fpeak of what is the principal fub- 

 jed of this Chapter, our Phantafms in our fleep, and particularly 

 in our dreams. Night-walking is, as I have faid, very different from 

 dreaming ; and, indeed, the night-walker, though he adts upon 

 Bodies, as I am perfuaded feparate Spirits do, appears to me to be 

 in the World of Spirits, rather than in this world, and much more 

 feparated from the Body than the Dreamer is. For the Dreamer has 

 Confcioufnefs and Recolledtion of whatpafled inhis fleep ; and in that 

 way his fleeping life is conneded with his waking : Whereas the 

 Night-walker, when he is awake, exifts, as it were, anew, and is as 

 ignorant of what pafled in his fleeping life, as the Spirits mentioned 

 by Virgil were of their former life, after having drunk of the waters 

 of Lethe. And, befides, the body of the dreamer gets that refl: which 

 the animal requires, and which is the purpofe that Nature intends 

 by Sleep; whereas the Body of the Night-walker is as much em- 

 ployed as when he is awake ; fo that Night-walking is altogether 



an 



♦ De Infomniis. 



