Ciiap. V. A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. 249 



impreflion upon us, than the original Senfatlons, of which, accor- 

 ing to Ariftolle, they arc but faint copies. 



Ariftotle's fyftem, were there any truth in it, which I do not 

 think there is, will only account for our recent Senfations con- 

 tinuing to move the Senforium in our Sleep ; and, if it were 

 true that we did nothing in our Dreams but go over again the Sen- 

 fations of the preceding day, it might be defended with fome (how 

 of reafon : But the fadl is very different ; for it is not always, nor, 

 indeed, I think, commonly, that the bufinefs of the preceding day is 

 the fubje<n: of our Dreams, but, on the contrary, we very often Dream 

 of perfons that have been dead for twenty years, and that we have not 

 thought of for a long while, and fometimes of perfons and things 

 that we never faw. But, fuppofe that we had feen them, but at 

 fome diftance of time, it is impoffible to account how the im- 

 preffion, made upon the organs ofSenfe, fliould remain for any con- 

 fiderable time, after fo many impreffions have been made upon them 

 in the interval : For, as to the inftances he gives, of the organs re- 

 taining, for fome time, the impreflion made upon them, it is only 

 for a very (hort time ; and, during that time, fhort as it is, there is 

 no other impreflion intervening. 



idOy Ariftotle fays, that a Dream is a Phantafm of a certain kind* ; 

 and, in the fame chapter, he fays that it is of that kind of Phantafms 

 which we fee in certain difeafes, and which we believe to be reali- 

 ties. The quefl;ion, therefore, is, What a Phantafm is, of which 

 a Dream is a Species ? Now, we cannot know what a Phantafm 

 is, unlefs we know what the Phantafia is, which is that Power 

 or Faculty of the Mind, by which thefe Phantafms are created 

 Vol. II. I i and 



* Lib. de Infomniis, cap. i. 



