250 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



and preferved. If, therefore, Ariftotle has not rightly defined 

 the Phantafia, it is clear that his docStrine of Dreams cannot 

 be well founded. Now, both in the chapter juft now quo- 

 ted, and in the Fourth Chapter of his Third Book, De Jnhna^ 

 he has defined the Phaatafia to be a Motion produced by an adual 

 Senfation *. But this is plainly the definition of a Phantajm, not of 

 any power of the Mind by which Phantafms are produced, nor of 

 any part of the Mind where Phantafms have their feat. Neither is 

 it, I think, a good definition, even of a Phantafm ; for we cer- 

 tainly have Phantafms, awake as well as fleeping, of Objeds of 

 Senfc, which we have perceived many years before, when the Mo- 

 tion, produced by them upon the Organs of Senfe, muft be fuppofed 

 to have ceafed long ago. The dodrine, therefore, of Ariftotle, up- 

 on the Subjedt of Dreams, and of Phantafms in general, I hold, with 

 all the refped due to fo great an authority, to be very unfatisfac- 

 tory. 



It may be obferved, in general, of the philofophy of Ariftotle, 

 that, although no man was a more perfed Theift, or thought more 

 highly of the human Soul, believing it to be a Subftance quite di- 

 ftindl from the Body, immortal, and eternal, and of unceafing e- 

 nergy and adivity in its feparate ftate, yet it does not appear that he 

 Jiad formed any clear opinion of the Animal Mind being likewife an 

 Immaterial Subftance diftind from the Body; and therefore he endea- 

 vours to account for the phaenomena of the Animal Life, and par- 

 ticularly Dreaming, by vapours and exhalations, (afwflu/Afairjr)^ and 

 fubtle fluids, and the Motions thereby produced, much in the 

 fame manner as Plato tells us Anaxagoras endeavoured to ac- 

 eauBt for all the phaenomena of Nature.f ; whereas I hold, 



that 



• Ariftotle's words are, <p<tvTartii J* »o-1» i tv* tiij xtcr' Mijy«*» mrlnrt»( yUtftitn tuynmi 

 I See the Phaedo, p. 97. editio Scrrani. 



