256 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



kind are by far the moll common ; and that Sleep, fays he, may 

 not be unprofitable to any, he gives us a rule for the interpretation 

 of them. But, firft, he accounts for them in this manner: He fays, 

 that the forms, or fiJ'w^a, as he calls them, of all things paft, pre- 

 lent, and future, are continually flying off from the Things : For, 

 fays he, as we aie fure that the Corporeal part has always effluvias 

 from it, by which it is conftantly wafted and diminiflied, fo Philo- 

 fophy tells us that the Form alfo is conftantly going oft' in the fame 

 way ; fo that, in no refpeiSl, a material thing has any real or per- 

 manent exiftence *. Thefe forms, thus flying about, the Phantafia 

 receives, as a Mirror does the Images prefented to it. Of thefe, 

 the forms of things prefent are more clearly reprefented ; with lefs 

 clearnefs thofe of things paft ; and with leaft of all thofe of things 

 to come, as having a much more imperfedl exiftence than either the 

 paft or the prefent t* They are, therefore, very obfcurely repre- 

 fented in this Phaniaftic Mirror ; And if the Phantafia is much mo- 

 ved and difturbed by Sympathy with the Body, he compares it to 

 Water, which, if it be much agitated, muft needs reprefent the 

 Images in it very much diftorted, and out of their natural order J. 



For fetting thofe Images of future things right, and thereby fore- 

 feeing what is to come, he fays there are two ,ways : The firft is by 

 an art, which, feme pretend, will apply to all Dreams of all perfons. 

 But this art he rejects as fallacious, and no better than mere impo- 

 fture : For he fays it is impofllble, by the nature of things, that 

 there fhould be an Art of Interpretation of Dreams, as there is of 

 Phyfic ; becaufe the fubjed of Phyfic h much more ftable and per- 

 manent, and more like in different men, than the Phantafia is, the 



moft 



• Page 12;. 

 f Page 126. 

 t Page 127. 



