258 y\NTlENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



But, thougli I venture to find thefe faults with Synefius's fyftem, 

 I am far from being confident that I am in the right, becaufe I mud 

 confefs there are many things in this work of his, that I do not per- 

 fedily underftand : And his commentator Nicephorus appears to me 

 to underftand them as little as I do ; for there is a depth in his mat- 

 ter, and, at the fame time, an elevation in his ftyle, and a kind of 

 oracular obfcuriry, which, I fuppofc, is the reafon that makes Nice- 

 pliorus fay that he writes like one infpired. As, therefore, I am not 

 one of thofe that rejedt every thing, they do not underftand, as ab- 

 furd or unintelligible, I am difpofed to believe that there may be a 

 meaning in Synefius which I have not fathomed, and that what 

 feems to me odd and extravagant in his fyftem, would appear, if 

 I underftood it better, to be found and folid philofophy, though, no 

 doubt, of the fublimeft kind. 



The laft author I mentioned, who has written upon Dreams, is 

 Mr Baxter ; and his fyftem is, that all our Dreams, of whatever 

 kind, do not proceed from the Mind itfelf, nor are of its own 

 growth, but are produced by the operations of other Minds upon 

 it. 



I will now proceed to give my own opinion concerning Dreams, 

 agreeing in fome refpedts with each of the opinions above mention- 

 ed, but in other refpeds differing from them all. And, in the fr/i 

 place, as Dreams are undoubtedly Phantafms, and there can be no 

 Phantafms without a Phantafia, I will begin the inquiry by giving 

 a more particular account, than I have hitherto done, of this Power, 

 Faculty, or Part of the Mind, and fo will endeavour to fupply that 

 fundamental defed which I have obferved in Ariftotle's fyftem of 

 Dreaming. 



That 



