Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 263 



tafia at all ; a child in the womb being no better than a Vege- 

 table, and firft when he is born a very imperfe£l Animal, and 

 much refembling the lower kinds of the Brute creation, which 

 I imagine have no Phantafia. And this m-ay be the reafon of the 

 fad which Ariftotle has obferved, that children have no Dreams ; 

 and if it be true, as he fays, that there are fonie few elderly people 

 that likcwife have noDreams, I believe it will be found, upon inquiry, 

 that thofe perfons are very defective in Imagination. The truth, 

 therefore, feems to be, that, at firft, our only method of perception is 

 by the Senfes ; then, in procefs of time, comes another method of 

 perception by the Phantafia, the neceffities of life fo requiring. And 

 thus we fee the powers even of our Animal Mind rife one above another, 

 and grow out of one another: Firft come the Senfes, then the Phan- 

 tafia ; and thus the Animal Mind is completed : Next in order, and 

 laft of all, that Superior Mind, which had fo long lain latent, and, as 

 it were, overwhelmed by the Vegetable and Animal Life, difclofes 

 itfelf ; and then, and not till then, we are only aSiuaUy men ; for, 

 before, we were no more than men in capacity, as the Peripatetic 

 definition of Man has well diftinguiihed. 



According to this account of the Phantafia, it may be defined to 

 be ' The Animal Mind, confidered as retaining the perceptions of 

 ' Senfe, calling them up, and prefenting them to the Mind, as occa- 

 * fion requires, and performing various operations upon them.' And 

 I agree with Synefius, that the Phantafia, thus defined, is no other 

 than that common Senfe^ of which Ariftotle fpeaks fo much *, by 

 which the Mind, at the fame time that it perceives fo many dif- 

 ferent objeds, compares them together, and perceives their likenefs 

 or their difference ; for it is of abfolute neceffity for the oeconomy 

 of the Animal Life, that the Animal Ihould have a perception of 



the 



* See Page 255. of this Volume, 



