Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 271 



And, accordingly, we find that, while we are awake, our Intellect, or 

 our Imagination, is perpetually at work, though our Body, and all 

 its Senfes, may be perfecSlly at reft. And, as there is no other 

 difference betwixt Sleep and a ftate of that kind, except that we are 

 under a temporal incapacity of perceiving objects of Senfe, fo that 

 our Senfes can no longer perform the office of Porters, to ufe the 

 fimile of Synefius, and inform the Mind who knocks at the door, a 

 ftate which we are fometimes in even when we are awake, if we 

 be thinking intenfely, it would be contrary to all reafon to fuppofe, 

 that, at all times, or even for the greater part, when the Body refts 

 in Sleep, the Mind ftiould lofe its natural adivity. 



Thus, I think it appears, that, however wonderful a phaenomc- 

 non Dreaming may feem to a vulgar Man, it would appear wonder- 

 ful to the philofopher if we did not Dream. And I am perfuaded we 

 Dream very much oftener than we know of : For we either are not 

 attentive to our Dreams, and at pains to recolle£t them ; or we have 

 not the faculty of recoUeding them, which is the cafe with refpedl 

 to a great deal of our waking thoughts ; for there is no man alive, 

 that at night can recoiled one half of what pafled in his Mind 

 through the day. 



2 Jo, As our Dreams are entirely the operation of our Phantafia, if 

 there be no Phantafia, or if it be very weak and imperfeft, there 

 will be no Dreams, or very few. And this, ^s I have faid *, I take 

 to be the true reafon for children, and even fome elderly people, ha- 

 ving no Dreams, and not the Material Caufe affigned by Ariftotle. 



3//0, From the fame principle, of our Phantafms in our Sleep, that 

 is, our Dreams properly fo called, being entirely the work of our 



Phan- 



• Page 243. 247. 263. 



