( 



Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 275 



But for thofe Fiends^ ivhom blood and broils delight ; 



M^ho hurl the zuretch, as if to hell outright, 



Doivn, doivn black gulphs, -where fullen -waters Sleep ; 



Or hold him clambering all the fearful night 



On beetling cliffs^ or pent iti rui?is deep : 



They, till due timejhouldferve, zuere bid far hence to keep. 



When a man is In that fitiiation, he is, I think, as miferable as a 

 man can be in this life ; for, even Sleep, * that balm of woe,' as 

 Shakefpeare calls it, our refuge from the miferies of life, makes this 

 man more miferable than he was before, and prefents to huu ano- 

 ther world, which, if he has any notion of a future ftate, muft give 

 him terrible apprehenfions of the world he is to go into when this 

 life is at an end. But, betwixt a life of virtue and philofophy, and 

 this extremity of vice and mifery, there are many intermediate de- 

 grees ; .^nd, according as our lives come near to one or other of the 

 two extremes, our Dreams will be better or worfe. Of the genera- 

 lity of men, who are not remarkable either way, the Dreams are 

 commonly trifling and infignificant, giving very little pleafure or 

 pain ; and therefore they are very little obferved ; nor, indeed, do 

 they deferve any notice ; and, if a man of that kind were to keep a 

 regifter of his Dreams, as Synefms advifes, it would be a mod in- 

 lignificant one. Of fuch a Man even the- waking Imaginations are 

 but trifling, and not worthy of being remembered. Thofe in his 

 Sleep, when under no couuoul from his judgment, muft be ftill 

 more infignificant. 



To afk a reafon for the Phantafms of fuili a man, either waking 

 or fleeping, would be a fuperfluous imjuirT- ; hecauic he is neither 

 in the natural animal ftate, or in the ftate of .1 < erted rational crea- 

 ture. In the firft of thefe ftates, his Phantafia, his A{ petites and 

 Defires, and all his Actions, would be governed by unerring Wif- 



M m 2 dom. 



