254 OF SLEEP. SECT. XVItt. 17 



The fame happens to the mucus expe&orated in 

 coughs, xvhich is thus thickened by abforption of its 

 aqueous and faline pam ; and the fame of the feces 

 of the inteftines. From hence it appears, and front 

 \vhathas been faid ia No. i ^, of this Section con- 

 cerning the increafe of irritability and of fenfibility^ 

 during ileep, that the fecretions are in general rather 

 increaied than diminifhed during thefe hours of our 

 cxiftence ; and it is probable that nutrition is almoffc 

 entirely performed in Ileep ; and that young animals 

 grow more at this time than in th-eir waking hours y 

 as young plants have long fines been obfcrved to 

 grow more in the night, which is their time of 

 fleep. 



17. Two other remarkable circumilances of our 

 dreaming ideas are their inconfiftency, and the total 

 abfence of furprife. Thus we feem to be prefent at 

 more extraordinary metamorphofes of animals or trees, 

 than are to be met with in the fables of antiquity ; 

 and appear to be tranfported from place, which ft a ! 

 divide, as quickly as the changes of fcenery are per- 

 formed in a play-houfe j. and yet are not fenfible of 

 their inconnitency, nor in the leafi degree affected 

 with furprife. 



We mud confkier this circumftance more minute- 

 ly. In our waking trains of ideas, thole that are 

 inconfi!r.ent with the ufual order of nature, fo rarely 

 have occurred to us, that their connexion is the 

 fllghtbft of all others : hence, when a confident train 

 of ideas is exhaufted, we attend to the external ili- 

 muii, that u-fualjy furround us, rather than to any 

 inconfrilent idea which might otherwife prefent itfelf ;. 

 and if an inconfiftent idea (liould intrude itfelf, we 

 inimevliately compare it with the preceding one, and 

 voluntarily reject the train it would introduce ; this 

 appears further in the Sedion on Reverie, in which 

 Itate of the mind external ftimuli are not attended to, 

 and yet the Itreams of ideas are kept confident by the 

 of volition. But as our faculty of volition 



