Phœnomenon of Dreaming. 3

because of the inconsistency of our dreams;that is, because the visions then exhibitedto the Soul, are, for the most part, not ofthe same nature, or in the same order ofnature, with external objects; for in that, Ipresume, the supposed inconsistency will befound chiefly to lye j others, I fay, becauseof this, have ascribed the perfection of ra-tional thinking'to the matter of the body,which opinion Mr. Locke seems to favour.And others, because these visions have noreal external objects, of which they are re-presentations, have endeavoured to maintainthat there are no such real external Objects ;at least this was the reason why the real ex-istence of material things was first called inquestion, or supposed a point which mightadmit of dispute. These several opinionsshew us, that the consideration of this sub-ject is not foreign to the present enquiry, butfalls in naturally as a part of it j and there-fore may farther serve as an apology, for at-tempting to account for this appearance con-sistently with the principles before established,especially the inactivity of matter; and torendeavouring to shew that it infers none ofthose absurdities, with respect to the rationalB 2 natuxs