16 An EJfay on the

ugly confluence of waters j sometimes fromfrightful and merciless animals , sometimeswe are carried to desert and inhospitableplaces (g), or placed in other disagreeable,shocking , and unnatural circumstances. Nowundoubtedly, in these and such other in-stances, it is absurd to say the foul would laya plot to frighten itself and then be foolishlyin real terror with its own designs. To makethis succeed, it ought to be two disiinSl Be-ings , each ignorant of the other’s conscious-ness and designs; and the whole compoundedfoul be diverted with the contrivance on theone hand, and yet terrified with the executi-on of it on the other. These are the mostcommon instances; there are others vastlymore strange and surprizing, but equallycertain : but in them all the soul must ne-cessarily be passive and unconcerned in theproduction; since, that it should acl with-

(VJ Virgil says of Dido,

- Agit ipse surentem

In somnis ferus Æneas : semper que relinquiSola stbi ; semper longam incomitata videturIre viam, & Tyrios deserta quarere terra.

Æneid. lib. IV.ver.465.This place hath a beauty, which nothing hut the imi-tating nature could have given it.

out