34 - An EJfay on the

the sensory, and the same ideas excited istthe foul, as by this visionary person in the

dream.

are made. That the soul sliould make impressions here,to delude itself, is not to be conceived, If imaginationbe taken as something belonging to the soul; it is itsown active power of voluntarily joining ideas together,without objects ab extra to cause them. That it shouldcouple together ideas by this active power, without be-ing conscious of its own workmanship, is as little.to : beconceived; and if it were conscious of this , the scenewould not appear offered to it as real. In the exampleof eating or drinking , we are to distinguish with ArsJloile , what the foul itself doth, from the or

scene exhibited. The soul as much exerts an act of thewill, to eat or drink, as it does at another time; and un-less it thought the meat and drink were real, it wouldjiot exert this act of the will. This part then of exhi-biting the appearance of real meat and drink to it, is thephantasm, nothing of its own production. But this -isalways accompanied with other circumfances of persons ,actions, &c. that make the thing plainer. We do notdream that we simply eat and drink, without the cir-cumstances of time, place, company [at a full table, itis said in the objection.] A late excellent Author hathwell observed, that the soul would be much distressed,if it dreamed that it were always solitary and lonely insteep. Dido’s being alone in her last visions was an ag-gravation of the uneasiness. Motion then, life, action,persons, are not the effects of mechanism. And thoughin this instance the foul doth not resist, but concurs in

the