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An Essay on the
schemes, according to the course of nature,as the impossibility of their being physical pr°'ductions. There is enough in the most ip'coherent of our dreams, or even in a part ^these, to shew that they are things qui^above the powers of matter or mechanist 11 'Nor is it philosophical, I think, to seek fctdifferent causes of the fame kind of ap'pearance, though the several instances mssnot be all alike. It is a maxim in phil°'sophy, when effects are all of one kind,though perhaps not equally perfect in de'„gree, that they proceed all from,the, sarfl 6kind of cause (/). Artists equally goodmight produce pieces of work unequally pes'sect, for a thousand reasons that couldnamed. Often we fee a cause confessedlythe fame,-produce effects not equally perfect*
(I) Essedtiwm naturalium ejusdem generis eesdemcausa: ut descensus lapidis & ligni ab eadem causa pf rcedit , tfc. Introduct. ad ver. Phys. Lect. 8. Axiom. ^Every body would allow that some dreams are exh*'bited to the foul by invisible beings; but that othef 5are the .effect of some other thing (they know not whatThis, though enough to my purpose, is not enoughin philosophy, I presume, if the reasoning in th* Sparagraph is right; which therefore ought to beconsidered.
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