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dreams,

VIEWS OF MATERIALISTS.

and the intellectual inventiveness

and power occasionally exerted in dreaming. These facts, it will be argued, appear to corroborate other arguments for the immateriality of the soul, and to indicate also its capacity for thought in a state of separation from the present or visible bodily structure.

In the second Essay it is proposed to examine, and partially confirm, the prevailing impression, that some dreams have been specially ordered for important ends by the ruling Providence of God; yet strongly, at the same time, to discourage a fanciful or superstitious misuse of that persuasion.

Let me here premise, that we may infer how naturally arguments for a spiritual substance, and a divine Providence, have been deduced by mankind from certain phenomena of dreaming, when we are aware how solicitous the philosophic advocates of materialism have been to account for them mechanically. Thus Epicurus, who held that "the soul is a subtle corporeal substance composed of the finest atoms," taught that "dreams are the effect of images casually flying about, which 1 Enfield, Hist. Philos. vol. i. p. 467.

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from their extreme tenuity penetrate the body and strike upon the mind," which is itself "formed of particles most subtle in their nature." Lucretius has presented the same theory in an elaborate poetic dress. Hobbes, among the moderns, has treated of dreaming with the like design.3

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A philosopher of exceedingly different character from these, the great Locke,—some of whose opinions have been employed, contrary to his intention, to support the doctrines of materialists, argues that thought and consciousness are in sound sleep suspended. But his conclusion rests merely on our frequent forgetfulness of having dreamed, and on the testimony of one that was bred a scholar and had no bad memory," who told him "he had never dreamed in his life, till he had a fever." 4 Such testimony, if ever so much multiplied, could amount only to this, that the deponents had had no dreams which

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1 Enfield, Hist. Philos. vol. i. p. 470.

2 Ib. p. 469.

3 Hallam's Literature, vol. ii. p. 464, and A. Baxter on the Soul, p. 196.

4 Essay on Human Understanding, book ii. c. i. § 14, p. 46, fol. edit.

WATTS. A. BAXTER.

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they could remember; which actually proves nothing in the case.

Dr. Isaac Watts, in one of his philosophical essays, commenting on Mr. Locke's opinion, writes, "Often have I awoke from a dream wherein a multitude of scenes has been impressed on the mind-yet with utmost labour I could not recollect enough to fill up one minute, but only short broken hints of the dreaming scene, which also in a little time vanished." He adds, "It is plain that we may be conscious of sleeping thoughts at that moment when they arise, and not retain them the next moment; so that the forgetfulness of our dreams never so soon, is no proof that we did not dream, or had no consciousness of thinking in sleep." "

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The same, I apprehend, might often be truly alleged even of our recent waking thoughts. Let any one try to remember, in circumstances where the mind has been unbent or languid, what were the thoughts of the last five minutes, or to verify that there were any by producing one. Andrew Baxter, in

1 Essay v. § 2. Works, vol. v. p. 556, fol. ed.

2 Ibid. p. 557.

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R. BAXTER.

ABERCROMBIE.

his "Inquiry on the Soul," says truly," It is a mark of our imperfect natures, that we cannot become conscious of all our past consciousness at pleasure;" adding, "no man at night would infer that he was not in a state of consciousness and thinking at a certain time of the day, because he has no memory what thoughts he had at that time. And it is no better argument that a man was not conscious in his sleep, because next morning he hath no memory of what ideas were in his mind."1

Richard Baxter, a very different author, has these words: "I suppose the soul is never totally inactive. I never awaked, since I had the use of my memory, but I found myself coming out of a dream. And I suppose they that think they dream not, think so because they forget their dreams."2

The late honoured Dr. Abercrombie has a remark of much weight in favour of this opinion. "We have reason to believe," he writes, that dreams which are remembered occur only in imperfect sleep, and that we do not remember any mental impressions which

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1 Inquiry on the Soul, p. 149, abridged.

2 Reasons of Christian Religion, p. 543, Appendix.

UNREMEMBERED DREAMS.

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occur in very profound sleep, though we have satisfactory proof that they exist. Thus, a person will talk in his sleep so as to be distinctly understood by another, but without having the least recollection afterwards of the mental impression which led to what he said." I

A much-respected clergyman, the Rev. J. B. B. Clarke, (son of the eminent linguist and commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke,) has favoured me with the account of a dream which clearly and curiously testifies of this. Mr. Clarke writes thus: "When I was a boy, it was my father's custom to hear me, overnight, repeat to him the lesson which I was expected to say the next morning in school. At the time I refer to I was learning my Greek grammar, and the part which I had to repeat was the active voice of the verb τύπτω. When I went up to him just before bed time as usual, I could not say it, and was sent away in disgrace. Immediately I went to bed, as was the rule, after having left his study.

1 Intellectual Powers, p. 154; see also p. 305; and the account of an officer in the expedition to Louisburg, who after dreams in which he had both spoken and acted, had not · any remembrance of them.-P. 283. Ibid.

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