When the ideas that offer themselves (for as I have observed in another
place, while we are awake, there will always be a train of ideas
succeeding one another in our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it
were, registered in the memory, it is _attention_; when the mind, with
great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers
it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary
solicitations of other ideas, it is what we call _intention_ or _study_.
Sleep without dreaming is rest from all these: and _dreaming_ itself, is
the having of ideas (while the outward senses are stopped, so that they
receive not outward objects with their usual quickness) in the mind, not
suggested by any external objects, or known occasion, nor under any
choice or conduct of the understanding at all, and whether that which we
call _ecstasy_, be not dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be
examined."
Dr. Beattie, in his "Dissertations moral and critical," has an
ingenious essay on this subject, in which he attempts to ascertain, not
so much the _efficient_ as the _final_ causes of the phenomenon, and to
obviate those superstitions in regard to it, which have sometimes
troubled weak minds.
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