He labours, with great earnestness, to shew, that
dreams may be of use in the way of physical admonition: that persons,
who attend to them with this view, may make important discoveries with
regard to their health; that they may be serviceable as the means of
moral improvement; that, by attending to them, we may discern our
predominant passions, and receive good hints for the regulation of them;
that they may have been intended by Providence to serve as an amusement
to the mental powers; and that dreaming is not universal, because,
probably, all constitutions do not require such intellectual amusement.
In observations of this kind, we may discover the ingenuity of fancy and
the sagacity of conjecture. We may find amusement in the arguments, but
we look in vain for satisfaction. Nature, certainly, does nothing in
vain, yet we are far from thinking, that man is able, in every case, to
discover her intentions. Final causes, perhaps, ought never to be the
subject of human speculation, but when they are plain and obvious. To
substitute vain conjectures, instead of the designs of Providence, on
subjects where those designs are beyond our reach, serves only to
furnish matter for the cavils of the sceptical, and the sneers of the
licentious.
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