392 THE SOUL NEVER, SLEEPS. honour to our nature, that we are so made, as to forget such roving and irregular exercises so easily and so soon. IV. Another objection of Mr. Locke's is this ; § 15. that it is not agreeable to the wisdom of our Creator to make so admi- rable a faculty as the power of thinking to be so idly and use- lessly employed all our sleeping 'hours, i.. -e. at least one quarter of our time, as -not to be able to recollect, to treasure up or use any of those thoughts for our own or others' advantage. To this it is answered (1st.) That there are but few, even of our waking thoughts, which most men can recollect for particu- lar uses of life, in comparison of those multitudes and millions which vanish and are for ever lost as soon as they are formed ; yet this is not esteemed to reflect upon the wisdom of our Crea- tor, who (at least in this present state) has thus constituted us. Let a man who has been awake seventeen hours, or awhole day, try in the eighteenth to recollect what he can of what has past in his mind and he shall hardly be able to fill up one hour with such recollected thoughts from which be can draw any proper in- ferences, experiences, or observations, for the use of life ; and it may be as well inferred that we have not thought ten hours of that seventeen, as that we did not think the foregoing night in our sleep, merely upon this supposition that God, would not make us such creatures as to think so many hours to so little purpose. (2.) Why may not a thinking being be suffered to think some hours every night to little purpose, as well as to exist without thinking, i. e. to no purpose at all: Useless ideas are at least as good as no ideas ; and a soul thinking idly, is as good as.a soul sleeping. (3.) What if we should say, that as the irregular and exor- bitant power of sensé and imagination, and its ungovernableness by reason when we are awake in many instances, is owing to our fallen state, so our unrecollectedand useless dreams may pos- sibly be ascribed in some measure to the satue cause ? Perhaps innocent man could manage his sleeping ideas better by reason, and make them some way serviceable to his wakeful actions. Or we may borrow fromMr. Lee a fourth answer, viz. (4.) There seenis'to be a constantsense of pleasure in sound sleep, which appears by a reluctancy to be disturbed in that plea- sure, and strong tendencies to re-enjoy it when we are stiddenly awakened; this is at least as demonstrable as that we have no consciousness at all. And if it be so, then (1.) here issomething we are conscious Of n lieu 'sleeping ; and (2.) it is not unworthy the wiseContriver of nature to bestow an innocent pleasure on the act of sleeping which himself has matte necessary to preserve life, and improve the comforts of it.
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