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Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
page 18 of 698 (02%)
and whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth,
without the circumstances, of going to bed, or putting off his clothes,
as one that noddeth in a chayre. For he that taketh pains,
and industriously layes himselfe to sleep, in case any uncouth and
exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a Dream.
We read of Marcus Brutes, (one that had his life given him by Julius
Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murthered him,)
how at Phillipi, the night before he gave battell to Augustus Caesar,
he saw a fearfull apparition, which is commonly related by Historians
as a Vision: but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge
to have been but a short Dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and
troubled with the horrour of his rash act, it was not hard for him,
slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him;
which feare, as by degrees it made him wake; so also it must needs make
the Apparition by degrees to vanish: And having no assurance that he slept,
he could have no cause to think it a Dream, or any thing but a Vision.
And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake,
if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales,
and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe
they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards;
whereas it is either their Fancy onely, or els the knavery of such persons,
as make use of such superstitious feare, to pass disguised in the night,
to places they would not be known to haunt.

From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams, and other strong Fancies,
from vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of the Religion of
the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyres, Fawnes, nymphs,
and the like; and now adayes the opinion than rude people have of Fayries,
Ghosts, and Goblins; and of the power of Witches. For as for Witches,
I think not that their witch craft is any reall power; but yet that
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