29 



pleasing or displeasing sensations ; but they cannot repre- 

 sent them, as terms expressive of" visual or audible objects 

 do ; thus I may have a mental representation of the house I 

 Jive in, mount its stair and view its apartments ; I may also 

 mentally repeat tiie sounds of a song I heard, admired and 

 learned ; but to imagine the taste of the several dishes that 

 form a mental repast, exceeds any power 1 possess. So I 

 know well what a tooth-ach is, and also what hunger and 

 thirst are ; but I cannot represent these pains, and conse- 

 quently can form no idea of them according to the exact 

 sense of this word. 



70. The representation of sensible objects by the imagina- 

 tion, and the notions that accompany them, frequently oc- 

 casion emotions or desires, as we experience in reading or 

 hearing histories, poems, romances, novels, &c. but these 

 sentiments belong not properly to the imagination, for though 

 much weaker, they are not ideal, but are as real as the ob- 

 jects represented if acttialh/ existing would themselves excite ; 

 for, as Mr. Stewart well remarks, we are deluded into a 

 transient belief of the actual existence of such objects.* That 

 they are not ideas, is evident from this, that we cannot feel 

 emotions of joy or grief, &c. merely on hearing those words 

 pronouncetl, as we can form ideas of a house or tree, when 



named 



• Elements, p. 142, &c. 



