CH. II.] IMAGINATIONS. 49 



physiologically more free (27) ; these, again^ may induce other 

 conceptions, still more free ; and when at length conceptions 

 arise, so far removed from sensations induced hy external 

 impressions, that the connection between them is no longer 

 traceable, and containing only few elements in common with 

 all the sensational conceptions which have induced them, they 

 are termed conceptions of the understanding or reason ; higher, 

 abstract, general ideas. In proportion as a conception is less 

 sensational, it is the less to be deduced from, and explained by 

 the sensations induced by external impressions; and the less it 

 is under their control, the more it is to be referred to psycho- 

 logical principles (27). On the other hand, when the mind 

 collects and combines from external sensations, associated sub- 

 impressions, which it perceives, sua sponte, without the assist- 

 ance of their external impressions, and only by the inducement 

 of similar external impressions, it causes material ideas in the 

 brain, such that they have something in common with the 

 material ideas of the external sensations from which they are 

 compounded or drawn. They imitate imperfectly those move- 

 ments in the brain, which can only be fully developed by the 

 co-operation of the external impressions of those external sen- 

 sations from which the sensational conception is compounded; 

 and when sensational conceptions of this kind excite any actions 

 in the animal economy, the actions must in part correspond 

 with those that result from the external sensations themselves. 



Imaginations [Einbildungen] . 



67. Sensational imaginations are conceptions of past external 

 sensations (66), — (Baumgarten^s ^ Metaphysics,^ § 414), which 

 the mind renews spontaneously, so far as it is able, without the 

 assistance of external impressions (Baumgarten, § 415). Con- 

 sequently, they are wholly sensational conceptions. The ma- 

 terial ideas of imaginations are also those of past external 

 sensations, but in that imperfect condition, which necessarily 

 results from the want of an external impression (35, 53); iu 

 other words, when the mind excites spontaneous imaginations, 

 movements are also excited in the brain, which are partly the 

 material ideas of former external sensations [QQ). Generally con- 

 sidered, the material ideas of imaginations are feebler than those 



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