CH. III.] INCIDENTAL SENTIENT ACTIONS. 113 



by animals in addition to the sensational force, are indirect 

 sentient actions of external sensations, although in very different 

 degrees of connection (65). We will glance at the most 

 prominent of the series. 



We connect with our external sensations the conception of 

 another like to it, which we have had before, and thus a direct 

 imagination is attached to our external sensation (67), that com- 

 mingles its action in the mechanical machines with those of the 

 external sensation. In this way we sigh at the sight of a 

 person who is like another, with respect to whom we have had 

 sorrowful sensations. This sighing is the sentient action of 

 the imagination, and only indirectly of the external sensation 

 (97, 99). 



220. We often connect with our external sensations the 

 expectations of others formerly connected with them, and thus 

 a foreseeing (73) accompanies our external sensation, which 

 mingles its actions in the mechanical machines with those 

 arising from the external sensation. A certain person always 

 faints during the operation of venesection ; some time after- 

 wards he meets the surgeon in the street, and becomes faint : 

 this faintness was the sentient action of a foreseeing of the blood- 

 letting, and only incidental to the external sensation (97, 99). 



221. Since all our external sensations are made vivid by 

 pleasure or suffering (187), and accompanied by imaginations 

 and expectations (219, 220), so they are also associated with 

 desires and aversions, which unite their actions in the mechanical 

 machines with those arising directly from external sensations, 

 and are most manifest in the instincts and passions (93). Thus, 

 an agreeable or odious countenance instantaneously renders a 

 man enamoured or angry ; in animals, an odour, or a sound, 

 excites the sexual instinct ; or, in one who has fasted, the sight 

 of food excites hunger. Here the whole process of the instincts 

 and passions is set forth, and it is by no mean^ the external 

 sensations that directly excite their sentient actions. The last 

 will serve as an illustration : a man with an empty stomach 

 sees bread, and he recollects that under similar circumstances 

 he has been relieved by the eating of bread. From this 

 external sensation and imagination, there arises the expectation 

 that the same result would follow again if he ate bread, and now 

 there arises the seeking to eat, whereby the mouth fills with 



8 



