CH. IV.] SUBSTITUTION OF NERVE-ACTIONS. 289 



a very imperfect and obscure conceptive force is not capable 

 (89^ 108). It is only necessary to compare an instinct and a 

 passion, ia one point, to be assured of this. Any painful external 

 sensation immediately excites the war-instinct, and the move- 

 ments proper to the instinct as instantaneously follow, even in 

 man himself, and before the cause of the sensation is known. 

 Between the external sensation exciting the instinct and its sen- 

 tient actions, no traces of conceptions can be discovered, con- 

 sequently there are no material ideas of imaginations, foreseeings, 

 &c., produced by the external sensation ; so that there appears 

 to be a direct transition [Uebergang] of the latter into the 

 instinct itself, and the material ideas proper to it to take effect 

 in the sentient actions of the other. So that it may in some 

 degree be asserted, that in the instincts the brain turns back 

 [umwendete] the felt impression, and reflects it on the nerves 

 appropriate to the sentient actions of the instinct, just as an 

 unfelt external impression is reflected in the ganglia, and this 

 without the material ideas of the conceptions necessary to the 

 instinct becoming an object of special thought, they being too 

 little developed; and without its sentient actions being obviously 

 excited and connected with each other, according to psycho- 

 logical laws. If, on the contrary, a man be excited to anger 

 by a pain inflicted by another, between the passion which 

 excites to combat, and the painful sensation, a number of 

 connected sensational conceptions arise, which are psychological 

 and volitional in their character. He perceives clearly that an 

 injury has been done him; he resolves to retaliate on the 

 offender; is undecided as to the means by which he should do 

 this; chooses that which comes first to hand, and by a con- 

 tinually repeated and magnified conception of the injury, is 

 more and more irritated against his enemy. Just as these 

 sensational conceptions, excited by the external sensations, are 

 developed in the mind, and excite the instinct (94), so also are 

 the material ideas which produced the material external sensa- 

 tion developed in the brain ; so that in this case there is not 

 that apparently direct transition of the external sensation into 

 the passion itself, and of the material ideas of the former into 

 the sentient actions of the latter. To comprehend the sentient 

 actions of the passion, in their connection with the external 

 impression which first excited it, the course of all the sensational 



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