OF VITAL MOTION. 129 



subjection to time and place, in the sense in which 

 we understand the body to be subject. 



1. The indelible record which is preserved by the 

 memory of every conscious or unconscious act of the 

 mind, may be taken as q, proof that the mental essence 

 is itself imperishable. 



In the mind of every one there are certain images 

 of past events, or actions, which continually obtrude 

 upon the attention, and which appear in this way 

 throughout a long life, without losing any of their 

 distinctness and reality. There are images, also, 

 which remain out of sight unless they are wanted, 

 when they awake and issue from their hiding-places. 

 And, along with these, there are other images which 

 have escaped from the dominion of the will, and which 

 would seem to have vanished into oblivion, if they 

 did not appear occasionally in answer to certain sights 

 or sounds which seem to exert a talismanic influence 

 over them: thus, for example, the long-forgotten feel- 

 ings and thoughts of boyhood may bestir themselves 

 at the sight of a faded blossom that has been preserved 

 among the pages of a school-book, not languidly, but 

 with the same tumult as they did on the holiday on 

 which the flower was gathered, when ourselves and 

 companions, the landscape and the sky, were full of 

 life, and without shade or sadness ; and in this way 

 we find that this part of the past is not cancelled, 

 although it had been hidden by the crowd of suc- 



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