14:6 THE DATA OF PHILOSOPHY. 



veloped system of metaphysics. Here, accepting the in- 

 evitable implication that the manifestations imply some- 

 thing manifested, our aim must be to avoid any further 

 implications. Though we cannot exclude further implica- 

 tions from our thoughts, and cannot carry on our argument 

 without tacit recognitions of them, we can at any rate refuse 

 to recognize them in the terms with which we set out. We 

 may do this most effectually by classing the manifestations 

 as vivid and faint respectively. Let us consider what are 

 the several distinctions that exist between these. 



And first a few words on this most conspicuous distinc- 

 tion which these antithetical names imply. Manifestations 

 that occur under the conditions called those of perception 

 (and the conditions so called we must here, as much as possi- 

 ble, separate from all hypotheses, and regard simply as 

 themselves a certain group of manifestations) are ordinarily 

 far more distinct than those which occur under the condi- 

 tions known as those of reflection, or memory, or imagina- 

 tion, or ideation. These vivid manifestations do, indeed, 

 sometimes differ but little from the faint ones. When near- 

 ly dark we may be unable to decide whether a certain mani- 

 festation belongs to the vivid order or the faint order 

 whether, as we say, we really see something or fancy we 

 see it. In like manner, between a very feeble sound and the 

 imagination of a sound, it is occasionally difficult to discrimi- 

 nate. But these exceptional cases are extremely rare in 

 comparison with the enormous mass of cases in which, from 

 instant to instant, the vivid manifestations distinguish them- 

 selves unmistakeably from the faint. Conversely, 

 it also now and then happens (though under conditions 

 which we significantly distinguish as abnormal) that mani- 

 festations of the faint order become so strong as to be mis- 

 taken for those of the vivid order. Ideal sights and sounds 

 are in the insane so much intensified as to be classed with 

 real sights and sounds ideal and real being here supposed 

 to imply no other contrast than that which we are consider- 



