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SECTION I. 



IN all experience reminiscence is so closely bound 

 up with sensation that for ordinary purposes the 

 distinction between the two is neglected. Shake- 

 speare uses a grotesque instance of this in his Henry 

 VI. (Part II., Act ii., Scene i), where the impostor 

 Simpcox, who pretends to have been born blind, is 

 made to describe two colours, the one as being 

 " black as jet," and the other " red as blood," in- 

 dicating that he supposed the reminiscences of jet 

 and of blood to be part of his present sensation. 

 The discrimination between that which is given 

 in sensation and that which is supplied from reminis- 

 cence requires an effort of analysis, the necessity of 

 which was not appreciated by the earlier Greek 

 philosophers ; an oversight to which some of their 

 difficulties may be traced. It was this which led 

 them to consider the senses to be deceptive, and thus 

 enabled them to adopt, in all good faith, opinions 

 which could only be upheld so long as most of their 

 'sensations were disregarded. 



The classical instance which was used by more 

 than one school of philosophers to justify this disre- 

 gard, was that of a straight stick dipped obliquely 



