PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 



be easily perceived that the mind loses 

 sight of them; whereas it can lose sight 

 of impressions from external objects only 

 by fixing the attention upon ideas, or by 

 corporeal motion of some kind or other. 

 These remarks might perhaps, with 

 greater propriety, have been made under 

 the head of imagination ; because it is sel- 

 dom that in such cases the vivid concep- 

 tions recur in the exact (or nearly exact) 

 order of actual impression, which is the 

 essential difference between the trains of 

 imagination and those of memory : they 

 are, however, referable to either class of 

 phenomena. 



109. Ideas of recollection differ from 

 those of the imagination, principally, in 

 the readiness and strength of the associa- 

 tions ; but partly, and in many cases al- 

 most entirely, by the connection of the 

 former with known and allowed facts, by 

 various methods of reasoning appropriate 

 to the peculiar circumstances of the case, 

 and by recollecting that we had before 

 considered them as recollections, &c. 

 Great difficulty, however, often exists, 

 especially in the minds of persons with 

 vigorous conceptions, who have not been 

 habitually careful to cultivate accuracy of 

 perceptions, and in the relation of recol- 

 lections, to know whether the trains of 

 ideas presented by the associative power 

 are to be referred to the memory or to 

 the imagination. Such persons, seizing 

 only the outline of a fact or series of oc- 

 currences, from habitual inattention to 

 their sensations, are, from readiness of 

 association, able to fill up the transcript, 

 so as to make it appear plausible to them- 

 selves ; and by once or twice detailing it 

 without minute regard to accuracy, ex- 

 cept in those leading features, they give 

 a vigour to the ideas and closeness to the 

 association of them, which leads at last to 

 the full conviction, that the whole is re- 

 collected. Cases of this sort are very fre- 

 quent; and they often leave upon the 

 minds of others the belief, that such per- 

 sons intentionally depart from truth, 

 whereas sometimes the fact is, that part 

 of their error arises from a desire to give 

 the whole truth, when they have only the 

 materials for a portion of it in their 

 minds. However, the fault is one which 

 should be carefully guarded against ; par- 

 ticularly in the early part of life, by mak- 

 ing young people of lively imaginations 

 habitually attentive to the minute as 

 well as the leading parts of their impres- 

 sions. All persons are at one time or 

 other at a loss to know whether trains of 

 vivid ideas, succeeding each other readily 



and rapidly, are ideas of recollection or 

 of imagination, that is, mere reveries : 

 and the more they agitate the matter in 

 their minds, the more does the reverie 

 appear like a recollection. Persons of 

 irritable nervous systems are more sub- 

 ject to such fallacies than others ; and 

 insane persons often impose upon them- 

 selves in this way, viz. by the vividness 

 of their ideas and associations, produc- 

 ed by bodily causes. The same things 

 often happen in dreams. 



110. The vividness and readiness of 

 recollected trains, is also one grand 

 means of ascertaining the dates of facts ; 

 for as this diminishes, (other things be- 

 ing equal), in proportion to the period 

 which has elapsed since the reception 

 of the ideas, and the formation of the asso- 

 ciations, if the vigour of these be diminish- 

 ed, we refer them to a more remote period, 

 in proportion to that diminution ; and if 

 by any cause it be kept up, the distance 

 of time appears diminished. Thus it is, 

 that if any interesting event, the death 

 of a friend, for instance, have been often 

 recollected and related, till we come to 

 make oral or mental calculations, it ap- 

 pears to have happened but yesterday, 

 as we term it. However, from this cir- 

 cumstance we are often apt to confound 

 events, as to the order of time, refer- 

 ing them to more recent or remote pe- 

 riods, according to the strength and 

 vigour of the ideas and associations, or 

 the contrary. In general we judge of 

 the period of events by associated cir- 

 cumstances, particularly by visible per- 

 manent memorials. And hence it hap- 

 pens that illiterate persons have often 

 great difficulty in assigning periods to 

 events with any tolerable accuracy. Our 

 readers, when they take such things in- 

 to account, and consider how difficult 

 it must in most cases be for illiterate 

 persons, who have frequently changed 

 their employments, to refer such changes 

 to any specific dates, will not feel un- 

 willing to admit, that the presumption 

 formed against the reputed murderers of 

 Steele, in consequence of their incor- 

 rect statements as to their places of 

 employment four years before their 

 trial, should have weighed very little 

 in the decision against those unhappy 

 men. 



111. We distinguish a new place, per- 

 son, &c. from one which we remember, 

 in a manner similar to that in which we 

 distinguish between recollected ideas and 

 those of imagination ; by the greater vi- 

 vidness of the impression, and the 



