THOUGHTS ON BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. 235 



association of certain ideas with actual sensations, that we are apt to 

 consider the whole mixed cluster as one kind, and receive the whole 

 with the belief which belongs to the sensation. Deceptions of this 

 kind chiefly occur when the sensations are, from some cause, obscure 

 or imperfect, and when the mind is under the influence of some 

 strong emotion. How many ghost stories, that seem to be plausibly 

 supported, may be well explained by separating with care what 

 might easily have been perceived by the senses from the mode of 

 accounting for such sensations, suggested to the mind when under 

 the excitement of fear, sorrow, or enthusiastic feeling, and, in such 

 circumstances, confounded with actual sensations, so as to appear to 

 the memory of the same nature with them. 



"When these mistakes from ideas associated with our sensations are 

 not intensified by strong emotion, they are easily corrected by the 

 judgment, even in opposition to the feeling of the moment, so that we 

 have no permanent false belief; as when the crossed fingers touching 

 a smooth spherical substance have, from associations respecting the 

 parts usually afi'ected by one or by two distinct objects, the sensation 

 as of two, though we are certain of the fact that there is but one ; 

 or, when the revolving circle of card seems to present to our vision 

 a bird in a cage, or a tree in its summer foliage, though we are well 

 aware that the image of the bird and the foliage is at one side, that 

 of the cage and of the naked branches on tiie other, the combination 

 depending on the rapid motion. The real cases of deception are only 

 where a sensation occurs unexpectedly, under circumstances fitted to 

 awaken some emotion, under the influence of which associated ideas 

 are intensified so as to seem parts of what is perceived by the senses. 

 In all cases when we view the subject philosophically, it is necessary 

 cautiously to separate the actual sensations we receive from objects 

 from the ideas excited in connection with them, and which are easily 

 confounded with them. In such instances we do not really receive 

 false or unreliable sensations, but only obscure ones, which the mind 

 completes by its own associations ; just as in dreams, the noise or 

 touch which awakens us will, before it completes that work, suggest 

 to the fancy means of accounting for it, which pass like scenes before 

 our mental vision. 



A little calmness and collectedness of mind, with the attempt to 

 place ourselves in a more favourable position for observation, or to 

 apply a second sense in aid of our inquiries, would save us from 



