82 Additional Notes. 



metaphysical inquiry of great curiosity, and will on that account 

 excuse my here introducing it. In our waking hours whenever an 

 idea occurs, which is incongruous to our former experience, we 

 instantly dissever the train of imagination by the power of volition; 

 and compare the incongruous idea Avith our previous knowledge of 

 nature, and reject it. This operation of the mind has not yet acquired 

 a specific name, though it is exerted every minute of our waking 

 hours, unless it may be termed INTUITIVE ANALOGY. It is an act 

 of reasoning of which we are unconscious except by its effects in pre- 

 serving the co-ngruity of our ideas; Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XVII. 3. 7. 



In our sleep as the power of volition is suspended, and conse- 

 quently that of reason, when any incongruous ideas occur in the 

 trains of imagination, which compose our dreams; we cannot compare 

 them with our previous knowledge of nature and reject them; whence 

 arises the perpetual inconsistency of our sleeping trains of ideas; 

 and whence in our dreams we never feel the sentiment of novelty; 

 however different the ideas, which present themselves, may be from 

 the usual course of nature. 



But in our waking hours, whenever any object occurs which does 

 not accord with the usual course of nature, we immediately and un- 

 consciously exert our voluntary power, and examine it by intuitive 

 analogy, comparing it with our previous knowledge of nature. This 

 exertion of our volition excites many other ideas, and is attended 

 with pleasurable sensation; which constitutes the sentiment of novelty. 

 But when the object of novelty stimulates us so forcibly as suddenly 

 to disunite our passing trains of ideas, as if a pistol be unexpectedly 

 discharged, the emotion of surprise is experienced ; which by excit- 

 ing violent irritation and violent sensation, employs for a time the 

 whole sensorial energy, and thus dissevers the passing trains of ideas, 

 before the power of volition has time to compare them with the usual 

 phenomena of nature; but as the painful emotion of fear is then gene- 

 rally added to that of surprise, as every one experiences, who hears a 

 noise in the dark, which he cannot immediately account for; this 

 great degree of novelty, when it produces much surprise, generally 

 ceases to be pleasurable, and does not then belong to objects of taste. 



In its less degree surprise is generally agreeable, as it simply 



