258 PSYCHOLOGY. 



We are very apt to go .back into the same state, [as in dreaming or 

 childhood] when there is a slight tendency to delirium ; it may indeed 

 be one of its first symptoms : [also when the] brain is slightly dis- 

 turbed, as by a fit of gout, <fcc. But as we become used to see 

 objects in the mind's eye, and to connect these objects together so 

 as to draw conclusions, we lose the strong impression of the object 

 on the mind ; we hardly know it made an impression on the mind. 

 "We can connect imaginary objects, almost without seeing them, in 

 the mind ; just as we can work in the end at any handicraft, almost 

 without seeing or hearing what we are doing. When we begin this, 

 every object — every connexion of that object — is a fixed and deter- 

 mined one in the mind ; and the hand is obliged to be directed in every 

 movement by the mind ; but, at last, the hand seems to leave the mind, 

 and appears almost to go on of itself. 



It is the same with the mind when it reasons : at first every object 

 in the mind, not immediately an object of sensation, is almost realized, 

 and seems to be of consequence ; but as these objects become familiar, 

 the impression is slight ; and the acts of thinking and reasoning are 

 done with so much ease, that the same mind is hardly conscious of 

 them ; for without being first conscious of a thing no remembrance of 

 it can exist in the mind. 



In many persons the mind hardly ever loses the susceptibility of a 

 lively impression, and therefore they conceive such to be more than 

 they really are : and I believe that such as have a lively imagination 

 move quickly from object to object. Tbis I believe to be a state of half 

 delirium : I have felt this when much affected. Whatever I conceived 

 in my mind became, at such a time, almost a reality. 



Simple affections of the mind are those that are not immediately 

 connected with any one particular action in the body, and which pro- 

 bably affect all actions alike ; except there be one part [of the body], or 

 the actions of some one part, more readily affected than other parts 

 by such simple affections of the mind ; which I can readily conceive to 

 happen, and, indeed, which I know to be true. Mrs. Hutchins, for 

 instance, was never much affected in her mind, but she had a purging. 

 Other persons have this or that action increased by affections of the 

 mind, but not more so by one than by another affection : such actions 

 are only more readily excited by states of the mind than those of other 

 parts of the body. But when a state of mind becomes immediately 

 connected with an action, and the state of mind is in some degree 

 formed upon the result of that action, there the mind will hardly allow 

 that action to take place. 



A man who is condemned to die next morning may so far make up 



