PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL, 
associative power, do not appear to militate 
against the general truth of the above re- 
marks. 
126. The remarks we have made on the 
subject of abstraction or generalization, 
have been, in a considerable degree, sepa- 
rate from language, or at least supposing it 
not already formed. If every person was left 
to form his own classifications, language, in 
very many instances, would be of little uti- 
lity ; because the same features of resem- 
blance would not operate in the same way 
upon different individnals. But the pro- 
cess of the mind, when language is formed, 
is somewhat different ; because in this case 
it is restrained, and has not the same un- 
bounded liberty of forming its associations. 
— The mind of the child is not left to clas- 
sify objects ; but these objects are presented 
to it already classed, owing to the same 
word being used to express them ; and it is 
very interesting to observe the efforts of 
the juvenile mind in finding out some fea- 
tures of resemblance between the objects 
which bad previously been presented to 
him, and a new object presented to him 
with the same name. 
IMAGINATION OR FANCY. 
127. In the use which Mr. Stewart makes 
of the term imagination, it includes the fancy, 
and is in no respect a distinct power, as he 
himself states, but compounded of several 
others. " It includes,” he says, “ concep- 
tion or simple apprehension, which enables 
us to form a notion of those former objects 
of perception or of knowledge, out of which 
we are to make a selection ; abstraction, 
which separates the selected materials from 
the qualities and circumstances which are 
connected with them in nature ; and judg- 
ment or taste, which selects the materials 
and directs their combination. To these 
powers we may add that peculiar habit of 
association to which I formerly gave the 
name of fancy ; as it is this which presents 
to our choice all the different materials 
which are subservient to the efforts of ima- 
gination;” “ This,” he observes in another 
place, “ is the proper sense of the word, if 
imagination be the power which gives birth 
to the productions of the poet and the 
painter,” and, we may add, of genius in ge- 
neral. — We have no objection to such an 
appropriation of the term ; in the Hart- 
leyan nomenclature, however, it is used in- 
discriminately in the sense in which the 
professor seems to employ the fancy, 
128. The recurrence of ideas, says Hart* 
ley, especially visible and audible ones, in 
a vivid manner, but without any regard to 
the order observed in past facts, is ascribed 
to the power of imagination or fancy. Every 
succeeding thought is tlie result either of 
some new impression, or of an association 
with the preceding. It is impossible, in* 
deed, to attend so minutely to the succession 
of our ideas, as to distinguish and remember 
for a sufficient time the very impression or 
association which gave rise to each thought 
or conception ; but we can do tliis as far as 
it can be expected to be done, and in so 
great a variety of instances, that we have full 
right to infer it in all. — A reverie differs 
from imagination only in this, that the per- 
son being more aftentive to his own 
thoughts, and less disturbed by external 
objects, more of his trains of ideas are de- 
ducible from association, and fewer from 
new impressions, — It is to observed, how- 
ever, that in all cases of imagination and 
reverie, the train and complexion of the 
thoughts depend, in part, upon the then 
state of body or mind. A pleasurable or 
painfid state of the stomach, for instance, 
joy or grief, will make all the thoughts tend 
to tlie same cast. “ Objects and circum- 
stances may be so disposed,” says Mr, 
Grant, (in a very valuable paper on Re- 
verie, for which see “ Manchester Memoirs,” 
vol. i. or “ Nicholson’s Journal,” vol. xv.) 
“ as to give to reverie a pleasing or pen- 
sive, a refined or an elegant direction. I be- 
lieve it is unnecessary to ask whether the 
mind will not be more apt to depart from 
serious meditation in a gaudy chapel, than 
in the solemn gloom of a cathedral ? It i$ 
remarked by an eminent medical writer, 
that light, introduced by opening the win- 
dow-shutters, gave a gayer cast to the ideas 
of a patient who laboured under reverie. 
The study of Ta.sso was a Gothic apart- 
ment, and he fancied his familiar spirit to 
converse with him through a window of 
stained glass.” 
129. We might very easily enlarge on this 
faculty, and particularly on the regulation 
of it, as affecting the character and the hap- 
piness ; but we suppose that none of our 
readers, who are much interested in the 
pursuits of mental philosophy, are without 
access to Dugald Stewart’s “ Elements,” 
in the last chapter of which they will find 
an elegant, scientific, and highly important 
consideration of this point ; and as we have 
already gone to tlie limits of onr article, we 
must hasten to a conclusion, — Our object 
