norant: nor can they ever know any thing of what has happened in time past, is likely to happen in the time to come, or is now happening at a distance.

136. But to the power of human memory, and to the possible extent of human knowledge, we can set no bounds. And what is very remarkable, the more real knowledge we acquire, the greater is our desire of knowledge, and the greater our capacity of receiving it. In a word, we seem to be susceptible of endless improvement: which is a proof, not only of the immense superiority of our nature to that of other animals, but also that our souls are formed for endless duration.

SECTION VII.

Of Imagination.

137. I remember to have seen a lion; I can imagine a griffin or a centaur though I never saw one :-he who uses these words with understanding knows the difference between imagination and memory, though perhaps he may not be able to explain it. When we remember, we have a view to real existence and past experience: when we imagine, we contemplate a notion or idea simply as it is in itself, or as we conceive it to be, without referring it to past experience or to real existence.

Some writers limit the word imagination to the mental conception of images or things visible; and this may perhaps have been the original meaning of the word but the modern use of language will justify that more general application of the term which is here given. For it would be improper to say, that men born blind must be destitute of imagination: such men may surely invent as well as dream; it is well-known they can do both: and both invention and dreaming are referred to this faculty. Imagination employed in its more trivial exertions is often called fancy. A sublime poet is a man of vast imagination: a witty author is a person of lively fancy.

138. That we may see more particularly the nature of the faculty in question, it is proper to observe here, that all things may be divided into simple and complex. The former do not seem to consist of parts that can be separated; and such are our sensations of heat, cold, hunger, thirst, or of any particular sound, or simple colour. Complex things consist of parts, which may be separated and conceived separately: such are all bodies. Now all our simple ideas, that is, all our notions of simple objects, are derived from experience: a man must have seen colour, and light, and heard sound, and felt the pain of hunger, before he can conceive what those things are. But complex ideas, or notions of complex objects, the mind can form for itself, by supposing a number

of simple or complex notions or things combined together in one assemblage. When such complex ideas are not derived from memory, we refer them to the imagination. No man ever saw a mountain of ivory; but he, who has seen ivory and a mountain, may easily imagine the substance of the one extended to the size and shape of the other, and thus form the idea of an ivory mountain.

139. Memory suggests nothing to us but what we have really perceived; so that a being endowed with memory, but destitute of imagination, could never invent any thing: as all invention implies novelty, and that certain things or thoughts are put together which were never so put together before. Now this inventing power is ascribed, as observed already, to the imagination or fancy, and, when regulated by good sense and applied to useful purposes, is called genius. One may be learned who is not ingenious; in other words, one may have a good memory well stored with knowledge, and yet have little imagination or invention; as, on the other hand, one may be very ingenious with little learning. But genius and learning, when they meet in one person, are mutually and greatly assistant to each other; and, in the poetical art, Horace declares that either without the other can do little.

140. The succession of our thoughts is often regulated by memory; as when we go over in our

mind the particulars of a place we have seen, of a conversation we have heard, or of a book we have read. At other times, when our attention is not fixed on any one thing, a state of mind called a reverie, we may observe, that our thoughts are continually changing, so that in a little time our imagination wanders to something very different from that which we were thinking of just before. Yet if we could remember every thing that passed through our mind during this reverie, we should probably find, that there was some relation, connection, or bond of union, between those thoughts that accompanied, or came next after, one another. The relations, or bonds of union, which thus determine the mind to associate ideas, are various.

141. First, resemblance is an associating quality: that is, when we perceive, or think of, any thing, it is natural for us, at the same time, or immediately after, to think of something that is like it. When we hear a story, or see a person, we are apt to think of other similar stories or persons. Our discourse we often embellish with metaphors, allegories, and those other figures of speech, that are founded in likeness. And when any powerful passion, as anger or sorrow, takes hold of the mind, the thoughts that occur to us have generally a resemblance to that passion, and tend to encourage it.

142. Contrariety, or contrast, is another associating principle, especially when the mind is in a

disagreeable state.

heat, and wish for it.

Great cold makes us think of Hunger and thirst put us drinking. In poetry, and

in mind of eating and other works of fancy, we are sometimes pleased when we find things of opposite natures succeeding each other; when, for example, the hurry of a battle is interrupted, as in Homer it often is, with a descriptive similitude taken from still life or rural affairs; or when, in the same fable, persons appear of opposite characters, and the violent is opposed to the gentle, the cunning to the generous, and the rash to the prudent.

143. Thirdly when we think of any place which we are acquainted with, we are apt to think at the same time of the neighbouring places and persons: here the associating principle is contiguity, or nearness of situation. The sight of a house, in which we have formerly been happy or unhappy, renews the agreeable or disagreeable ideas that were formerly realised there. Hence, in part, arises that partiality which most people have for the town, province, or country, in which they passed their early years. Hence, on entering a church, even when nobody is present, a considerate mind is apt to feel some of those religious impressions which it has formerly experienced in such places and sentiments of a different nature arise, when we go into play-houses, ball-rooms, or apartments that we have seen appropriated to purposes of festivity.