mere lively feelings harmonizing with certain conceptions, produce in vivifying those conceptions with which they harmonize, should be produced, in some degree by our conceptions. When, for example, by the classical studies of our early years, our minds have become almost as well acquainted with the warriors of Greece and Troy, as with the warriors of our own time, and the gates and towers of Ilium seem, as it were, to be present to our very eyes,-if we strive to think of the Troad, in its present state of desolation, it is scarcely possible for us to conceive it as it is. Our livelier conception of the past diffuses itself in some measure over our conception of the present scene; and, notwithstanding all the information which we have received, and the full credit which we give to the veracity of the travellers from whose report we receive it, we still, when we think of the scene, imagine on it at least some vestiges of past grandeur existing, with a sort of shadowy reality. If we were on the very spot, our eye would still look in vain for these, as if the monuments that are present to our thought, when these, too, as feelings, are comparatively lively, in diffusing their own liveliness over the fainter conceptions that may harmoniously mingle with them, were necessarily to be as lasting as that remembrance of them, which is never to fade; and there can be no question that, even now, when so many ages have intervened, and when our knowledge of the state of the country admits not of the slightest doubt, we should feel, from moment to moment, some portion of the expectation, and, in no slight degree, the disappointment also, which Cæsar must have felt, in that visit to the ancient seat of his fabled ancestors, of which the Poet of Pharsalia has given. so picturesque a narrative. "Circuit exustæ nomen memorabile Troja, Pharsalia, lib. ix. v. 964-979. The difficulty which we feel in this case, in imagining the absolute desolation of the Troad, arises from the greater vividness of our conception of ancient Troy, than of our conception of the scene which the same spot now presents,-a vividness which almost incessantly mingles the more lively with the fainter conceptions, in spite of our effort to separate them. Our calm belief attends the latter of these conceptions; but there is an illusion of reality attached to the greater vividness of the former, which almost every moment mingling with the other; though it is, every other moment, overcome by the opposite belief, which is too strong to be wholly subdued. This constant mingling and separation of the two, forms that feeling of perplexity and effort of which we are conscious, in attempting to consider, for any length of time, the scene as it truly is, and as we truly believe it to be. To lessen this feeling of effort, as if by a more ready transition, nothing is so effectual as the conception of that state of decay which is intermediate between grandeur and absolute desolation. Rome, thus in ruins is easily conceived by us; for the ruins, in their magnificent decay, are themselves a vivid picture of that grandeur of which we have been accustomed to think. But Rome, if it had no monument of art remaining, and had only its seven naked hills to mark its ancient site, scarcely could be conceived by us, for a few moments in succession; its former grandeur rising on our remembrance, without any intermediate conception into which it might softly fade; and mingling, therefore, its own entire reality, as vividly conceived by us, with the fainter conceptions of that bare soil on which all its miracles of splendour arose. This influence of our mere conceptions, however, even when comparatively vivid, though illustrating by analogy the influence of perception, is still, as might be supposed, far inferior to the influence of that of actual perception, which I con * Pope's Epistle to Addison, on his Medals, v. 1—4 and 15—16. sider as diffusing its felt reality to the associate conceptions that blend and harmonize with it. With respect to the more important theory of this influence, I may remark, that even though the perception of the kindred harmonizing object were not to operate positively, by blending the feelings of its own reality with the conceptions that mingle with it, its negative influence would still be very powerful. It would at least tend, by occupying our perception with a harmonizing object, to diminish the impressions produced by other objects,-impressions which, not harmonizing with the particular associate ideas, would at once break the illusion which gives substance and colouring to their shadowy forms. It is, indeed, this inconsistency of our perceptions with our ideas of suggestion, which in our waking hours, in almost every instance, prevents that beljef of the reality of the objects of our imagination, which otherwise we should be disposed to entertain. Though no other effect, therefore, were allowed to be produced by a perception which interests us, and which itself harmonizes with the trains of thought suggested by it, its negative influence would still be very powerful. It would be, in a slight degree, like that of sleep, which excludes, or nearly excludes all sensation, and allows the trains of ideas which pass through the mind,-the hills and lakes, perhaps, and pastimes and friends of our youth,—to assume, for the time, an impression of actual reality, as if present with us once more. In many of these cases, in which the perception of new, or long-lost objects, gives warmth and animation to our trains of thought, there is another circumstance which must have considerable influence. An object, that is daily before our eyes, becomes associated with innumerable ideas, which have no peculiar harmony or agreement with each other; and though it may suggest these variously, at different times, it is still apt to mingle some of them together, especially if it occupy the attention for any length of time. A memorial which we have received from a friend, for example, must in a very short time, if it remain in our possession, be associated with many events and feelings that have no relation to our friend. These, as more recent, may become of readier suggestion, in conformity with that secondary law which I stated to you; and, at last, by mingling in the suggestion many irrelative remembrances, cannot fail to weaken more and more the interest which the primary, and more tender image, would otherwise afford. But an object newly discovered, such as any unexpected relic of a long lost friend, presents the instant image of him to our mind, and presents it unmixed with other concep tions, that could not have coexisted with it, without weakening its particular impression. There is yet another circumstance which I conceive must be taken into account, in every such case of unexpected discovery: This is the influence of the feeling of astonishment itself. In common circumstances, for which we are prepared, we readily, and almost unconsciously, exercise a self-command, which keeps down any violent emotion. But, when we are struck with new and unexpected circumstances, this self-command is often completely suspended; and we yield to the first emotion that arises, however inconsistent it may be with the general character of our mind. The sudden appearance of a foe in ambush, spreads terror to the breasts of those who would have marched undaunted in the open field, in the face of any danger that could have been opposed to them. It is probable, therefore, that when, in the instance quoted to you yesterday, the crew of Captain King's ship melted into tears on discovering, in a remote and barbarous country, a pewter spoon stamped with the word "London," it was partly under the influence of the sudden astonishment which they must have felt, an astonishment which, if it had arisen from circumstances of a different kind, might perhaps have excited a panic of terror, as it then excited, what, in relation to the rugged sternness of a ship's company; might almost be considered as a sort of panic of tender emotion. I have already instanced, as illustrative of the diffusion of the felt reality of a perception over the coexisting imagery of our internal thought, the terrors of the superstitious, to whom the wild moanings of the wind, and the shadowy forms seen in the obscurity of twilight, realize, for the moment, the voices and the spectral shapes which their fancy has readily mingled with them. I might show in like manner, various other instances, since the whole field of mind seems to me to present examples of this species of illusive combination supposed by me, in which the felt reality of something truly existing, is diffused over images of unexisting things. There is scarcely one of our moral affections which it may not, as I conceive, augment or variously modify, as in an after-part of the Course, I shall have frequent opportunities of pointing out to you. In the case of jealousy, for example,-to hint merely at present what is afterwards to be more fully developed,-what undue importance does the slighest fact, that harmonizes with the suspicions previously entertained, give to those very suspicions in the minds of persons, whose better judgment, if free from the influence of that gloomy passion, could not have failed to discover the futility of the very circumstances to which they attach so much importance ;-the felt truth of the single fact observed communicating, as I conceive, for the time, to the whole coexisting and blending and harmonizing images of suspicion, that reality which it alone possessed. Who is there, in like manner, who must not frequently have obser ved the influence of a single slight success, in vivifying to the sanguine their most extravagant hopes? the reality of this one happy fact giving instantly a sort of obscure reality even to those extravagant conceptions which are all considered together with the realized wish, as parts of one great whole. Slight as these hints are, they may serve, at least for the present, to give you some notion of the extensive applicability of a principle, which is, in truth, as wide as the wide variety of feelings that may relate to an imaginary object. These observations on the influence which objects of perception have, by their permanence, as well as by their reality, in giving additional liveliness to our associate feelings, lead me to remark a property of the suggesting principle, which, however much neglected, seems to me, in the various applications that may be made of it, of the greatest importance, since, without it, it is impossible to explain many of the most striking phenomena of thought. We are so much accustomed to talk of the successions of our ideas, of the trains of our ideas, of the current of our thought; and to use so many other phrases of mere succession, to the exclusion of all notions of coexistence, in speaking of the modifications of the principle of suggestion, that, by the habitual use of these terms, we are led to think of our ideas as consecutive only, and to suppose that because there is truly a certain series of states of the mind in regular progression, the state of mind at one moment must be so different from the state of mind of the moment preceding, that one idea must always fade as a new one arises. That the sequence may sometimes be thus exclusive in the very moment, of all that preceded the particular suggestion, I do not deny, though there are many circumstances which lead me to believe, that, if this ever occur, it is at least far from being the general case. Thus, to take an instance in some degree similar to those which we have before considered,-when, at a distance from home, and after an interval of years, we listen to any simple song with which the remembrance of a friend of our youth is connected, how many circumstances not merely rise again, but rush upon us together? The friend himself,-the scene where we last sat and listened to him,-the domestic circle that listened with us,--a thousand circumstances of that particular period, which had perhaps escaped us, are again present to |
