Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 1 - Institutes of Metaphysic (1875 ed.).djvu/332

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304
INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC.

PROP. XII.————

We are, in the first instance (in presentation), so much more forcibly impressed by the presence to the mind of the things, than we are by the presence to the mind of itself, that, in the second instance (in representation), we are much more impressed by the presence to the mind of the images of the things than we are by the presence to the mind of the thought of the self, which was apprehended along with the things whose images we are now contemplating.

Illustration.5. For example; the man who may have made a tour, during last summer, through the Highlands of Scotland, was much more forcibly impressed by the charms of the scenery through which he passed than he was by the presence of himself whom, however, he apprehended (faintly it may be) at every turn, and in continual concomitance with all that he beheld:—so subsequently, when he recalls to mind his former tour, his imagination brings before him ideal pictures of these scenes without bringing before him, by any means, so forcibly—indeed, without appearing to bring before him at all, that former self, which was apprehended in constant and necessary association with every one of them.

6. There cannot be a doubt that this illustration expresses correctly the state of the fact; but just as little can there be a doubt that, in thinking or