Page:The Prince of Abissinia - Johnson (1759) - 02.djvu/126

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116
The PRINCE of

CHAP. XLIII.
The dangerous prevalence of imagination.

"DISORDERS of intellect, answered Imlac, happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason, who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear be-

yond