objects of our perceptions are in all cases before us But we may form conceptions of them; they may be recalled and exist in the "mind's eye," however remote they may be in fact, both in time and place. Accordingly, these mental states are distinct from every other; they have their specific or characteristic nature and traits; and, in various points of view, are unquestionably deserving of especial attention. Nevertheless, it will not be necessary particularly to delay upon them in this place. In their natural or ordinary form they will generally be found to have a place in treatises on Mental Philosophy, where they are sufficiently explained. It will answer our purpose to refer to a single trait more. It is this. These states of mind are susceptible of variations in their degree of strength or vividness; and the consequence is, that they sometimes assume modifications which, especially in the form of INORDINATELY EXCITED or DISORDERED CONCEPTIONS, very properly have a place in a treatise on Disordered Mental Action.

§ 62. There may be Disordered Conceptions connected with the Action of all the Senses.

There may be conceptions based upon the antecedent operation of any or of all the senses. There may be conceptions of smell, of taste, of sounds, of touch, as well as of sight. The facts which we have already found it necessary to introduce, in connexion with the disordered action of sensation and perception, show this to be the case. Conceptions of sound may be so vivid as to affect our belief, and

thus, without the least affection of the auditory nerve, convert the mere semblance of audition into a virtual reality. In other cases, the conception, even when less excited, may call into action, in virtue of the sympathetic connexion between the mind and body, the diseased organ, and thus produce essentially the same result, when there is in neither case any external cause of sound. And the same of other cases of sensation and perception depending upon other organs. In fact, the present subject has already been in part, and necessarily, anticipated. And this being the case, we shall feel ourselves more at liberty to confine our remarks here, as we propose to do, to disordered conceptions of Sight. These, in consequence of the great importance of the visual organ, and the frequency of the deceptions connected with it, claim especial attention.

§ 63. Of the less permanent Excited Conceptions of Sight.

There are conceptions of sight (disordered, perhaps, in the sense of being inordinately excited) which are not permanent, but have merely a mo mentary existence. (I.) These are noticed, in the first place, in children, in whom the conceptive or imaginative power, so far as it is employed in giving existence to creations that have outline and form, is generally more active than in later life. Children,

it is well known, are almost constantly projecting their inward conceptions into outward space, and erecting the fanciful creations of the mind amid the realities and forms of matter, beholding houses, men,

towers, flocks of sheep, clusters of trees, and varieties of landscape in the changing clouds, in the wreathed and driven snow, in the fairy work of frost, and in the embers and flickering flames of the hearth. This, at least, was the experience of the early life of Cowper, who has made it the subject of a fine passage in the poem of "The Task :"

"Me oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild,

Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,
Trees, churches, and strange visages express'd
In the red cinders, while, with poring eye,
I gazed, myself creating what I saw."

Beattie too, after the termination of a winter's storm, places his young minstrel on the shores of the Atlantic, to view the heavy clouds that skirt the distant horizon:

་།

"Where, mid the changeful scenery ever new,
Fancy a thousand wondrous forms descries,
More wildly great than ever pencil drew,

Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size,
And glittering cliffs on cliffs, and fiery ramparts rise

II. Again, excited conceptions which are not permanent are frequently called into existence in connexion with some anxiety and grief of mind, or some other modification of mental excitement. A person, for instance, standing on the seashore, and anxiously expecting the approach of his vessel, will sometimes see the image of it, and will be certain, for the moment, that he has the object of his anticipations in view, although, in truth, there is no vessel in sight. That is to say, the conception, idea, or image of the vessel, which it is evidently in the power of every one to form who has previously seen one,

is rendered so intense by feelings of anxiety as to be the same in effect as if the real object were present, and the figure of it were actually pictured on the retina. It is in connexion with this view that we may probably explain a remark in the narrative of Mrs. Howe's captivity, who in 1775 was taken prisoner, together with her seven children, by the St. Francois Indians. In the course of her captivity, she was at a certain time informed by the Indians that two of her children were no more; one having died a natural death, and the other being knocked on the head. "I did not utter many words" (says the mother), "but my heart was sorely pained within me, and my mind exceedingly troubled with strange and awful ideas [meaning conceptions or images]. I often imagined, for instance, that 1 plainly saw the naked carcasses of my children hanging upon the limbs of trees, as the Indians are wont to hang the raw hides of those beasts which they take in hunting."

§ 64. The Conceptive Power may be placed in a wrong position by habit.

The conceptive power, by the aid of which we have the internal or mental recognition of sensible objects which are not present, may, like the other powers, be greatly strengthened. A person, for instance, who has been accustomed to drawing, retains a much more perfect notion of a building, landscape, or other visible object than one who has not. A portrait painter, or any person who has been in the practice of drawing such sketches, can trace the

outlines of the human form with very great ease; it requires hardly more effort from them than to write their names. This increase of conceptive power

is far from always being advantageous. On the contrary, it may sometimes be carried so far as to affect the mind in other respects very unfavourably. The faculty may be made to possess an exaggerated intensity of action, resulting in its interference with the due exercise of other parts of the mind. "We read" (says Dr. Conolly), "that when Sir Joshua Reynolds, after being many hours occupied in painting, walked out into the streets, the lamp-posts seemed to him to be trees, and the men and women moving shrubs."

There are persons, who are entirely convinced of the folly of the popular belief of ghosts and other nightly apparitions, but who cannot be persuaded to sleep in a room alone, nor go alone into a room in the dark. This is owing to the fact of their having early formed conceptions of invisible and unearthly beings; conceptions which have gradually been rendered more vivid and intense by repetition. Accordingly, when they happen out at night, their minds are employed in giving existence to such imaginary beings; and their ideas of them are so vivid as to control their belief; and, consequently, they are the subjects, at such times, of a considerable degree of disquiet and even terror.

"It was my misfortune" (says Dr. Priestly) “to have the idea of darkness, and the ideas of invisible malignant spirits and apparitions, very closely connected in my infancy; and to this day, notwithstand