By the term impression, then, I
mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel,
or love, or hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are
distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of
which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations
or movements above mentioned.
13. Nothing, at first view, may seem more unbounded than the thought
of man, which not only escapes all human power and authority, but is
not even restrained within the limits of nature and reality. To form
monsters, and join incongruous shapes and appearances, costs the
imagination no more trouble than to conceive the most natural and
familiar objects. And while the body is confined to one planet,
along which it creeps with pain and difficulty; the thought can in
an instant transport us into the most distant regions of the universe;
or even beyond the universe, into the unbounded chaos, where nature is
supposed to lie in total confusion. What never was seen, or heard
of, may yet be conceived; nor is any thing beyond the power of
thought, except what implies an absolute contradiction.
But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we
shall find, upon a nearer examination, that it is really confined
within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the
mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding,
transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by
the senses and experience.
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