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It is with reluctance that I quit the notice of other similar cases. But to explain the laws that give rise to these illusions is one thing,-to explain the phenomena connected with them when they do occur, is another. An object of the last-mentioned kind cannot be attempted but in connexion with almost all the phenomena of the human mind. To pursue the subject, therefore, any farther, would be to make a dissertation on apparitions the absurd vehicle of a regular system of metaphysics.

But, in expressing these sentiments, I would not be mistaken. While I am merely alluding to the awkwardness of accompanying a theory of apparitions with a complete investigation of the laws of the human mind, I am very far from underrating any well-recorded phenomena of this kind, although they should not be immediately connected with the morbid origin of such illusions. It is, indeed, one of the leading objects of this dissertation to prove, that they are of the greatest importance in explaining the laws of the human mind, as they occur in health, and as they are modified by disease.

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PART VI.

SUMMARY OF THE COMPARATIVE DEGREES OF FAINTNESS, VIVIDNESS, OR INTENSITY SUBSISTING BETWEEN SENSATIONS AND IDEAS, DURING THEIR VARIOUS EXCITEMENTS AND DEPRESSIONS.

PART VI.

INTRODUCTION.

SUMMARY OF THE COMPARATIVE DEGREES OF FAINTNESS, VIVIDNESS, OR INTENSITY SUBSISTING BETWEEN SENSATIONS AND IDEAS, DURING THEIR VARIOUS EXCITEMENTS AND DEPRESSIONS.

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My last object is, for the sake of more complete elucidation, to give a summary of those phenomena relative to consciousness, which are manifested during the excitements and depressions to which the feelings of the mind are constantly subject.

The success of this investigation, however, must essentially depend upon a full statement of the proportional difference which subsists between sensations and ideas during their various transitions from faintness to intensity, or from intensity to faintness. But it is almost unnecessary to add, regarding a physiological inquiry of this kind, that it is a problem which can never be satisfactorily accomplished: yet if, after all, for the mere sake of greater perspicuity, I should be induced to attempt a sort of tabular view of the various degrees of vividness to which our mental feelings are liable, it can have no other claim to re

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