As many rules of criticism depend on ideal presence, the reader, it is expected, will take some pains to form an exact notion of it, as distinguished on the one hand from real presence, and on the other from a superficial or reflective remembrance. It is distinguished from the former by the following circumstance. Ideal presence arising from an act of memory, may properly be termed _a waking dream_; because, like a dream, it vanisheth upon the first reflection of our present situation. Real presence, on the contrary, vouched by eye-sight, commands our belief, not only during the direct perception, but in reflecting afterward upon the object. And to distinguish ideal presence from the latter, I give the following illustration. Two internal acts, both of them exertions of memory, are clearly distinguishable. When I think of an event as past, without forming any image, it is barely reflecting or remembering that I was an eye-witness. But when I recall the event so distinctly as to form a complete image of it, I perceive it ideally as passing in my presence; and this ideal perception is an act of intuition, into which reflection enters not more than into an act of sight. Though ideal presence be distinguished from real presence on the one side and from reflective remembrance on the other, it is however variable without any precise limits; rising sometimes toward the former, and often sinking toward the latter. In a vigorous exertion of memory, ideal presence is extremely distinct. When a man, as in a reverie, drops himself out of his thoughts, he perceives every thing as passing before him, and hath a consciousness of presence similar to that of a spectator. There is no other difference, but that in the former the consciousness of presence is less firm and clear than in the latter. But this is seldom the case. Ideal presence is often faint, and the image so obscure as not to differ widely from reflective remembrance.