Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and WillHaven, Joseph
Philosophy
Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will
Haven, Joseph
Psychology
Sometimes, however, a more than usual vividness of conception will make
up for the want of this frequent coëxistence. When, for any reason,
as excited feeling, or extraordinary interest in what we perceive,
we grasp with peculiar clearness and force the idea presented, this
vividness of mental conception will, of itself, insure the remembrance
of the object contemplated. A man, on trial for his life, will be
likely to recollect the faces and tones of each of the different
witnesses on the stand, and the different judges and advocates, even if
he never sees them afterward.
We all know, also, that the lapse of time weakens the impression of any
object or event upon the mind, and so lessens the probability of its
recurrence to the thoughts. We more readily recall places and objects
seen in a recent tour, than those seen a year ago. The exclusiveness
of the connection is also an important circumstance. An air of music,
which I have heard played or sung only on one occasion, and by one
musician only, is much more likely, when heard again, to bring to mind
the former player, than if it had also been associated with other
occasions and other performers. Much depends, moreover, on native
differences of temperament, on the habitual joyousness, or habitual
gloom, which may pervade the spirits, on the lights and shadows which
passing events may cast, in quick succession, on the mind, as good or
bad news, the arrival of a friend, the failure of an enterprise, a
slight derangement of any of the bodily functions, or even the state
of the atmosphere. All these circumstances have much to do with the
question, whether one conception or another shall be awakened in the
mind by any object presented to its thoughts.
_These Laws distinguished as Objective and Subjective._--It will be
observed that the primary laws of suggestion, so called, are such as
arise from the relations which our thoughts sustain to each other,
while the secondary are such as arise from the relations which they
sustain to ourselves, the thinking subjects. Hence the former have been
called _objective_, the latter, _subjective_ laws.
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