Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

CONCEPTION. 83
withdraw the attention from it, the laws which regulate its operation will be most obvious to our observation, and will be
most completely discriminated from those which are characteristical of the other powers of the mind. So very different,
however, is the fact, that it is matter of common remark, that
when imagination is very lively, we are apt to ascribe to its
objects a real existence, as in the case of dreaming or of madness; and we may add, in the case of those who, in spite of
their own general belief of the absurdity of the vulgar stories
of apparitions, dare not trust themselves alone with their own
imaginations. in the dark. That imagination is in these instances attended with belief, we have all the evidence that the
nature of the thing admits of; for we feel and act in the same
manner as we should do, if we believed that the objects of our
attention were real; which is the only proof that metaphysicians produce, or can produce, of the belief which accompanies
perception.
In these cases, the fact that I wish to establish is so striking
that it has never been called in question; but in most cases, the
impression which the objects of imagination make on the mind
is so momentary, and is so immediately corrected by the surrounding objects of perception, that it has not time to influence
our conduct. Hence we are apt to conclude, on a superficial
view, that imagination is attended with no belief; and the conclusion is surely just in most cases, if by belief we mean a permanent conviction which influences our conduct. But if the
word be used in the strict logical sense, I am inclined to think,
after the most careful attention to what I experience in myself,
that the exercise both of conception and imagination is always
accompanied with a belief that their objects exist.*
* One of the arguments which I have stated, in opposition to the common doctrine concerning imagination, appears to me to be authorized, in
some measure, by the following reasoning of Dr. Reid's on a different subject. In considering those sudden bursts of passion, which lead us to
wreak our vengeance upon inanimate objects, he endeavors to show, that
we have, in such cases, a momentary belief that the object is alive. "I
confess," says he, "it seems to be impossible, that there should be resent