Matter cannot become non-existent, but
the imagination can and does become so. Matter therefore is the reality
and the imagination a nonentity, an unsubstantial idea; or an
imagination only.' [52:1]
The anonymous writer of the passages here given within inverted commas
clearly draws the line of demarcation between the real and the unreal.
His remarks on imagination are specially important. Theologians do not
seem to be aware that imagination is a modification of mind, and mind
itself a modification of sensibility--no sensations--no thought--no
life. Though awkwardly expressed, there is truth in the dogma of
Gassendi--_ideas are only transformed sensations._ All attempts to
conceive sensibility without organs of sense are vain. As profitably
might we labour to think of motion where nothing exists to be moved, as
sensibility where there is no organ of sense. We often see organs void
of sensibility, but who ever saw, or who can imagine sensibility
independent of organs? Pantheists and other Divinitarians write about
mind as if it were an existence; nay, they claim, for it the first place
among existences, according to 'mere matter' the second.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109