solidity, extension, figure,
motion, and rest; and those that almost constantly affect our
bodies, as heat and cold; and those which are the affections of all
kinds of beings, as existence, duration, and number, which almost
every object that affects our senses, every thought which employs
our minds, bring along with them;- these, I say, and the like ideas,
are seldom quite lost, whilst the mind retains any ideas at all.
7. In remembering, the mind is often active. In this secondary
perception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the ideas that are
lodged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than barely passive;
the appearance of those dormant pictures depending sometimes on the
will. The mind very often sets itself on work in search of some hidden
idea, and turns as it were the eye of the soul upon it; though
sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own accord, and
offer themselves to the understanding; and very often are roused and
tumbled out of their dark cells into open daylight, by turbulent and
tempestuous passions; our affections bringing ideas to our memory,
which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded. This further is to be
observed, concerning ideas lodged in the memory, and upon occasion
revived by the mind, that they are not only (as the word revive
imports) none of them new ones, but also that the mind takes notice of
them as of a former impression, and renews its acquaintance with them,
as with ideas it had known before.
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