12. This train, the measure of other successions. So that to me it
seems, that the constant and regular succession of ideas in a waking
man, is, as it were, the measure and standard of all other
successions. Whereof, if any one either exceeds the pace of our ideas,
as where two sounds or pains, &c., take up in their succession the
duration of but one idea; or else where any motion or succession is so
slow, as that it keeps not pace with the ideas in our minds, or the
quickness in which they take their turns, as when any one or more
ideas in their ordinary course come into our mind, between those which
are offered to the sight by the different perceptible distances of a
body in motion, or between sounds or smells following one another,-
there also the sense of a constant continued succession is lost, and
we perceive it not, but with certain gaps of rest between.
13. The mind cannot fix long on one invariable idea. If it be so,
that the ideas of our minds, whilst we have any there, do constantly
change and shift in a continual succession, it would be impossible,
may any one say, for a man to think long of any one thing. By which,
if it be meant that a man may have one self-same single idea a long
time alone in his mind, without any variation at all, I think, in
matter of fact, it is not possible.
Pages:
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258