is sensible; therefore the light of the Sun being predominant,
we are not affected with the action of the starrs.
And any object being removed from our eyes, though
the impression it made in us remain; yet other objects
more present succeeding, and working on us, the Imagination
of the past is obscured, and made weak; as the voyce
of a man is in the noyse of the day. From whence
it followeth, that the longer the time is, after the
sight, or Sense of any object, the weaker is the Imagination.
For the continuall change of mans body, destroyes
in time the parts which in sense were moved: So
that the distance of time, and of place, hath one
and the same effect in us. For as at a distance
of place, that which wee look at, appears dimme, and
without distinction of the smaller parts; and as Voyces
grow weak, and inarticulate: so also after great
distance of time, our imagination of the Past is weak;
and wee lose( for example) of Cities wee have seen,
many particular Streets; and of Actions, many particular
Circumstances. This Decaying Sense, when wee
would express the thing it self, (I mean Fancy it
selfe,) wee call Imagination, as I said before; But
when we would express the Decay, and signifie that
the Sense is fading, old, and past, it is called Memory.
So that Imagination and Memory, are but one thing,
which for divers considerations hath divers names.
Much memory, or memory of many things, is called Experience.
Againe, Imagination being only of those things which
have been formerly perceived by Sense, either all
at once, or by parts at severall times; The former,
(which is the imagining the whole object, as it was
presented to the sense) is Simple Imagination; as when
one imagineth a man, or horse, which he hath seen
before. The other is Compounded; as when from
the sight of a man at one time, and of a horse at another,
we conceive in our mind a Centaure. So when a
man compoundeth the image of his own person, with
the image of the actions of an other man; as when
a man imagins himselfe a Hercules, or an Alexander,
(which happeneth often to them that are much taken
with reading of Romants) it is a compound imagination,
and properly but a Fiction of the mind. There
be also other Imaginations that rise in men, (though
waking) from the great impression made in sense; As
from gazing upon the Sun, the impression leaves an
image of the Sun before our eyes a long time after;
and from being long and vehemently attent upon Geometricall
Figures, a man shall in the dark, (though awake) have
the Images of Lines, and Angles before his eyes:
which kind of Fancy hath no particular name; as being
a thing that doth not commonly fall into mens discourse.