The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 · Thomas Hobbes
CHAPTER III.
1. Imagination defined. 2. Sleep and dreams defined. 3. Causes of dreams. 4. Fiction defined. 5. Phantasms defined. 6. Remembrance defined. 7. Wherein remembrance consisteth. 8. Why in a dream a man never thinks he dreams. 9. Why few things seem strange in dreams. 10. That a dream may be taken for reality and vision. [Sidenote: Imagination defined.] 1. As standing water put into motion by the stroke of a _stone_, or blast of wind, doth _not presently_ give over moving as soon as the wind ceaseth, or the stone settleth: so _neither_ doth the _effect_ cease which the _object_ hath wrought upon the _brain_, so soon as ever by turning aside of the organs the _object ceaseth_ to work; that is to say, though the _sense_ be _past_, the _image_ or _conception_ remaineth; but more _obscure_ while we are _awake_, because some _object_ or other continually _plieth_ and soliciteth our eyes, and ears, _keeping_ the mind in a _stronger_ motion, whereby the _weaker_ doth not easily _appear_. And this obscure conception is that we call _phantasy_, or _imagination_: _imagination_ being, to define it, _conception remaining, and by little and little decaying from and after the act of sense_. [Sidenote: Sleep and dreams defined.] 2. But when _present_ sense is _not_, as in _sleep_, there the _images_ remaining after sense, when there be many, as in dreams, are _not obscure_, but _strong_ and _clear_, as in sense itself. The reason is, that which obscured and made the conceptions weak, namely sense, and present _operation_ of the object, is _removed_: for _sleep_ is the _privation of the act of sense_, (the power remaining) and _dreams_ are the _imagination_ of them that _sleep_.
7. For the _manner_ by which we take notice of a conception _past_, we are to remember, that in the _definition_ of _imagination_, it is said to be a conception by _little_ and _little decaying_, or growing more _obscure_. An _obscure_ conception is that which representeth the _whole object_ together, but _none_ of the _smaller parts_ by themselves; and as _more_ or _fewer_ parts be represented, so is the conception or representation said to be _more_ or _less clear_. Seeing then the _conception_, which when it was _first_ produced by sense, was _clear_, and represented the _parts_ of the object _distinctly_; and when it cometh _again_ is _obscure_, we find _missing_ somewhat that we expected; by which we judge it _past_ and _decayed_. For example, a man that is present in a foreign _city_, seeth not only _whole_ streets, but can also distinguish particular _houses_, and _parts_ of houses; but departed thence, he cannot distinguish them so particularly in his mind as he did, some _house_ or turning escaping him; yet is this to _remember_: when _afterwards_ there escape him _more_ particulars, this is also to _remember_, but _not_ so well. In process of time, the _image_ of the city _returneth_ but as a _mass_ of building _only_, which is _almost_ to have _forgotten_ it. Seeing then remembrance is _more_ or _less_, as we find more or less _obscurity_, why may not we well think _remembrance_ to be nothing else but the _missing of parts_, which every man expecteth should succeed after they have a conception of the whole? To see at a great distance of place, and to remember at a great distance of time, is to have like conceptions of the thing: for there wanteth distinction of parts in both; the one conception being weak by operation at distance, the other by decay.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.