An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement : comprehending a concise system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind, and a history of the passions and their effects / by Alexander Crichton.

Date:: 1798

Credit: An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement : comprehending a concise system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind, and a history of the passions and their effects / by Alexander Crichton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

362/458 page 318

$pillars, or columns; a flock of fhccp, or deer $ a number of foldiers dreffed alike, are all quickly examined. The eye glides eafily from the one to the other, and no unpleafant effed: arifes in the mind in confequence of the rapid fuccefiion of reprefentations which occur. But when the objects are different from each other, and new to us, fuch as a number of foreign flowers, or pictures and ffatues, before unfeen, our attention is arrefted by each one, and it feems painiul to withdraw our fight \ from them until the eye fliall have repofcd, as it were, for a certain time on each. This obfervation is not peculiar to external objects, for our internal thoughts are fubjed: to the fame laws ; thofe ideas which are Am- ple and familiar to us, glide quickly and eafily acrofs the mind without occalioning any drain of attention, or producing any uneafinefs in their tranfit; but others arreft our attention, as 4 it were, by force, and we cannot difmifs them from our mind without a kind of effort, which is painful. If they are forced upon us in ra- pid fucceffion, they produce a great deal of mental$