rationally, till the candle be removed again. For hence we may conclude, that the real objects overpower the visible train from internal causes, while the delirium is in its infancy; and that the patient relapses, as soon as he is shut up in the dark, because the visible train from internal causes overpowers that which would rise up, was the person’s nervous system in a natural state, according to the usual course of association, and the recurrent recollection of the place and circumstances in which he is situated. By degrees the visible train, from internal causes, grows so vivid, by the increase of the distemper, as even to overpower the impressions from real objects, at least frequently, and in a great degree, and so as to intermix itself with them, and to make an inconsistency in the words and actions; and thus the patient becomes quite delirious.
Persons inclining to be delirious in distempers are most apt to be so in going to sleep, and in waking from sleep; in which circumstances the visible trains are more vivid, than when we are quite awake, as has been observed above.
It casts also some light upon this subject, that tea and coffee will sometimes occasion such trains; and that they arise in our first attempts to sleep after these liquors.
As death approaches, the deliriums attending distempers abound with far more incoherencies and inconsistencies, than any other species of alienations of the mind; which may easily be conceived to be the natural result of the entire confusion and disorder which then take place in the nervous system. However, there are some cases of death, where the nervous system continues free from this confusion to the last, as far as the by-standers can judge.
When a person applies himself to any particular study, so as to fix his attention deeply on the ideas and terms belonging to it, and to be very little conversant in those of other branches of knowledge, it is commonly observed, that he becomes narrow-minded, strongly persuaded of the truth and value of many things in his own particular study, which others think doubtful or false, or of little importance, and after some time subject to low spirits, and the hypochondriacal distemper. Now all this follows from observations already made. The perpetual recurrency of particular ideas and terms makes the vibrations belonging thereto become more than ordinarily vivid, converts feeble associations into strong ones, and enhances the secondary ideas of dignity and esteem, which adhere to them, at the same time that all these things are diminished in respect of other ideas and terms that are kept out of view; and which, if they were to recur in due proportion, would oppose and correct many associations in the particular study, which are made not according to
