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CHAP. VII. Of the Power of the IMAGINATIVE FACULTY.
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THE Imagination is the strongest and most efficacious of all the Senses; for the Vivacity of all the others (mention’d in Sect. I. Chap. 5.) in some measure, depend upon it.
IT works upon, and affects, others as well as ourselves, and operates in the very Soul, as well as Body of Man; moving the Powers of all the Passions of the Mind.
AS it happens frequently by reason of the Similitude of things; that by seeing or imagining One to eat some sharp or sour Matter, or hearing it only mention’d, Another’s Teeth may be set on edge, and his Tongue wax tart; so by seeing One gape, Another often falls a yawning. In like manner, as the sight of any filthy Thing causeth Nauseousness; so the sight of Man’s Blood, makes many Persons fall a-swooning.
GUILLAUME de Paris writes, that he saw a Man, who at the SIGHT of a Medicine, went to Stool as oft as he pleas’d, tho’ it neither in Substance, Odour, or Taste, did affect him; but only by an Apprehension of a kind of Resemblance. Which is much the same Case of one in a Dream, who thinks he burns and is in a Fire, or as much tormented, as if he did really burn, tho’ far enough from any Substance of Fire; only because of a Resemblance apprehended by the Strength of IMAGINATION.