A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays by Percy Bysshe Shelley
page 28 of 97 (28%)
page 28 of 97 (28%)
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belonging to, or connected with, the internal nature of man.
It is said that mind produces motion; and it might as well have been said, that motion produces mind. III--DIFFICULTY OF ANALYSING THE HUMAN MIND If it were possible that a person should give a faithful history of his being, from the earliest epochs of his recollection, a picture would be presented such as the world has never contemplated before. A mirror would be held up to all men in which they might behold their own recollections, and, in dim perspective, their shadowy hopes and fears,--all that they dare not, or that, daring and desiring, they could not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it inhabits. It is like a river whose rapid and perpetual stream flows outwards;--like one in dread who speeds through the recesses of some haunted pile, and dares not look behind. The caverns of the mind are obscure, and shadowy; or pervaded with a lustre, beautifully bright indeed, but shining not beyond their portals. If it were possible to be where we have been, vitally and indeed--if, at the moment of our presence there, we could define the results of our experience,--if the passage from sensation to reflection--from a state of passive perception to voluntary contemplation, were not so dizzying and so tumultuous, this attempt would be less difficult. IV--HOW THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE CARRIED ON Most of the errors of philosophers have arisen from considering the human being in a point of view too detailed and circumscribed |
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