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THE TRUTH
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nerves in perception and recollection is the same. They carry vibratory agitations to the mind. The difference is only this that in perception the stimulus originates in the outside world, but in recollection in the sensory centres themselves, under the influence of an active impulse of the will.
The reason why recollections are usually 'watery' and insipid as compared with perceptions is only this that in perception the object is there to send out a continuous stream of excitations to the senses, while recollections are evanescent. The object is further able to excite pleasurable and painful feelings in the perceiver, but memories are known to be mere memories and incapable, as such, of affording either pleasure or pain.
The groupings in the nervous matter are formed mechanically. Certain nerves at first carry the impression of the object, e.g., the undressed doll, to the mind; then others are brought into action along with them, as the process of dressing up progresses. Different groups are thus formed, which adhere together more and more firmly with each subsequent repetition. The inner terminals of the nervous filaments thus grouped together, form the keys on the operating board in the Central Office of the Mind, so that whenever one of them is pressed it will immediately set up the vibratory resonance that had characterised perception itself, and thus call up the corresponding idea in the consciousness.
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