Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/75

 excited in me by a piece of red-hot iron striking against any part of my body, is simple, absolute, terminating in itself; not representing any thing beyond itself, nor capable of being represented by any other sensation, or communicated to any other being. The same sensation may indeed be excited in another by the same means, but this sensation does not imply any reference to, or consciousness of mine: there is no communication between my nerves, and another's brain, by means of which he can be affected with my sensations as I am myself. The only notice or perception which another can have of this sensation in me, or which I can have of a similar sensation in another, is by means of the imagination. I can form an imaginary idea of that pain as existing out of myself: but I can only feel it as a sensation when it is actually impressed on myself. Any impression made on another can neither be the cause nor object of sensation to me. The impression or idea left in my mind by this sensation, and afterwards excited, either by seeing iron in the same state, or by any other means, is properly an idea of memory. This idea necessarily refers to some previous impression in my own mind, and can only exist in consequence of that impression: it cannot be derived from any impression made on another. I do not remember the feelings of any one but myself. I may remember the objects which must have caused such feelings in others, or the outward signs of passion which accompanied them: these, however, are but the recollection of my own immediate impressions, of what I saw or heard; and I can only form an idea of the feelings themselves after they have ceased, as I must do at the time, by means of the imagination. But though we should take away all power of imagination from the human mind, my own feelings must leave behind them certain traces, or representations of them-