JB_126_186.xml

Title: [15 Oct r 1809 + '.2. Continued Parl]

Description: 15 Oct r 1809 + '.2. Continued

Parl y Reform

{Ch.}1. Explan

{'.}/Ch./2. Influence on understanding

Instruments of fascination

11

1

9

Influence the deceptitious[?] viz. by instruments of fascination is still influences of understanding on understanding ends[?]

through the medium of the imagination

Instruments[?] of fascination[?] chiefly [...?] an indication of peculiar qualities moral or intellectual.

In virtue of the well known principle of association - of the faculty that any two ideas that on former occasions have been present together in the mind, have of introducing each other on subsequent occasions, the imagination is apt to be wrought upon, and frequently with great force, by sensible objects of different classes, and more particularly by visible ones. In so far as the influence thus exerted on it by these objects is regarded as excessive, or as operating in a wrong direction, causing /so as to cause or tend to cause/ the imagination to lead the judgment into wrong conclusions, the objects which act in this manner on the imagination may be termed instruments of fascination.

To this head belong the several sensible material symbols by which in almost all countries the different classes and ranks and classes of men have come to be distinguished: in England the crown and sceptre of the King, the coronet of the Peer the star of the Knight, the uniform of the military officer, the robes and mass of artificial hair of the Judge and the Advocate - and so forth

It is only indeed in so far as the influence they respectively have on the imagination and through the medium of the imagination on the judgment, has the effect of giving to the authority of their several /respective/ [...?] and liveries more weight in the scale of reasoning /argumentation/ than properly belongs to it, than any such appellations /name[?]/ /appellatives/ as fascination, instruments of fascination can, with propriety, be respectively applicable to them.

JB_126_181.xml

Title: [13 Oct r. 1809 Parl y Reform]

Description: 13 Oct r. 1809

Parl y Reform

B.II. Influence

Ch.1. Explanations

'.2. Influence on understanding

6

3

3. Authority as a sort of circumstantial evidence

4. Instruments of fascination

{'.2. In the understanding /intellectual part of the mental frame/ are two distinguishable faculties the judgment or the imagination to either of which the action of influence is capable of being directed: or perhaps it may be more correct to say that when /whenever/ mind /the understanding/ is acted upon by the influence of mind, it is in both cases on the judgment that the influence is exerted, but that the influence so exerted may have applied itself to the judgment either immediately, or through the medium of the imagination.}

Whether the instrument applied be of the logical case, or of the rhetorical case, no influence can it have /exert/ on the understanding but through the medium, and as it were by the presentation of some motive. This motive will commonly be either of the nature of hope, i.e eventual expectation of good, or of the nature of fear, i.e. eventual expectation of evil: and forasmuch as, in proportion to /respect of/ the magnitude of the evil indicated as eventually about to have place, the fear exerted or endeavoured to be exerted, how calm and un-impassioned and logical soever may be the cast /complexion/ of the argument employed, may rise to any pitch, so accordingly it is not merely and exclusively by arguments of the rhetorical cast, but sometimes even by arguments of the purely logical cast, that this or that passion may come to be exerted[?], and the strength of the motive indicated /brought to view/ /put in action/ encreased /raised/ in consequence.

Good. i.e. either pleasure certain or contingent, or exemption from pain.

Evil: i.e. either pain, certain or contingent, or loss of pleasure. See Evidence: B.II. Motive Table: and Introd. Ch.

JB_126_185.xml

Title: [[Part in copyist's hand] 4 Nov r 1809]

Description: [Part in copyist's hand]

4 Nov r 1809

Parl. Reform

B.II. Influence

Ch.1. Explanations

'.2. Influence on understanding

10

6

In some cases the judgment - the judgment in its coolest /strongest/ and soundest state will yield itself to the force of this indirect mode of ratiocination in preference to or even in exclusion of the /any/ direct mode; or when though by relative ignorance a man is laid under an incapacity of comprehending any reasoning /argument/ of the direct kind.

In other cases, the judgment, if in a sound state will reject this mode of argumentation as improper and fallacious. And in truth though where the direct mode is as above, inapplicable, it is the only mode left, it is in a peculiar degree liable /exposed/ to be employed /applied/ to the /with/ effect and for the purpose of deception. For, through the incidence /instrumentality/ of the imagination, the influence of authority is extremely apt to be swollen to an undue /excessive/ and exaggerated pitch.