On the Improvement of the Understanding

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Afterwards, when we come to speak of fiction that is concerned with essences, it will be evident that fiction never creates or furnishes the mind with anything new; only such things as are already in the brain or imagination are recalled to the memory, when the attention is directed to them confusedly and all at once. For instance, we have remembrance of spoken words and of a tree; when the mind directs itself to them confusedly, it forms the notion of a tree speaking. The same may be said of existence, especially when it is conceived quite generally as an entity; it is then readily applied to all things occurring together in the memory. This is specially worthy of remark. [B.S.]