g._ the white or cold object. If there is no external cause, then
the supposed object of the impression was a "phantasm," such as a
figure in a dream, or the Furies whom Orestes sees in his frenzy.
How then was the impression which had reality behind it to be
distinguished from that which had not? "By the feel" is all that the
Stoics really had to say in answer to this question. Just as Hume
made the difference between sense-impressions and ideas to lie in the
greater vividness of the former, so did they; only Hume saw no
necessity to go beyond the impression, whereas the Stoics did.
Certain impressions, they maintained, carried with them an
irresistible conviction of their own reality, and this, not merely in
the sense that they existed; but also that they were referable to an
external cause. These were called "gripping phantasies." Such a
phantasy did not need proof of its own existence, or of that of its
object. It possessed self-evidence. Its occurrence was attended with
yielding and assent on the part of the soul.
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