to denote the tendency which our thoughts have to succeed each other in a regular train; whether the connexion between them be established by custom, or arise from some other associating principle.

53. What the different circumstances are, which regulate the succession of our thoughts, it is not possible, perhaps, to enumerate completely. The following are some of the most remarkable: Resemblance, Analogy, Contrariety, Vicinity in Place, Vicinity in Time, Relation of Cause and Effect, Relation of Means and End, Relation of Premises and Conclusion. Whether some of these may not be resolvable into others, it is not very material to inquire. The most powerful of all the associating principles is undoubtedly Custom; and it is that which leads to the most important inquiries of a practical nature.

54. Among the associating principles already enumerated, there is an important distinction. The relations on which some of them are founded are obvious; and connect our thoughts together, when the attention is not directed particularly to any subject. Other relations are discovered only in consequence of efforts of meditation or study. Of the former kind are the relations of Resemblance and Analogy, of Vicinity in Time and Place; of the latter, the Relations of Cause and Effect, of Premises and Conclusion. It is owing to this distinction, that transitions, which would be highly offensive in philosophical writing, are the most pleasing of any in poetry.

55. În so far as the train of our thoughts is regulated by the laws of Association, it depends on causes, of the nature of which we are ignorant, and over which we have no direct or immediate control. At the same time, it is evident, that the will has some influence over this part of our constitution. To ascertain the extent and the limits of this influence, is a problem of equal curiosity and importance.

56. We have not a power of summoning up any particular thought, till that thought first solicit our notice. Among a crowd, however, which present themselves, we can choose and reject. We can detain a particular

thought, and thus check the train that would otherwise have taken place.

57. The indirect influence of the will over the train of our thoughts is very extensive. It is exerted chiefly in two ways: 1. By an effort of attention, we can check the spontaneous course of our ideas, and give efficacy to those associating principles which prevail in a studious and collected mind. 2. By practice, we can strengthen a particular associating principle to so great a degree, as to acquire a command over a particular class of our ideas.

58. The effect of habit, in subjecting to the will those intellectual processes, which are the foundation of wit, of poetical fancy, of invention in the arts and sciences; and, above all, its effect in forming a talent for extempore elocution, furnish striking illustrations of this last remark.

59. Of all the different parts of our constitution, there is none more interesting to the student of moral philosophy than the laws which regulate the Association of Ideas. From the intimate and almost indissoluble combinations, which we are thus led to form in infancy and in early youth, may be traced many of our speculative errors; many of our most powerful principles of action; many perversions of our moral judgment; and many of those prejudices which mislead us in the conduct of life. By means of a judicious education, this susceptibility of the infant mind might be rendered subservient not only to moral improvement, but to the enlargement and multiplication of our capacities of enjoyment.

SECTION VII.

Of Memory.

60. THE theories which attempt to account for the phenomena of Memory, by means of impressions and traces in the brain, are entirely hypothetical; and throw no light on the subject which they profess to explain.

61. This faculty appears, indeed, to depend much on the state of the body; as may be inferred from the ef

fects of intoxication, disease, and old age. A collection of facts with respect to these effects, as they are diversified in different instances, would form a valuable addition to our knowledge, and might lead to important conclusions.

62. On a superficial view of the subject, the original differences among men, in their capacities of memory, would seem to be immense. But there is reason for thinking that these differences are commonly over-rated; and that due allowances are not made for the diversity of appearance which the human mind must necessarily exhibit, in this respect; in consequence of the various walks of observation and of study, to which mankind are led, partly by natural propensity, and partly by accidental situation.

63. Independent of any inequalities in the original capacity, there are remarkable varieties of memory, which lay the foundation of important distinctions among individuals in point of intellectual character.

64. These varieties arise chiefly, from the different modes in which the constituent qualities of memory are combined in different instances. The perfection of memory is to unite Susceptibility, Retentiveness, and Readiness but such an union is rare; and any extraordinary improvement that is bestowed on one of these qualities is generally purchased at the expense of the others.

SECTION VIII.

Of Imagination.

65. THE province of Imagination is to select qualities and circumstances from a variety of different objects; and, by combining and disposing these, to form a new creation of its own. In this appropriated sense of the word, it coincides with what some authors have called Creative or Poetical Imagination.

66. This Power is not a simple faculty; but results from the combination of several different ones. The effort, for example, of the painter, in composing an ideal

landscape, implies Conception, which enables him to represent to himself those beautiful scenes in nature, out of which his selection is to be made ;-Abstraction, which separates the selected materials from the qualities and circumstances connected with them in the memory; and Judgment or Taste, which selects the materials, and directs their combination.

67. The nature and province of imagination are most clearly exemplified, in the arts which convey pleasure to the mind by new modifications and combinations of beauties originally perceived by the eye. The operations of imagination, in this particular instance, serve to illustrate the intellectual processes, by which the mind deviates from the models presented to it by experience, and forms to itself new and untried objects of pursuit, in those analogous but less palpable cases, which fall under the consideration of the moralist. It is in consequence of such processes, (which how little soever they may be attended to, are habitually passing in the thoughts of all men,) that human affairs exhibit so busy and so various a scene; tending, in one instance, to improvement, and, in another, to deeline; according as our notions of excellence and of happiness are just or errone

ous.

SECTION IX.

Of Judgment and Reasoning.

68. JUDGMENT is defined, by the writers on logic, to be an act of the mind, by which one thing is affirmed or denied of another;-a definition, which, although not unexceptionable, is as good as the nature of the subject admits of.

69. In some cases, our judgments are formed as soon as the terms of the proposition are understood: or they result so necessarily from the original constitution of the mind, that we act upon them, from our earliest infancy, without ever making them an object of reflection. In other cases, they are formed in consequence of a process of thought, consisting of different successive steps.

Hence a distinction of Evidence into intuitive and deductive.

I. Of Intuitive Evidence.

70. THE most important, if not all the different species of intuitive evidence, may be comprehended under the three following heads:

(1.) The evidence of axioms.

(2.) The evidence of consciousness.

(3.) The evidence of those fundamental laws of human belief, which form an essential part of our constitution.- -Of this class, is the evidence for our own personal identity; for the existence of the material world; for the continuance of those laws which have been found, in the course of our past experience, to regulate the succession of phenomena. Such truths no man ever thinks of stating to himself in the form of propositions ; but all our conduct, and all our reasonings, proceed on the supposition that they are admitted. The belief of them is necessary for the preservation of our animal existence; and it is accordingly coëval with the first operations of the intellect.

71. The attacks of modern sceptics have been chiefly directed against this last description of intuitive truths. They have been called Principles of Common Sense, by some late writers, who have undertaken to vindicate their authority. The conclusions of these writers are, on the whole, solid and important: but the vagueness of the expression, Common Sense, which is generally employed, in ordinary discourse, in a sense considerably different from that in which it was at first introduced into this controversy, has furnished to their opponents, the means of a specious misrepresentation of the doctrine in question, as an attempt to shelter popular prejudices from a free examination; and to institute an appeal, from the decisions of philosophy, to the voice of the multitude.

II. Of Deductive Evidence.

72. NOTWITHSTANDING the commonly received doc