reasoning in philosophy is owing to them; it is drawn from experience and analogy, as well as just reasoning, otherwise it could have no verisimilitude; but the one is an unskilful and rash, the other a just and legitimate interpretation of natural signs. If a child, or a man of common understanding, were put to interpret a book of science, written in his mother tongue, how many blunders and mistakes would he be apt to fall into? Yet he knows as much of this language as is necessary for his manner of life.

The language of Nature is the universal study; and the students are of different classes. Brutes, idiots, and children employ themselves in this study, and owe to it all their acquired perceptions. Men of common understanding make a greater progress, and learn, by a small degree of reflection, many things of which children are ignorant.

Philosophers fill up the highest form in this school, and are critics in the language of nature. All these different classes have one teacher-Experience, enlightened by the inductive principle. Take away the light of this inductive principle, and Experience is as blind as a mole: she may, indeed, feel what is present, and what immediately touches her; but she sees nothing that is either before or behind, upon the right hand or upon the left, future or past.

The rules of inductive reasoning, or of a just interpretation of Nature, as well as the fallacies by which we are apt to misinterpret her language, have been, with wonderful sagacity, delineated by the great genius of Lord Bacon: so that his "Novum Organum" may justly be called "A Grammar of the Language of Nature." It adds greatly to the merit of this work, and atones for its defects, that, at the time it was written, the world had not seen any tolerable model of inductive reasoning, from which the rules of it might be copied. The arts of poetry and eloquence were grown up to perfection when

Aristotle described them; but the art of interpreting Nature was yet in embryo when Bacon delineated its manly features and proportions. Aristotle drew his rules from the best models of those arts that have yet appeared; but the best models of inductive reasoning that have yet appeared, which I take to be the third book of the "Principia," and the "Optics," of Newton, were drawn from Bacon's rules. The purpose of all those rules, is to teach us to distinguish seeming, or apparent connections of things, in the course of nature, from such as are real.

They that are unskilful in inductive reasoning, are more apt to fall into error in their reasonings from the phænomena of nature than in their acquired perceptions; because we often reason from a few instances, and thereby are apt to mistake accidental conjunctions of things for natural connections: but that habit of passing, without reasoning, from the sign to the thing signified, which constitutes acquired perception, must be learned by many instances or experiments; and the number of experiments serves to disjoin those things which have been accidentally conjoined, as well as to confirm our belief of natural connections.

From the time that children begin to use their hands, Nature directs them to handle everything over and over, to look at it while they handle it, and to put it in various positions, and at various distances from the eye. We are apt to excuse this as a childish diversion, because they must be doing something, and have not reason to entertain themselves in a more manly way. But, if we think more justly, we shall find, that they are engaged in the most serious and important study; and, if they had all the reason of a philosopher, they could not be more properly employed. For it is this childish employment that enables them to make the proper use of their eyes. They are thereby every day acquiring habits of perception, which are of greater importance

than anything we can teach them. The original perceptions which Nature gave them are few, and insufficient for the purposes of life; and, therefore, she made them capable of acquiring many more perceptions by (habit. And, to complete her work, she hath given them an unwearied assiduity in applying to the exercises by which those perceptions are acquired.

This is the education which Nature gives to her children. And, since we have fallen upon this subject, we may add, that another part of Nature's education is, That, by the course of things, children must often exert all their muscular force, and employ all their ingenuity, in order to gratify their curiosity, and satisfy their little appetites. What they desire is only to be obtained at the expense of labour and patience, and many disappointments. By the exercise of body and mind necessary for satisfying their desires, they acquire agility, strength, and dexterity in their motions, as well as health and vigour to their constitutions; they learn patience and perseverance; they learn to bear pain without dejection, and disappointment without despondence. The education of Nature is most perfect in savages, who have no other tutor; and we see that, in the quickness of all their senses, in the agility of their motions, in the hardiness of their constitutions, and in the strength of their minds to bear hunger, thirst, pain, and disappointment, they commonly far exceed the civilized. A most ingenious writer, on this account, seems to prefer the savage life to that of society. But the education of Nature could never of itself produce a Rousseau. It is the intention of Nature that human education should be joined to her institution, in order to form the man. And she hath fitted us for human education, by the natural principles of imitation and credulity, which discover themselves almost in infancy, as well as by others which are of later growth.

When the education which we receive from men, does

not give scope to the education of Nature, it is wrong directed; it tends to hurt our faculties of perception, and to enervate both the body and mind. Nature hath her way of rearing men, as she hath of curing their diseases. The art of medicine is to follow Nature, to imitate and to assist her in the cure of diseases; and the art of education is to follow Nature, to assist and to imitate her in her way of rearing men. The ancient inhabitants of the Baleares followed Nature in the manner of teaching their children to be good archers, when they hung their dinner aloft by a thread, and left the younkers to bring it down by their skill in archery.

The education of Nature, without any more human care than is necessary to preserve life, makes a perfect savage. Human education, joined to that of Nature, may make a good citizen, a skilful artisan, or a wellbred man; but reason and reflection must superadd their tutory, in order to produce a Rousseau, a Bacon, or a Newton.

Notwithstanding the innumerable errors committed in human education, there is hardly any education so bad as to be worse than none. And I apprehend that, if even Rousseau were to choose whether to educate a son among the French, the Italians, the Chinese, or among the Eskimaux, he would not give the preference to the last.

When Reason is properly employed, she will confirm the documents of Nature, which are always true and wholesome; she will distinguish, in the documents of human education, the good from the bad, rejecting the last with modesty, and adhering to the first with rever

ence.

Most men continue all their days to be just what Nature and human education made them. Their manners, their opinions, their virtues, and their vices, are all got by habit, imitation, and instruction; and reason has little or no share in forming them,

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSION.

CONTAINING REFLECTIONS UPON THE OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS ON THIS SUBJECT.

THERE are two ways in which men may form their notions and opinions concerning the mind, and concerning its powers and operations. The first is the only way that leads to truth; but it is narrow and rugged, and few have entered upon it. The second is broad and smooth, and hath been much beaten, not only by the vulgar, but even by philosophers; it is sufficient for common life, and is well adapted to the purposes of the poet and orator: but, in philosophical disquisitions concerning the mind, it leads to error and delusion.

We may call the first of these ways, the way of reflection. When the operations of the mind are exerted, we are conscious of them; and it is in our power to attend to them; and to reflect upon them, until they become familiar objects of thought. This is the only way in which we can form just and accurate notions of those operations. But this attention and reflection is so difficult to man, surrounded on all hands by external objects which constantly solicit his attention, that it has been very little practised, even by philosophers. In the course of this inquiry, we have had many occasions to shew how little attention hath been given to the most familiar operations of the senses.

The second, and the most common way, in which men form their opinions concerning the mind and its