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diminished, if the agreeable ideas and feelings which children are so apt to connect with events and with situations which depend on the caprice of fortune, were firmly associated in their apprehensions with the duties of their stations, with the pursuits of science, and with those beauties of nature which are open to all.

These observations coincide nearly with the ancient Stoical doctrine concerning the influence of imagination1 on morals,— a subject on which many important remarks (though expressed in a form different from that which modern philosophers have introduced, and, perhaps, not altogether so precise and accurate) are to be found in the Discourses of Epictetus, and in the Meditations of Antoninus.2 This doctrine of the Stoical school, Dr. Akenside has in view in the following passage:—

1

"Action treads the path

In which Opinion says he follows good,
Or flies from evil; and Opinion gives
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by fancy, lovely or deform'd:
Thus her report can never there be true,
Where fancy cheats the intellectual eye
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man, who at the sound of death

Sees ghastly shapes of terror conjur'd up,

And black before him: nought but death-bed groans

And fearful prayers, and plunging from the brink

Of light and being, down the gloomy air,

An unknown depth? Alas! in such a mind,

If no bright forms of excellence attend

The image of his country; nor the pomp
Of sacred senates, nor the guardian voice
Of justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes
The conscious bosom with a patriot's flame:
Will not Opinion tell him, that to die,

According to the use which I make of the words Imagination and Association, in this work, their effects are obviously distinguishable. I have thought it proper, however, to illustrate the dif ference between them a little more fully in Note R.

2 See what Epictetus has remarked on the χρῆσις οἷα δεῖ φαντασιῶν.—Arrian, 1. i. c. 12. Οἷα ἂν πολλάκις φαντασθῆς, τοιαύτη σοι ἔσται ἡ διάνοια. βάπτεται γὰρ ὑπὸ τῶν φαντασιῶν ἡ ψυχή. βάπτι οὖν αὐτὴν, τῇ συνεχείᾳ τῶν τοιούτων φαντασιῶν· κ. τ. λ. Anton. l. v. c. 16.

Or stand the hazard, is a greater ill

Than to betray his country? And in act

Will he not choose to be a wretch and live?

Here vice begins then."1

SECT. IV.-GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SUBJECTS TREATED IN

THE FOREGOING SECTIONS OF THIS CHAPTER.

In perusing the foregoing sections of this chapter, I am aware that some of my readers may be apt to think that many of the observations which I have made, might easily be resolved into more general principles. I am also aware that, to the followers of Dr. Hartley, a similar objection will occur against all the other parts of this work; and that it will appear to them the effect of inexcusable prejudice, that I should stop short so frequently in the explanation of phenomena, when he has accounted in so satisfactory a manner, by means of the association of ideas, for all the appearances which human nature exhibits.

To this objection, I shall not feel myself much interested to reply, provided it be granted that my observations are candidly and accurately stated, so far as they reach. Supposing that in some cases I may have stopped short too soon, my speculations, although they may be censured as imperfect, cannot be considered as standing in opposition to the conclusions of more successful inquirers.

May I be allowed farther to observe, that such views of the human mind as are contained in this work, (even supposing the objection to be well founded,) are, in my opinion, indispensably necessary, in order to prepare the way for those very general and comprehensive theories concerning it, which some eminent writers of the present age have been ambitious to form ?

Concerning the merit of these theories I shall not presume to give any judgment. I shall only remark that, in all the other sciences, the progress of discovery has been gradual, from the less general to the more general laws of nature; and 1 Pleasures of Imagination, b. iii.

that it would be singular, indeed, if, in the Philosophy of the Human Mind, a science, which but a few years ago was confessedly in its infancy, and which certainly labours under many disadvantages peculiar to itself, a step should, all at once, be made to a single principle comprehending all the particular phenomena which we know.

Supposing such a theory to be completely established, it would still be proper to lead the minds of students to it by gradual steps. One of the most important uses of theory, is to give the memory a permanent hold, and a prompt command, of the particular facts which we were previously acquainted. with; and no theory can be completely understood, unless the mind be led to it nearly in the order of investigation.

It is more particularly useful, in conducting the studies of others, to familiarize their minds as completely as possible with those laws of nature for which we have the direct evidence of sense or of consciousness, before directing their inquiries to the more abstruse and refined generalizations of speculative curiosity. In natural philosophy, supposing the theory of Boscovich to be true, it would still be proper, or rather indeed absolutely necessary, to accustom students, in the first stage of their physical education, to dwell on those general physical facts which fall under our actual observation, and about which all the practical arts of life are conversant. In like manner, in the philosophy of mind, there are many general facts for which we have the direct evidence of consciousness. The words, Attention, Conception, Memory, Abstraction, Imagination, Curiosity, Ambition, Compassion, Resentment, express powers and principles of our nature, which every man may study by reflecting on his own internal operations. Words corresponding to these, are to be found in all languages, and may be considered as forming the first attempt towards a philosophical classification of intellectual and moral phenomena. Such a classification, however imperfect and indistinct, we may be assured must have some foundation in nature; and it is at least prudent, for a philosopher to keep it in view as the ground-work of his own arrangement. It not only directs our

attention to those facts in the human constitution, on which every solid theory in this branch of science must be founded; but to the facts which, in all ages, have appeared to the common sense of mankind, to be the most striking and important, and of which it ought to be the great object of theorists, not to supersede, but to facilitate the study.

There is, indeed, good reason for believing that many of the facts which our consciousness would lead us to consider, upon a superficial view, as ultimate facts, are resolvable into other principles still more general. "Long before we are capable of reflection," says Dr. Reid, "the original perceptions and notions of the mind are so mixed, compounded, and decompounded, by habits, associations, and abstractions, that it is extremely difficult for the mind to return upon its own footsteps, and trace back those operations which have employed it since it first began to think and to act." The same author remarks, that "if we could obtain a distinct and full history of all that hath passed in the mind of a child, from the beginning of life and sensation, till it grows up to the use of reason; how its infant faculties began to work, and how they brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opinions, and sentiments which we find in ourselves when we come to be capable of reflection; this would be a treasure of natural history, which would probably give more light into the human faculties, than all the systems of philosophers about them since the beginning of the world." To accomplish an analysis of these complicated phenomena into the simple and original principles of our constitution, is the great object of this branch of philosophy; but in order to succeed, it is necessary to ascertain facts before we begin to reason, and to avoid generalizing, in any instance, till we have completely secured the ground that we have gained. Such a caution, which is necessary in all the sciences, is in a more peculiar manner necessary here, where the very facts from which all our inferences must be drawn, are to be ascertained only by the most patient attention; and where almost all of them are, to a great degree, disguised, partly by the inaccuracies of popular language, and partly by the mistaken theories of philosophers.

[As the order established in the intellectual world seems to be regulated by laws perfectly analogous to those which we trace among the phenomena of the material system; and as in all our philosophical inquiries, (to whatever subject they may relate,) the progress of the mind is liable to be affected by the same tendency to a premature generalization, the following extract from an eminent chemical writer may contribute to illustrate the scope and to confirm the justness of some of the foregoing reflections.

"Within the last fifteen or twenty years, several new metals and new earths have been made known to the world. The names that support these discoveries are respectable, and the experiments decisive. If we do not give our assent to them, no single proposition in chemistry can for a moment stand. But whether all these are really simple substances, or compounds not yet resolved into their elements, is what the authors themselves cannot possibly assert; nor would it in the least diminish. the merit of their observations, if future experiments should prove them to have been mistaken as to the simplicity of these substances. This remark should not be confined to late discoveries; it may as justly be applied to those earths and metals. with which we have been long acquainted."-" In the dark ages of chemistry, the object was to rival nature; and the substance which the adepts of those days were busied to create, was universally allowed to be simple. In a more enlightened period, we have extended our inquiries, and multiplied the number of the elements. The last task will be to simplify; and, by a closer observation of nature, to learn from what small store of primitive materials all that we behold and wonder at was created."1

This analogy between the history of Chemistry and that of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, which has often struck me in contrasting the views of the alchemists with those of Lavoisier and his followers, has acquired much additional value and importance in my estimation, since I had the pleasure to

1

1 [Inquiries concerning the nature of a Metallic Substance, lately sold in Lon

don as a new Metal, under the title of Palladium, by Richard Chenevix, Esq.]

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