ceive ourselves; for no sooner does it begin to grow languid, than it moves backward into time past. Supposing this to be granted, we expect at least that as it moves backward by the decay of its vivacity, the more that vivacity decays, it will go back the farther, until it remove quite out of sight. But here we are deceived again; for there is a certain period of this declining vivacity, when, as if it had met an elastic obstacle in its motion backward, it suddenly rebounds from the past to the future, without taking the present in its way. And now having got into the regions of futurity, we are apt to think that it has room enough to spend all its remaining vigour: but still we are deceived; for, by another sprightly bound, it mounts up into the airy region of imagination. So that ideas, in the gradual declension of their vivacity, seem to imitate the inflection of verbs in grammar. They begin with the present, and proceed in order to the preterite, the future, and the indefinite. This article of the sceptical creed is indeed so full of mystery, on whatever side we view it, that they who hold that creed are very injuriously charged with incredulity: for to me it appears to require as much faith as that of Saint Athanasius.

However, we agree with the author of the " Treatise of Human Nature" in this, [that our belief of the continuance of nature's laws is not derived from reason. It is an instinctive prescience of the operations of nature, very like to that prescience of human actions which makes us rely upon the testimony of our fellow-creatures: and as, without the latter we should be incapable of receiving information from men by language; so without the former we should be incapable of receiving the information of nature by means of experience.]

All our knowledge of nature, beyond our original perceptions, is got by experience, and consists in the interpretation of natural signs. The constancy of nature's laws connects the sign with the thing signified, and by the natural principle just now explained, we rely upon the continuance of the connexions which experience hath discovered; and thus the appearance of the sign is followed by the belief of the thing signified.

Upon this principle of our constitution, not only acquired perception, but all inductive reasoning, and all our reasoning from analogy, is grounded: and therefore, for want of another name, we shall beg leave to call it the inductive principle. It is from the force of this principle that we immediately assent to that axiom upon which all our knowledge of nature is built, that effects of the same kind must have the same cause. For effects and causes, in the operations of nature, mean nothing but signs, and the things signified by them. We perceive no proper causality or efficiency in any natural cause, but only a connexion established by the course of nature between it and what is called its

effect. Antecedently to all reasoning, we have, by our constitution, an anticipation that there is a fixed and steady course of nature; and we have an eager desire to discover this course of nature. We attend to every conjunction of things which presents itself, and expect the continuance of that conjunction. And when such a conjunction has been often observed, we conceive the things to be naturally connected, and the appearance of one, without any reasoning or reflection, carries along with it the belief of the other.

If any reader should imagine that the inductive principle may be resolved into what philosophers usually call the association of ideas, let him observe, that by this principle, natural signs are not associated with the idea only, but with the belief of the things signified. Now, this can with no propriety be called an association of ideas, unless ideas and belief be one and the same thing. A child has found the prick of a pin conjoined with pain, hence he believes, and knows, that these things are naturally connected; he knows that the one will always follow the other. If any man will call this only an association of ideas, I dispute not about words, but I think he speaks very improperly. For if we express it in plain English, it is a prescience that things which he hath found conjoined in time past, will be conjoined in time to come. And this prescience is not the effect of reasoning, but of an original principle of human nature, which I have called the inductive principle.

This principle, like that of credulity, is unlimited in infancy, and gradually restrained and regulated, as we grow up. It leads us often into mistakes, but is of infinite advantage upon the whole. By it the child once burnt shuns the fire; by it, he likewise runs away from the surgeon, by whom he was inoculated. It is better that he should do the last than that he should not do the first.

But the mistakes we are led into by these two natural principles are of a different kind. Men sometimes lead us into mistakes, when we perfectly understand their language, by speaking lies. But nature never misleads us in this way: her language is always true; and it is only by misinterpreting it that we fall into error. There must be many accidental conjunctions of things, as well as natural connexions; and the former are apt to be mistaken for the latter. Thus, in the instance above mentioned, the child connected the pain of inoculation with the surgeon; whereas it was really connected with the incision only. Philosophers, and men of science, are not exempted from such mistakes; indeed all false 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, wrote 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 connexions 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 phenomena 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 connexions: 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 connexions.

From the time that children begin to use their hands, nature directs them to handle every thing 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 philosophers, 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 any thing 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 Balearides 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 arching.

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 artizan, or a well-bred 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 Esquimaux, 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 reverence.

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.