soon as they understand it, I readily admit; In tions which we have observed in time past. It is by this general principle of our nature, that, when two things have been found connected in time past, the appearance of the one produces the belief of the other. I think the ingenious author of the "Treatise of Human Nature" first observed, That our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature cannot be founded either upon knowledge or probability: but, far from conceiv ing it to be an original principle of the mind, he endeavours to account for it from his favourite hypothesis, That belief is nothing but a certain degree of vivacity in the idea of the thing believed. I made a remark upon this curious hypothesis in the second chapter, and shall now make another. The belief which we have in perception, is a belief of the present existence of the object; that which we have in memory, is a belief of its past existence; the belief of which we are now speaking is a belief of its future existence; and in imagination there is no belief at all. Now, I would gladly know of this author, how one degree of vivacity fixes the existence of the object to the present moment; another carries it back to time past; a third, taking a contrary direction, carries it into futurity; and a fourth carries it out of existence altogether. Suppose, for instance, that I see the sun rising out of the sea: I remember to have seen him rise yesterday; I believe he will rise to-morrow near the same place; I can likewise imagine him rising in that place, without any belief at all. Now, according to this sceptical hypothesis, this perception, this memory, this foreknow The wise Author of our nature intended, that a great and necessary part of our knowledge, and this imagination, are all the same ledge should be derived from experience, before we are capable of reasoning, and he hath provided means perfectly adequate to this intention. For, First, He governs nature by fixed laws, so that we find innumerable connections of things which continue from age to age. Without this stability of the course of nature, there could be no experience; or, it would be a false guide, and lead us into error and mischief. If there were not a principle of veracity in the human mind, men's words would not be signs of their thoughts: and if there were no regularity in the course of nature, no one thing could be a natural sign of another. Secondly, He hath implanted in human minds an original principle by which we believe and expect the continuance of the course of nature, and the continuance of those connec Compare Stewart's "Elements," vol. I., chap. iv. 5, p. 205, sixth edition; " Philosophical Essays," p.7, sqq., fourth edition; Royer Collard, in Jouf. froy's "Oeuvres de Reid," t. IV., p. 279, sqq.; with Priestley's" Examination," p. 86, sqq. I merely refer to works relative to Reid's doctrine.-H. idea, diversified only by different degrees of vivacity. The perception of the sun rising is the most lively idea; the memory of his rising yesterday is the same idea a little more faint; the belief of his rising to-morrow is the same idea yet fainter; and the imagination of his rising is still the same idea, but faintest of all. One is apt to think, that this idea might gradually pass through all possible degrees of vivacity without stirring out of its place. But, if we think so, we deceive 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 St 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 connections 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 connection 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 associ ation 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 connections; 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, This objection to the solution, on the ground of association, is unsound. It is generally admitted that the term "Association of Ideas" is inadequate, the law of association extending not only to Ideas, but to all our mental modifications.-H, 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 Yet Galileo was anterior to Bacon.-H. 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 va rious 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 ac quiring 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 form their notions and opinions concerning of itself produce a Rousseau. It is the the mind, and concerning its powers and operintention of Nature that human educa- ations. The first is the only way that leads tion should be joined to her institution, in to truth; but it is narrow and rugged, and order to form the man. And she hath few have entered upon it. The second is fitted us for human education, by the natural broad and smooth, and hath been much principles of imitation and credulity, which beaten, not only by the vulgar, but even by discover themselves almost in infancy, as philosophers; it is sufficient for common well as by others which are of later growth. life, and is well adapted to the purposes of the When the education which we receive poet and orator: but, in philosophical disfrom men, does not give scope to the educa-quisitions concerning the mind, it leads to tion of Nature, it is wrong directed; it tends error and delusion. 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. 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 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 The second, and the most common way, make a good citizen, a skilful artisan, or a in which men form their opinions concernwell-bred man; but reason and reflectioning the mind and its operations, we may 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 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. CONTAINING REFLECTIONS UPON THE OPINIONS call the way of analogy. There is nothing in the course of nature so singular, but we can find some resemblance, or at least some analogy, between it and other things with which we are acquainted. The mind naturally delights in hunting after such analogies, and attends to them with pleasure. From them, poetry and wit derive a great part of their charms; and eloquence, not a little of its persuasive force. Besides the pleasure we receive from analogies, they are of very considerable use, both to facilitate the conception of things, when they are not easily apprehended without such a handle, and to lead us to probable conjectures about their nature and qualities, when we want the means of more direct and immediate knowledge. When I consider that the planet Jupiter, in like manner as the earth, rolls round his own axis, and revolves round the sun, and that he is enlightened by several secondary planets, as the earth is enlightened by the moon, I am apt to conjecture, from analogy, that, as the earth by these means is fitted to be the habitation of various orders of animals, so the planet Jupiter is, by the like means, fitted for the same purpose: and, having no argument more direct and conclusive to determine me in this point, I yield, to this analogical reasoning, a degree of assent When I its strength. proportioned to THERE are two ways in which men may observe that the potato plant very much resembles the solanum in its flower and | fructification, and am informed that the last is poisonous, I am apt from analogy to have some suspicion of the former: but, in this case, I have access to more direct and certain evidence; and, therefore, ought not to trust to analogy, which would lead me into an error. Arguments from analogy are always at hand, and grow up spontaneously in a fruitful imagination; while arguments that are more direct and more conclusive often require painful attention and application: and therefore mankind in general have been very much disposed to trust to the former. If one attentively examines the systems of the ancient philosophers, either concerning the material world, or concerning the mind, he will find them to be built solely upon the foundation of analogy. Lord Bacon first delineated the strict and severe method of induction; since his time, it has been applied with very happy success in some parts of natural philosophyand hardly in anything else. But there is no subject in which mankind are so much disposed to trust to the analogical way of thinking and reasoning, as in what concerns the mind and its operations; because, to form clear and distinct notions of those operations in the direct and proper way, and to reason about them, requires a habit of attentive reflection, of which few are capable, and which, even by those few, cannot be attained without much pains and labour. Every man is apt to form his notions of things difficult to be apprehended, or less familiar, from their analogy to things which are more familiar. Thus, if a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other subject, it is well known that the language and the notions proper to his own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured by the rules of navigation; and, if he should take it into his head to philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted but he would draw his notions from the fabric of his ship, and would find in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass." Sensible objects, of one kind or other, do no less occupy and engross the rest of mankind, than things relating to navigation the seafaring man. For a considerable part of life, we can think of nothing but the objects of sense; and, to attend to objects of another nature, so as to form clear and distinct notions of them, is no easy matter, even after we come to years of reflection. See " Essays on the Intellectual Powers," Ess. h. viii,, Nos. 2 and 6.-H. The condition of mankind, therefore, affords good reason to apprehend that their language, and their common notions concerning the mind and its operations, will be analogical, and derived from the objects of sense; and that these analogies will be apt to impose upon philosophers, as well as upon the vulgar, and to lead them to materialize the mind and its faculties: and experience abundantly confirms the truth of this. How generally men of all nations, and in all ages of the world, have conceived the soul, or thinking principle in man, to be some subtile matter, like breath or wind, the names given to it almost in all languages sufficiently testify." We have words which are proper, and not analogical, to express the various ways in which we perceive external objects by the senses-such as feeling, sight, taste; but we are often obliged to use these words analogically, to express other powers of the mind which are of a And the powers very different nature. which imply some degree of reflection, have generally no names but such as are analo gical. The objects of thought are said to be in the mind-to be apprehended, comprehended, conceived, imagined, retained, weighed, ruminated.* It does not appear that the notions of the ancient philosophers, with regard to the nature of the soul, were much more refined than those of the vulgar, or that they were formed in any other way. We shall distinguish the philosophy that regards our subject into the old and the new. The old reached down to Des Cartes, who gave it a fatal blow, of which it has been gradually expiring ever since, and is now almost extinct. Des Cartes is the father of the new philosophy that relates to this subject; but it hath been gradually improving since his time, upon the principles laid down by him. The old philosophy seems to have been purely analogical; the new is more derived from reflection, but still with a very considerable mixture of the old analogical notions. Because the objects of sense consist of matter and form, the ancient philosophers conceived everything to belong to one of these, or to be made up of both. Some, therefore, thought that the soul is a particular kind of subtile matter, separable from our gross bodies; others thought that it is only a particular form of the body, and inseparable from it. For there seem to have The examples that might be given of these, would, I find, exceed the limits of a foot-note.-H. + It would, however, be a very erroneous assump. tion to hold, that those who viewed the soul as a form inseparable from the body, denied the existence, and the independent existence, of any mental principle after the dissolution of the material organism. Thus, Aristotle defines the soul, the Form or Entelechy of an |