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- This book seems to be written upon the
same plan with several other works that have had a great vogue of late
years in England. The philosophical spirit, which has been so
much improved all over Europe within these last fourscore years,
has been carried to as great a length in this kingdom as in any other.
Our writers seem even to have started a new kind of philosophy, which
promises more, both to the entertainment and advantage of mankind, than
any other with which the world has been yet acquainted. Most of the
philosophers of antiquity who treated of human nature have shown more of
a delicacy of sentiment, a just sense of morals, or a greatness of soul,
than a depth of reasoning and reflection. They content themselves with
representing the common sense of mankind in the strongest lights, and
with the best turn of thought and expression, without following out
steadily a chain of propositions, or forming the several truths into a
regular science. But it is at least worth while to try if the science of
man will not admit of the same accuracy, which several parts of natural
philosophy are found susceptible of. There seems to be all the reason in
the world to imagine that it may he carried to the greatest degree of
exactness. If, in examining several phenomena, we find that they resolve
themselves into one common principle, and can trace this principle into
another, we shall at last arrive at those few simple principles on which
all the rest depend. And though we can never arrive at the ultimate
principles, it is a satisfaction to go as far as our faculties will
allow us.
- This seems to
have been the aim of our late philosophers, and, among the rest, of this
author. He proposes to anatomize human nature in a regular manner, and
promises to draw no conclusions but where he is authorized by
experience. He talks with contempt of hypotheses; and insinuates that
such of our countrymen as have banished them from moral philosophy, have
done a more signal service to the world than my Lord Bacon, whom he
considers as the father of experimental physics. He mentions, on this
occasion, Mr. Locke, my Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Mandeville, Mr.
Hutcheson, Dr. Butler, who, though they differ in many points among
themselves, seem all to agree in founding their accurate disquisitions
of human nature entirely upon experience.
- Beside the
satisfaction of being acquainted with what most nearly concerns us, it
may be safely affirmed that almost all the sciences are comprehended in
the science of human nature, and are dependent on it.
The sole end of
logic is to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning
faculty, and the nature of our ideas; morals and criticism
regard
our tastes and sentiments; and politics
consider men as united in
society, and dependent on each other. This treatise, therefore, of
human nature seems intended for a system of the sciences. The author has
finished what regards logic, and has laid the foundation of the other
parts in his account of the passions.
- The celebrated
Monsieur Leibnitz
has observed it to be a defect in the common systems of logic that they
are very copious when they explain the operations of the understanding
in the forming of demonstrations, but are too concise when they treat of
probabilities, and those other measures of evidence on which life and
action entirely depend, and which are our guides even in most of our
philosophical speculations. In this censure he comprehends
The Essay
on Human Understanding,
Le Recherche de la Verité, and
L’Art
de Penser. The author of the Teatise of Human Nature seems to have
been sensible of this defect in these philosophers, and has endeavoured,
as much as he can, to supply it. As his book contains a great number of
speculations very new and remarkable, it will be impossible to give the
reader a just notion of the whole. We shall, therefore, chiefly confine
ourselves to his explication of our reasonings from cause and effect. If
we can make this intelligible to the reader, it may serve as a specimen
of the whole.
- Our author
begins with some definitions. He calls a perception whatever can
be present to the mind, whether we employ our senses, or are actuated
with passion, or exercise our thought and reflection. He divides our
perceptions into two kinds, viz. impressions and ideas. When we
feel a passion or emotion of any kind, or have the images of external
objects conveyed by our senses, the perception of the mind is what he
calls an impression, which is a word that he employs in a new sense.
When we reflect on a passion or an object which is not present, this
perception is an idea.
Impressions, therefore, are our
lively and strong perceptions; ideas are the fainter and weaker. This
distinction is evident; as evident as that betwixt feeling and thinking.
- The first
proposition he advances is that all our ideas, or weak perceptions, are
derived from our impressions, or strong perceptions, and that we can
never think of anything which we have not seen without us, or felt in
our own minds. This proposition seems to be equivalent to that which Mr.
Locke has taken such pains to establish,
viz. that no ideas
are innate. Only it may be observed, as an inaccuracy of that famous
philosopher, that he comprehends all our perceptions under the term of
idea, in which sense it is false that we have no innate ideas. For it is
evident our stronger perceptions or impressions are innate, and that
natural affection, love of virtue, resentment, and all the other
passions, arise immediately from nature. I am persuaded whoever would
take the question in this light, would be easily able to reconcile all
parties. Father Malebranche would find himself at a loss to point
out any thought of the mind which did not represent something
antecedently felt by it, either internally, or by means of the external
senses, and must allow that however we may compound, and mix, and
augment, and diminish our ideas, they are all derived from these
sources. Mr. Locke, on the other hand, would readily acknowledge
that all our passions are a kind of natural instincts, derived from
nothing but the original constitution of the human mind.
- Our author
thinks, ‘that no discovery could have been made more happily for
deciding all controversies concerning ideas than this, that impressions
always take the precedency of them, and that every idea with which the
imagination is furnished first makes its appearance in a correspondent
impression. These latter perceptions are all so clear and evident that
they admit of no controversy; though many of our ideas are so obscure
that it is almost impossible, even for the mind which forms them, to
tell exactly their nature and composition.’ Accordingly, wherever any
idea is ambiguous, he has always recourse to the impression, which must
render it clear and precise. And when he suspects that any philosophical
term has no idea annexed to it (as
is too common) he always asks from what impression that idea is
derived? And if no impression can he produced, he concludes that the
term is altogether insignificant. It is after this manner he examines
our idea of substance and
essence; and it were to be
wished that this rigorous method were more practised in all
philosophical debates.
- It is evident
that all reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on the
relation of cause and effect, and that we can never infer the existence
of one object from another, unless they be connected together, either
mediately or immediately. In order, therefore, to understand these
reasonings, we must be perfectly acquainted with the idea of a cause;
and in order to that, must look about us to find something that is the
cause of another.
- Here is a
billiard-ball lying on the table, and another ball moving towards it
with rapidity. They strike; and the ball which was formerly at rest now
acquires a motion. This is as perfect an instance of the relation of
cause and effect as any which we know, either by sensation or
reflection. Let us therefore examine it. It is evident that the two
balls touched one another before the motion was communicated, and that
there was no interval betwixt the shock and the motion.
Contiguity
in time and place is therefore a requisite circumstance to the operation
of all causes. It is evident, likewise, that the motion which was the
cause is prior to the motion which was the effect.
Priority in
time is therefore another requisite circumstance in every cause. But
this is not all. Let us try any other balls of the same kind in a like
situation, and we shall always find that the impulse of the one produces
motion in the other. Here, therefore, is a third circumstance,
viz.
that of a constant conjunction betwixt the cause and effect.
Every object like the cause produces always some object like the effect.
Beyond these three circumstances of contiguity, priority, and constant
conjunction, I can discover nothing in this cause. The first ball is in
motion; touches the second; immediately the second is in motion: and
when I try the experiment with the same or like balls, in the same or
like circumstances, I find that upon the motion and touch of the one
ball, motion always follows in the other. In whatever shape I turn this
matter, and however I examine it, I can find nothing farther.
- This is the
case when both the cause and effect are present to the senses. Let us
now see upon what our inference is founded, when we conclude from the
one that the other has existed or will exist. Suppose I see a ball
moving in a straight line towards another, I immediately conclude that
they will shock and that the second will be in motion. This is the
inference from cause to effect, and of this nature are all our
reasonings in the conduct of life: on this is founded all our belief in
history; and from hence is derived all philosophy, excepting only
geometry and arithmetic. If we can explain the inference from the shock
of two balls, we shall be able to account for this operation of the mind
in all instances.
- Were a man, such as
Adam,
created in the full vigour of understanding, without experience, he
would never be able to infer motion in the second ball from the motion
and impulse of the first. It is not anything that reason sees in the
cause which makes us infer the effect. Such an inference, were it
possible, would amount to a demonstration, as being founded merely on
the comparison of ideas. But no inference from cause to effect amounts
to a demonstration, of which there is this evident proof. The mind can
always conceive any effect to follow from any cause, and indeed
any event to follow upon another: whatever we
conceive is
possible, at least in a metaphysical sense; but wherever a demonstration
takes place, the contrary is impossible, and implies a contradiction.
There is no demonstration, therefore, for any conjunction of cause and
effect. And this is a principle which is generally allowed by
philosophers.
- It would have
been necessary, therefore, for Adam (if he was not inspired) to
have had experience of the effect which followed upon the impulse
of these two balls. He must have seen, in several instances, that when
the one ball struck upon the other, the second always acquired motion.
If he had seen a sufficient number of instances of this kind, whenever
he saw the one ball moving towards the other, he would always conclude
without hesitation that the second would acquire motion. His
understanding would anticipate his sight and form a conclusion suitable
to his past experience.
- It follows,
then, that all reasonings concerning cause and effect are founded on
experience, and that all reasonings from experience are founded on the
supposition that the course of nature will continue uniformly the same.
We conclude that like causes, in like circumstances, will always produce
like effects. It may now be worth while to consider what determines us
to form a conclusion of such infinite consequence.
- It is evident
that Adam, with all his science, would never have been able to
demonstrate
that the course of nature must continue uniformly the same, and that the
future must be conformable to the past. What is possible can never be
demonstrated to be false; and it is possible the course of nature may
change, since we can conceive such a change. Nay, I will go farther, and
assert that he could not so much as prove by any
probable
arguments that the future must be conformable to the past. All probable
arguments are built on the supposition that there is this conformity
betwixt the future and the past, and therefore can never prove it. This
conformity is a matter of fact, and, if it must be proved, will
admit of no proof but from experience. But our experience in the past
can be a proof of nothing for the future, but upon a supposition that
there is a resemblance betwixt them. This, therefore, is a point which
can admit of no proof at all, and which we take for granted without any
proof.
- We are
determined by CUSTOM alone to suppose the future conformable to the
past. When I see a billiard ball moving towards another, my mind is
immediately carried by habit to the usual effect, and anticipates my
sight by conceiving the second ball in motion. There is nothing in these
objects, abstractly considered, and independent of experience, which
leads me to form any such conclusion; and even after I have had
experience of many repeated effects of this kind, there is no argument
which determines me to suppose that the effect will be conformable to
past experience. The powers by which bodies operate are entirely
unknown. We perceive only their sensible qualities: and what reason have
we to think that the same powers will always be conjoined with the same
sensible qualities?
- It is not,
therefore, reason which is the guide of life, but custom. That alone
determines the mind, in all instances, to suppose the future conformable
to the past. However easy this step may seem, reason would never, to all
eternity, be able to make it.
- This is a
very curious discovery, but leads us to others that are still more
curious. When I see a billiard-ball moving towards another, my mind
is immediately carried by habit to the usual effect, and anticipates my
sight by conceiving the second ball in motion. But is this all? Do I
nothing but conceive the motion of the second ball? No, surely. I also
BELIEVE that it will move. What then is this
belief? And how does
it differ from the simple conception of anything? Here is a new question
unthought of by philosophers.
- When a
demonstration convinces me of any proposition, it not only makes me
conceive the proposition, but also makes me sensible that it is
impossible to conceive anything contrary. What is demonstratively false
implies a contradiction; and what implies a contradiction cannot be
conceived. But with regard to any matter of fact, however strong the
proof may be from experience, I can always conceive the contrary, though
I cannot always believe it. The belief, therefore, makes some difference
betwixt the conception to which we assent, and that to which we do not
assent.
- To account
for this, there are only two hypotheses. It may be said that belief
joins some new idea to those which we may conceive without assenting to
them. But this hypothesis is false. For first, no such idea can
be produced. When we simply conceive an object, we conceive it in all
its parts. We conceive it as it might exist, though we do not believe it
to exist. Our belief of it would discover no new qualities. We may paint
out the entire object in imagination without believing it. We may set
it, in a manner, before our eyes, with every circumstance of time and
place. It is the very object conceived as it might exist; and when we
believe it, we can do no more.
-
Secondly,
the mind has a faculty of joining all ideas together, which involve not
a contradiction; and therefore, if belief consisted in some idea, which
we add to the simple conception, it would be in a man's power, by adding
this idea to it, to believe anything which he can conceive.
- Since, therefore, belief implies a
conception, and yet is something more; and since it adds no new idea to
the conception; it follows that it is a different MANNER of conceiving
an object; something that is distinguishable to the feeling, and
depends not upon our will, as all our ideas do. My mind runs by habit
from the visible object of one ball moving towards another, to the usual
effect of motion in the second ball. It not only conceives that motion,
but feels something different in the conception of it from a mere
reverie of the imagination. The presence of this visible object, and the
constant conjunction of that particular effect, render the idea
different to the feeling from those loose ideas which come into
the mind without any introduction. This conclusion seems a little
surprising; but we are led into it by a chain of propositions which
admit of no doubt. To ease the reader's memory I shall briefly resume
them. No matter of fact can be proved but from its cause or its effect.
Nothing can be known to be the cause of another but by experience. We
can give no reason for extending to the future our experience in the
past, but are entirely determined by custom when we conceive an effect
to follow from its usual cause. But we also believe an effect to follow,
as well as conceive it. This belief joins no new idea to the conception.
It only varies the manner of conceiving, and makes a difference to the
feeling or sentiment. Belief, therefore, in all matters of fact arises
only from custom, and is an idea conceived in a peculiar
manner.
- Our author
proceeds to explain the manner or feeling, which renders belief
different from a loose conception. He seems sensible that it is
impossible by words to describe this feeling, which everyone must be
conscious of in his own breast. He calls it sometimes a
stronger
conception, sometimes a more lively, a more
vivid, a
firmer,
or a more intense conception. And, indeed, whatever name we may
give to this feeling which constitutes belief, our author thinks it
evident that it has a more forcible effect on the mind than fiction and
mere conception. This he proves by its influence on the passions and on
the imagination, which are only moved by truth, or what is taken for
such. Poetry, with all its art, can never cause a passion like one in
real life. It fails in the original conception of its objects, which
never feel in the same manner as those which command our belief
and opinion.
- Our author,
presuming that he had sufficiently proved that the ideas we assent to
are different to the feeling from the other ideas, and that this feeling
is more firm and lively than our common conception, endeavours in the
next place to explain the cause of this lively feeling by an analogy
with other acts of the mind. His reasoning seems to be curious; but
could scarce be rendered intelligible, or at least probable to the
reader, without a long detail, which would exceed the compass I have
prescribed to myself.
- I have
likewise omitted many arguments which he adduces to prove that belief
consists merely in a peculiar feeling or sentiment. I shall only mention
one; our past experience is not always uniform. Sometimes one effect
follows from a cause, sometimes another: in which case we always believe
that that will exist which is most common. I see a billiard ball moving
towards another. I cannot distinguish whether it moves upon its axis, or
was struck so as to skim along the table. In the first case, I know it
will not stop after the shock. In the second it may stop. The first is
most common, and therefore I lay my account with that effect. But I also
conceive the other effect, and conceive it as possible, and as connected
with the cause. Were not the one conception different in the feeling or
sentiment from the other, there would be no difference betwixt them.
- We have
confined ourselves in this whole reasoning to the relation of cause and
effect, as discovered in the motions and operations of matter. But the
same reasoning extends to the operations of the mind. Whether we
consider the influence of the will in moving our body, or in governing
our thought, it may safely be affirmed that we could never foretell the
effect, merely from the consideration of the cause, without experience.
And even after we have experience of these effects, it is custom alone,
not reason, which determines us to make it the standard of our future
judgments. When the cause is presented, the mind, from habit,
immediately passes to the conception and belief of the usual effect.
This belief is something different from the conception. It does not,
however, join any new idea to it. It only makes it be felt differently,
and renders it stronger and more lively.
- Having
dispatched this material point concerning the nature of the inference
from cause and effect, our author returns upon his footsteps, and
examines anew the idea of that relation. In the considering of motion
communicated from one ball to another, we could find nothing but
contiguity, priority in the cause, and constant conjunction. But, beside
these circumstances, it is commonly supposed that there is a necessary
connexion betwixt the cause and effect, and that the cause possesses
something, which we call a power, or
force, or
energy.
The question is, what idea is annexed to these terms? If all our ideas
or thoughts be derived from our impressions, this power must either
discover itself to our senses, or to our internal feeling. But so little
does any power discover itself to the senses in the operations of
matter, that the Cartesians have made no scruple to assert that
matter is utterly deprived of energy, and that all its operations are
performed merely by the energy of the supreme Being. But the question
still recurs, what idea have we of energy or power even in the
supreme Being? All our idea of a Deity (according to those who deny
innate ideas) is nothing but a composition of those ideas which we
acquire from reflecting on the operations of our minds. Now our own
minds afford us no more notion of energy than matter does. When we
consider our will or volition a priori, abstracting from
experience, we should never be able to infer any effect from it. And
when we take the assistance of experience, it only shows us objects
contiguous, successive, and constantly conjoined. Upon the whole, then,
either we have no idea at all of force and energy, and these words are
altogether insignificant, or they can mean nothing but that
determination of the thought, acquired by habit, to pass from the cause
to its usual effect. But whoever would thoroughly understand this must
consult the author himself it is sufficient if I can make the learned
world apprehend that there is some difficulty in the case, and that
whoever solves the difficulty must say something very new and
extraordinary - as new as the difficulty itself.
- By all that
has been said the reader will easily perceive that the philosophy
contained in this book is very sceptical, and tends to give us a notion
of the imperfections and narrow limits of human understanding. Almost
all reasoning is there reduced to experience; and the belief, which
attends experience, is explained to be nothing but a peculiar sentiment,
or lively conception produced by habit. Nor is this all; when we believe
anything of external existence, or suppose an object to exist a
moment after it is no longer perceived, this belief is nothing but a
sentiment of the same kind. Our author insists upon several other
sceptical topics; and upon the whole concludes that we assent to our
faculties, and employ our reason, only because we cannot help it.
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature
too strong for it.
- I shall
conclude the logics of this author with an account of two opinions,
which seem to be peculiar to himself, as indeed are most of his
opinions. He asserts that the soul, as far as we can conceive it, is
nothing but a system or train of different perceptions, those of heat
and cold, love and anger, thoughts and sensations, all united together,
but without any perfect simplicity or identity.
Des Cartes maintained
that thought was the essence of the mind; not this thought or that
thought, but thought in general. This seems to be absolutely
unintelligible, since everything that exists is particular; and,
therefore, it must be our several particular perceptions that compose
the mind. I say, compose the mind, not
belong to it. The
mind is not a substance, in which the perceptions inhere. That notion is
as unintelligible as the Cartesian, that thought or perception in
general is the essence of the mind. We have no idea of substance of any
kind, since we have no idea but what is derived from some impression,
and we have no impression of any substance either material or spiritual.
We know nothing but particular qualities and perceptions. As our idea of
any body, a peach, for instance, is only that of a particular taste,
colour, figure, size, consistence, etc.; so our idea of any mind is only
that of particular perceptions, without the notion of anything we call
substance, either simple or compound.
- The second
principle, which I proposed to take notice of, is with regard to
Geometry. Having denied the infinite divisibility of extension, our
author finds himself obliged to refute those mathematical arguments
which have been adduced for it; and these indeed are the only ones of
any weight. This he does by denying Geometry to be a science exact
enough to admit of conclusions so subtle as those which regard infinite
divisibility. His arguments may be thus explained. All Geometry is
founded on the notions of equality and inequality, and, therefore,
according as we have or have not an exact standard of that relation, the
science itself will or will not admit of great exactness. Now there is
an exact standard of equality, if we suppose that quantity is composed
of indivisible points. Two lines are equal when the numbers of the
points that compose them are equal, and when there is a point in one
corresponding to a point in the other. But though this standard be
exact, it is useless; since we can never compute the number of points in
any line. It is besides founded on the supposition of finite
divisibility, and therefore can never afford any conclusion against it.
If we reject this standard of equality, we have none that has any
pretensions to exactness. I find two that are commonly made use of. Two
lines above a yard, for instance, are said to be equal when they contain
any inferior quantity, as an inch, an equal number of times. But this
runs in a circle. For the quantity we call an inch in the one is
supposed to be equal to what we call an inch in the other: and
the question still is, by what standard we proceed when we judge them to
be equal; or, in other words, what we mean when we say they are equal.
If we take still inferior quantities, we go on
in infinitum. This
therefore is no standard of equality. The greatest part of philosophers,
when asked what they mean by equality, say that the word admits of no
definition, and that it is sufficient to place before us two equal
bodies, such as two diameters of a circle, to make us understand that
term. Now this is taking the general appearance of the objects
for the standard of that proportion, and renders our imagination and
senses the ultimate judges of it. But such a standard admits of no
exactness, and can never afford any conclusion contrary to the
imagination and senses. Whether this question be just or not must he
left to the learned world to judge. It were certainly to be wished that
some expedient were fallen upon to reconcile philosophy and common
sense, which, with regard to the question of infinite divisibility, have
waged most cruel wars with each other.
- We must now
proceed to give some account of the second volume of this work, which
treats of the PASSIONS. It is of more easy comprehension than the first,
but contains opinions that are together as new and extraordinary. The
author begins with pride and
humility. He observes that
the objects which excite these passions are very numerous, and seemingly
very different from each other. Pride or self-esteem may arise from the
qualities of the mind; wit, good-sense, learning, courage, integrity:
from those of the body; beauty, strength, agility, good mien, address in
dancing, riding, fencing: from
external advantages; country, family, children, relations, riches,
houses, gardens, horses, dogs, clothes. He afterwards proceeds to find
out that common circumstance in which all these objects agree, and which
causes them to operate on the passions. His theory likewise extends to
love and hatred, and other affections. As these questions, though
curious, could not he rendered intelligible without a long discourse, we
shall here omit them.
- It may
perhaps be more acceptable to the reader to be informed of what our
author says concerning free-will. He has laid the foundation of
his doctrine in what he said concerning cause and effect, as above
explained. "It is universally acknowledged, that the operations of
external bodies are necessary, and that in the communication of their
motion, in their attraction and mutual cohesion, there are not the least
traces of indifference or liberty." . . . "Whatever,
therefore, is in this respect on the same footing with matter, must be
acknowledged to be necessary. That we may know whether this be the case
with the actions of the mind, we may examine matter, and consider on
what the idea of a necessity in its operations are founded, and why we
conclude one body or action to be the infallible cause of another.
- "It has
been observed already, that in no single instance the ultimate connexion
of any object is discoverable either by our senses or reason, and that
we can never penetrate so far into the essence and construction of
bodies, as to perceive the principle on which their mutual influence is
founded. It is their constant union alone with which we are acquainted;
and it is from the constant union the necessity arises, when the mind is
determined to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and infer the
existence of one from that of the other. Here then are two particulars,
which we are to regard as essential to necessity, viz. the
constant union and the
inference of the mind, and wherever
we discover these we must acknowledge a necessity." Now nothing is
more evident than the constant union of particular actions with
particular motives. If all actions be not constantly united with their
proper motives, this uncertainty is no more than what may be observed
every day in the actions of matter, where, by reason of the mixture and
uncertainty of causes, the effect is often variable and uncertain.
Thirty grains of opium will kill any man that is not accustomed to it,
though thirty grains of rhubarb will not always purge him. In like
manner, the fear of death will always make a man go twenty paces out of
his road, though it will not always make him do a bad action.
- And as there
is often a constant conjunction of the actions of the will with their
motives, so the inference from the one to the other is often as certain
as any reasoning concerning bodies; and there is always an inference
proportioned to the constancy of the conjunction. On this is founded our
belief in witnesses, our credit in history, and indeed all kinds of
moral evidence, and almost the whole conduct of life.
- Our author
pretends that this reasoning puts the whole controversy in a new light,
by giving a new definition of necessity. And indeed the most zealous
advocates for free-will must allow this union and inference with regard
to human actions. They will only deny that this makes the whole of
necessity. But then they must show that we have an idea of something
else in the actions of matter; which, according to the foregoing
reasoning, is impossible.
- Through this
whole book there are great pretensions to new discoveries in philosophy;
but if anything can entitle the author to so glorious a name as that of
an inventor, it is the use he makes of the principle of the
association of ideas, which enters into most of his philosophy. Our
imagination has a great authority over our ideas; and there are no ideas
that are different from each other which it cannot separate, and join,
and compose into all the varieties of fiction. But notwithstanding the
empire of the imagination, there is a secret tie or union among
particular ideas, which causes the mind to conjoin them more frequently
together, and makes the one, upon its appearance, introduce the other.
Hence arises what we call the apropos of discourse; hence the
connexion of writing; and hence that thread, or chain of thought, which
a man naturally supports even in the loosest reverie. These principles
of association are reduced to three, viz. Resemblance; a picture
naturally makes us think of the man it was drawn for:
Contiguity;
when St. Denis is mentioned, the idea of Paris naturally occurs:
Causation;
when we think of the son, we are apt to carry our attention to the
father. It will be easy to conceive of what vast consequence these
principles must be in the science of human nature, if we consider that,
so far as regards the mind, these are the only links that bind the parts
of the universe together, or connect us with any person or object
exterior to ourselves. For as it is by means of thought only that
anything operates upon our passions, and as these are the only ties of
our thoughts, they are really to
us the cement of the
universe, and all the operations of the mind must, in a great measure,
depend on them.
FINIS
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