Leaving, therefore, the question concerning the origin of our active principles, and of the moral faculty, to be the subject of future discussion, I shall conclude this Section with a few remarks of a more practical

naturę.

It has been fhewn by different writers, how much of the beauty and fublimity of material objects arifes from the ideas and feelings which we have been taught to affociate with them. The impreffion produced on the external fenfes of a poet, by the most striking scene in nature, is precifely the fame with what is produced on the fenfes, of a peafant or a tradefman: yet how different is the degree of pleasure refulting from this im preffion! A great part of this difference is undoubtedly to be afcribed, to the ideas and feelings which the habitual studies and amufements of the poet have affociated with his organical perceptions.

A fimilar obfervation may be applied to all the various objects of our purfuit in life. Hardly any one of them is appreciated by any two men in the fame manner; and frequently what one man confiders as effential to his happiness, is regarded with indifference or dislike by another. Of thefe differences of opinion, much is, no doubt, to be afcribed to a diverfity of conftitution, which renders a particular employment of the intellectual or active powers agreeable to one man, which is not equally fo to another. But much is alfo to be afcribed to the effect of affociation; which, prior to any experience of human life, connects pleafing ideas and pleafing feelings with different objects, in the minds of different perfons.

In confequence of thefe affociations, every man ap. pears to his neighbour to pursue the object of his wishes, with a zeal difproportioned to its intrinfic value; and the philofopher (whofe principal enjoyment arifes from fpeculation) is frequently apt to fmile at the ardour with which the active part of mankind purfue, what appear to him to be mere fhadows. This view of human affairs, fome writers have carried fo far, as to reprefent life as a scene of mere illufions, where the mind refers to the objects around it, a colouring which exifts only in itself; and where, as the Poet expreffes it,

"Opinion gilds with varying rays,

« Thofe painted clouds which beautify our days."

It may be questioned, if these representations of human life be useful or juft. That the cafual affociations which the mind forms in childhood, and in early youth, are frequently a fource of inconvenience and of mifconduct, is fufficiently obvious; but that this tendency of our nature increases, on the whole, the fum of human enjoyment, appears to me to be indifputable; and the inftances in which it misleads us from our duty and our happiness, only prove, to what important ends it might be fubfervient, if it were kept under proper regulation.

Nor do these representations of life (admitting them in their full extent) justify the practical inferences which have been often deduced from them, with refpect to the vanity of our purfuits. In every cafe, indeed, in which our enjoyment depends upon association, it may be faid, in one fenfe, that it arifes from the mind itfelf; but it does not therefore follow, that the external object which cuftom has rendered the caufe or the occafion

of agreeable emotions, is indifferent to our happiness. The effect which the beauties of nature produce on the mind of the poet, is wonderfully heightened by affociation; but his enjoyment is not, on that account, the lefs exquifite: nor are the objects of his admiration of the lefs value to his happiness, that they derive their principal charms from the embellishments of his fancy.

It is the bufinefs of education, not to counteract, in any inftance, the established laws of our conftitution, but to direct them to their proper purposes. That the influence of early affociations on the mind might be employed, in the most effectual manner, to aid our moral principles, appears evidently from the effects which we daily fee it produce, in reconciling men to a courfe of action which their reafon forces them to condemn; and it is no lefs obvious that, by means of it, the happiness of human life might be increased, and its pains diminished, if the agreeable ideas and feelings which children are fo apt to connect with events and with fituations which depend on the caprice of fortune, were firmly affociated in their apprehenfions with the duties of their stations, with the pursuits of science, and with thofe beauties of nature which are open to all.

Thefe obfervations coincide nearly with the antient ftoical doctrine concerning the influence of imagination * on morals; a fubject, on which many important remarks, (though expreffed in a form different from that which modern philofophers have introduced, and, perhaps, not altogether fo precife and accurate,) are to

* According to the ufe which I make of the words Imagination and Affociation, in this work, their effects are obviously distinguishable. I have thought it proper, however, to illuftrate the difference between them a little more fully in Note [R].

be

be found in the Difcourfes of Epictetus, and in the Meditations of Antoninus *. This doctrine of the Stoical fchool, Dr. Akenfide has in view in the following paffage:

"Action treads the path

"In which Opinion fays 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 found of death
"Sees ghaftly fhapes 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 fuch a mind,
"If no bright forms of excellence attend
"The image of his country; nor the pomp
"Of facred fenates, nor the guardian voice
"Of justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes
"The confcious bofom with a patriot's flame:
"Will not Opinion tell him, that to die,
Or ftand the hazard, is a greater ill
"Than to betray his country? And in act
"Will he not chufe to be a wretch and live?
"Here vice begins then f."

* See what Epictus has remarked on the χρησις δια δεῖ φαντα σιῶν. (Arrian, l. i. c. 12.) Όσα αν πολλακις φαντάσθης, τοιαυτη σοφ εσται ἡ διάνοια. βαπτεται γαρ ύπο των φαντασίων ή ψυχη. βαπτε εν TOISTWY PAYTασIwy, &c. &c. Anton. 1. v. αυτήν, τη συνέχεια των c. 16.

+ Pleasures of Imagination, biii.

I'

SECTION IV.

General Remarks on the Subjects treated in the foregoing Sections of this Chapter.

N perufing the foregoing Sections of this Chapter, I am aware, that fome of my readers may be apt to think that many of the obfervations which I have made, might easily be refolved into more general principles. I am alfo aware, that, to the followers of Dr. Hartley, a fimilar objection will occur against all the other parts of this work; and that it will appear to them the effect of inexcufable prejudice, that I fhould ftop fhort fo frequently in the explanation of phenomena; when he has accounted in fo fatisfactory a manner, by means of the affociation of ideas, for all the appearances which human nature. exhibits.

To this objection, I fhall not feel myself much interested to reply, provided it be granted that my obfervations are candidly and accurately ftated, fo far as they reach. Suppofing that in fome cafes I may have ftopped fhort too foon, my fpeculations, although they may be cenfured as imperfect, cannot be confidered as standing in oppofition to the conclusions of more fuccefsful inquirers.

May I be allowed farther to obferve, that fuch views of the human mind as are contained in this work, (even fuppofing the objection to be well

founded,)