me to be somewhat similar to that of a man who should maintain, that although a body projected with a moderate velocity is seen to pass through all the intermediate spaces in moving from one place to another, yet we are not entitled to conclude that this happens when the body moves so quickly as to become invisible to the eye. The former supposition is supported by the analogy of many other facts in our constitution. Of some of these I have already taken notice, and it would be easy to add to the number. An expert accountant, for example, can sum up almost with a single glance of his eye, a long column of figures. He can tell the sum with unerring certainty, while at the same time he is unable to recollect any one of the figures of which that sum is composed; and yet nobody doubts that each of these figures has passed through his mind, or supposes that when the rapidity of the process becomes so great that he is unable to recollect the various steps of it, he obtains the result by a sort of inspiration. This last supposition would be perfectly analogous to Dr. Hartley's doctrine concerning the nature of our habitual exertions. The only plausible objection which, I think, can be offered to the principles I have endeavoured to establish on this subject, is founded on the astonishing and almost incredible rapidity they necessarily suppose in our intellectual operations. When a person, for example, reads aloud, there must, according to this doctrine, be a separate volition preceding the articulation of every letter; and it has been found by actual trial,1 that it is being evident that what is done by rule, must proceed from something that understands the rule; therefore, if not from the musician himself, from some other active intelligence; the same, perhaps, which governs bees and spiders, and moves the limbs of those who walk in their sleep."-See a Treatise, entitled Siris, p. 123, 2d edit. 1 Incredibili velocitate peraguntur et repetuntur musculorum contractiones. Docent cursus, præsertim quadrupedum; vel lingua, quæ quadringinta vocabula, forte bis mille literas, exprimit, spatio temporis quod minutum vocare solemus, quamvis ad multas literas exprimendas plures musculorum contractiones requirantur.-Conspectus Medicinæ Theoretice Auct. Jac. Gregory. Editio altera, P. 171. [In Gibbon's Posthumous Works, I find a statement still more curious, as it relates to the number of words pronounced in a given time by a speaker, in the course of an extempore speech. "As I was waiting in the manager's possible to pronounce about two thousand letters in a minute. Is it reasonable to suppose that the mind is capable of so many different acts in an interval of time so very inconsiderable ? With respect to this objection it may be observed, in the box at Mr. Hastings' trial in Westminster Hall, I had the curiosity to inquire of the short-hand writer how many words a ready and rapid orator might pronounce in an hour? From 7000 to 7500 was the answer. The medium of 7200 will afford 120 words in each second," [minute ?]-Vol. i. p. 172. In the instance, however, here referred to by Gibbon, the business of articulation forms but a very inconsiderable part of the voluntary exertions the speaker is incessantly making. One of his efforts, and a very complicated and wonderful one, is taken notice of by Quintilian in the following passage: "But, after all, what is extemporary speaking, but a vigorous exertion of memory? For when we are speaking of one thing, we are premeditating another that we are about to speak. This premeditation is carried forwards to other objects, and whatever discoveries it makes, it deposits them in the memory; and thus the invention having placed it there, the memory becomes a kind of intermediate instrument that hands it to the elocution." ("Quid? extemporalis oratio non alio mihi videtur mentis vigore constare. Nam dum alia dicimus, quæ dicturi sumus, intuenda sunt: ita cum semper cogitatio ultra id quod est, longius quærit, quicquid interim reperit, quodammodo apud memoriam deponit, quod illa quasi media quædam manus acceptum ab inventione tradit elocutioni.")— Institut., lib. xi. cap. ii. A much more comprehensive view, however, of this astonishingly complicated exertion of the mind is given by Dr. Reid. VOL. II. "From what cause does it happen, that a good speaker no sooner conceives what he would express, than the letters, syllables, and words arrange themselves according to innumerable rules of speech, while he never thinks of these rules? He means to express certain sentiments; in order to do this properly, a selection must be made of the materials out of many thousands. He makes this selection without any expense of time or thought. The materials selected must be arranged in a particular order, according to innumerable rules of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and accompanied with a particular tone and emphasis. He does all this as it were by inspiration, without thinking of any of those rules, and without breaking one of them." "This art, if it were not so common, would appear more wonderful than that a man should dance blindfold amidst a thousand burning ploughshares without being burnt. Yet all this may be done by habit."-Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 4to edit. p. 119. It must be owned, that it is difficult to conceive that, in such a case as this, there is a separate act of the will accompanying all the intellectual operations here described; and therefore it is not surprising that some philosophers should have attempted to keep the difficulty out of sight, by the use of one of these convenient phrases to which it is not possible to annex a clear or a precise idea. This, at least, I must confess, is the case with me, with respect to the words mechanical, automatical, and organical, as employed on this occasion. * And of attention, he should have added. I first place, that all arguments against the foregoing doctrine with respect to our habitual exertions, in so far as they are founded on the inconceivable rapidity which they suppose in our intellectual operations, apply equally to the common doc I have been led into these observations by a paper which I have lately met with of M. Fred. Cuvier's in the Mémoires du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, tom. x. 1823. It is entitled Examen de quelques Observations de M. Dugald Stewart qui tendent à détruire l'analogie des phénomènes de l'Instinct avec ceux de l'Habitude. From my great respect for the talents and learning of the author, I was induced to give my reasonings in this chapter, (against which all his strictures are pointed,) as thorough, and, I think, as impartial a re-examination as I was able to bestow upon them; without, however, discovering any flaw in them that seemed to me to require correction. Some of M. Cuvier's objections I foresaw at the time I published the First Edition, and accordingly I observed in page 132, that "after all I have said, it is possible that some may be disposed rather to dispute the common theory of vision, than admit the conclusions I have endeavoured to establish." I cannot help suspecting that M. Cuvier is one of this number, and that a secret scepticism in his mind with respect to Berkeley's Theory is at the bottom of the difficulty he finds in admitting those doctrines of mine which he has attempted to overthrow. He has not, indeed, directly avowed this scepticism, but I leave the reader to judge whether he has not given some ground for my suspicions by the conclusion of the following sentence: "Il paroit bien certain que c'est le toucher qui nous apprend à connoître les distances où nous sommes des objets; lorsque l'aveugle de Cheselden eut recouvré la vue, tous les objets lui paroissoient être dans ses yeux, du moins on l'assure.”—(Mémoires du Muséum, &c., tom. x. p. 257, Paris, 1823.) I cannot enter here into a detailed examination of his strictures; but I must beg M. Cuvier's particular attention to the case of the extempore speaker mentioned in the beginning of this note. Admitting that the words automatic, mechanical, or organic, convey some idea when applied to a harpsichord player executing a piece of music that he has often played before, have they any meaning when applied to what passed through the mind of Mr. Sheridan during the speech which Mr. Gibbon heard him pronounce? As to the tendency of my observations to destroy the analogy between the phenomena of Instinct and of Habit, I must acknowledge I cannot perceive how it should be thought to afford any explanation of the phenomena of the former, to compare them with those of the latter, when we consider that habit not only implies experience, but an experience so constant and so long continued as to become a second nature. Can anything be imagined more opposite in its origin to Instinct? M. Cuvier conceives himself to be adopting in this instance the Theory of Reid. "Parmi les explications qui ont été suggérées pour ces actions instinctives, la seule qui nous paroisse fondée sur des vraisemblances suffisantes, et qui soit admissible, est celle de Reid," &c. In proof of this he quotes the following words from the French translation of that author:"L'Habitude diffère de l'Instinct, non par sa nature, mais par son origine. Ces deux principes opèrent sans volonté ou intention, sans pensée, et peuvent en conséquence être appelés principes mé trine concerning our perception of distance by the eye. But this is not all. To what does the supposition amount which is considered as so incredible? Only to this, that the mind is so formed as to be able to carry on certain intellectual processes in intervals of time too short to be estimated by our faculties; a supposition which, so far from being extravagant, is supported by the analogy of many of our most certain conclusions in natural philosophy. The discoveries made by the microscope have laid open to our senses a world of wonders, the existence of which hardly any man would have admitted upon inferior evidence; and have gradually prepared the way for those physical speculations, which explain some of the most extraordinary phenomena of nature by means of modifications. of matter far too subtile for the examination of our organs. Why, then, should it be considered as unphilosophical, after having demonstrated the existence of various intellectual processes which escape our attention in consequence of their rapidity to carry the supposition a little farther, in order to bring under the known laws of the human constitution a class of mental operations, which must otherwise remain perfectly inexplicable? Surely our ideas of time are merely relative, as well as our ideas of extension; nor is there any good reason for doubting that, if our powers of attention and memory were more perfect than they are, so as to give us the same advantage in examining rapid events which the microscope gives for examining minute portions of extension, they would enlarge our views with respect to the intellectual world no less than that instrument has with respect to the material. It may contribute to remove, still more completely, some of the scruples which are naturally suggested by the foregoing doctrine, to remark, that as the great use of attention and memory is to enable us to treasure up the results of our experience and reflection for the future regulation of our conduct, it would caniques." In the former of these sentences Dr. Reid's opinion agrees, not with that of M. Cuvier, but with mine. In the latter, he has asserted a proposi tion which it is one main object of this chapter to refute, and in the refutation of which I must own I think I have been successful.] have answered no purpose for the author of our nature to have extended their province to those intervals of time which we have no occasion to estimate in the common business of life. All the intellectual processes I have mentioned are subservient to some particular end, either of perception or of action; and it would have been perfectly superfluous, if, after this end were gained, the steps which are instrumental in bringing it about were all treasured up in the memory. Such a constitution of our nature would have had no other effect but to store the mind with a variety of useless particulars. After all I have said, it will perhaps be still thought that some of the reasonings I have offered are too hypothetical; and it is even possible that some may be disposed rather to dispute the common theory of vision, than admit the conclusions I have endeavoured to establish. To such readers the following considerations may be of use, as they afford a more palpable instance, than any I have yet mentioned, of the rapidity with which the thoughts may be trained, by practice, to shift from one thing to another. When an equilibrist balances a rod upon his finger, not only the attention of his mind, but the observation of his eye, is constantly requisite. It is evident that the part of his body which supports the object is never wholly at rest; otherwise the object would no more stand upon it, than if placed in the same position upon a table. The equilibrist, therefore, must watch, in the very beginning, every inclination of the object from the proper position, in order to counteract this inclination by a contrary movement. In this manner, the object has never time to fall in any one direction, and is supported in a way somewhat analogous to that in which a top is supported on a pivot, by being made to spin upon an axis. That a person should be able to do this in the case of a single object, is curious; but that he should be able to balance in the same way two or three upon different parts of his body, and at the same time balance himself on a small cord or wire, is indeed wonderful. Nor is it possible to conceive that, in such an instance, the mind, at one and the same moment, attends to these different equilibriums; |