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 less value to his happiness, that they derive their principal charms from the embellishments of his fancy.

It is the business 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 less 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 so 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 fcience, and with thofe beauties of nature which are open to all.

These observations 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 illustrate 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 school, Dr. Akenside has in view in the fol

lowing 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 †.”

* See what Epictus has remarked on the χρησις δια δεῖ φαντα σιῶν. (Arrian, l. i. c. 12.) εσται ή διανοια. βαπτεται γαρ

αντην, τη συνεχεία των £. 16.

Όσα αν πολλακις φαντασθης, τοιαυτη σου ὑπο των φαντασίων ἡ ψυχη, βαπτε εν Anton. 1. v. τοιςτων φαντασίων, &c. &c.

+ Pleasures of Imagination, b iii,

SECTION IV.

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

N perufing the foregoing Sections of this Chapter,

I I am aware, that fome of my readers may be apt

to think that many of the obfervations which I have made, might eafily be refolved into more general principles. I am also 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 myfelf much interested to reply, provided it be granted that my obfervations are candidly and accurately stated, fo far as they reach. Suppofing that in fome cafes I may have stopped fhort too foon, my fpeculations, although they may be cenfured as imperfect, cannot be confidered as ftanding in oppofition to the conclufions 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,)

founded,) are, in my opinion, indifpenfably neceffary, in order to prepare the way for thofe very general and comprehenfive theories concerning it, which fome eminent writers of the prefent age have been ambitious to form?

Concerning the merit of thefe theories, I fhall not prefume to give any judgment. I fhall only remark, that, in all the other fciences, the progrefs of difcovery has been gradual, from the lefs general to the more general laws of nature; and that it would be fingular, indeed, if, in the Philofophy of the Human Mind, a science, which but a few years ago was confessedly in its infancy, and which certainly labours under many disadvantages peculiar to itself, a ftep fhould, all at once, be made to a fingle principle comprehending all the particular phenomena which we know.

Suppofing fuch a theory to be completely established, it would ftill be proper to lead the minds of students to it by gradual fteps. One of the most important uses of theory, is to give the memory a permanent hold, and a prompt command, of the particular facts which we were previoufly acquainted with; and no theory can be completely understood, unless the mind be led to it nearly in the order of investigation.

It is more particularly useful, in conducting the ftudies of others, to familiarife their minds, as completely as poffible, with thofe laws of nature for which we have the direct evidence of fenfe, or of confciousness, before directing their inquiries to the more abftruse and refined generalizations of fpecula

tive curiofity. In natural philofophy, fuppofing the theory of Bofcovich to be true, it would ftill be proper, or rather indeed abfolutely neceffary, to accuftom students, in the first stage of their phyfical education, to dwell on those general physical facts which fall under our actual obfervation, and about which all the practical arts of life are converfant. In like manner, in the philosophy of mind, there are many general facts for which we have the direct evidence of confcioufnefs. The words, Attention, Conception, Memory, Abstraction, Imagination, Curiofity, Ambition, Compaffion, Refentment, exprefs -powers and principles of our nature, which every man may fludy by reflecting on his own internal operations. Words correfponding to thefe, are to be found in all languages, and may be confidered as forming the first attempt towards a philofophical claffification of intel lectual and moral phenomena. Such a classification, however imperfect and indiftinct, we may be affured, muft have fome foundation in nature; and it is at leaft prudent, for a philofopher to keep it in view as the ground-work of his own arrangement. It not only directs our attention to thofe facts in the human conftitution, on which every folid theory in this branch of science must be founded; but to the facts, which, in all ages, have appeared to the common fense of mankind, to be the moft ftriking and important; and of which it ought to be the great object of theorists, not to fuperfede, but to facilitate the study.

There is indeed good reafon for believing, that many of the facts which our confcioufnefs would lead us to