their natural courfe, and when we are confcious of little or no active exertion. Of the latter kind, are the relations of Cause and Effect, of Means and End, of Premises and Conclufion; and those others, which regulate the train of thought in the mind of the philofopher, when he is engaged in a particular inveftigation.

It is owing to this diftinction, that tranfitions, which would be highly offenfive in philofophical writings, are the moft pleafing of any in poetry. In the former fpecies of compofition, we expect to fee an author lay down a distinct plan or method, and obferve it rigorously; without allowing himself to ramble into digreffions, fuggefted by the accidental ideas or expreffions which may occur to him in his progrefs. In that state of mind in which poetry is read, fuch digreffions are not only agreeable, but neceffary to the effect; and an arrangement founded on the fpontaneous and feemingly cafual order of our thoughts, pleases more than one suggested by an accurate analysis of the fubject.

How abfurd would the long digreffion in praise of Industry, in Thompson's Autumn, appear, if it occurred in a profe effay !-a digreffion, however, which, in that beautiful poem, arifes naturally and infenfibly from the view of a luxuriant harvest; and which as naturally leads the Poet back to the points where his excurfion began:

All is the gift of Industry; whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful. Pensive Winter, cheer'd by him,
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempest idly rave along;
His harden'd fingers deek the gaudy Spring;
Without him Summer were an arid waste;
Nor to th' Autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores,
That waving round, recal my wand'ring Song.

In Goldfmith's Traveller, the tranfitions are maaged with confummate skill; and yet, how differ ent from that logical method which would be fuited to a philofophical difcourfe on the ftate of fociety in the different parts of Europe! Some of the finest are fuggefted by the affociating principle of Contraft. Thus, after defcribing the effeminate and debafed Romans, the Poet proceeds to the Swifs:

My soul, turn from them-turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display.

And, after painting fome defects in the manners of this gallant but unrefined people, his thoughts are led to thofe of the French:

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn and France displays her bright domain.

The tranfition which occurs in the following lines, feems to be fuggefted by the accidental mention of a word; and is certainly one of the happieft in our language.

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic Sires of old!
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;

War in each breast, and freedom on each brow,
How much unlike the Sons of Britain now!

-Fired at the sound, my Genius spreads her wing,
And flies, where Britain courts the western spring.

Numberless illuftrations of the fame remark might be collected from the ancient Poets, more particularly from the Georgics of Virgil, where the fingular felicity of the tranfitions has attracted the notice even of those, who have been the leaft difpofed to indulge themselves in philofophical refinements concerning the principles of Criticifm. A celebrated

inftance of this kind occurs in the end of the firft Book:-the confideration of the weather and of its common prognostics leading the fancy, in the firft

place, to thofe more extraordinary phenomena which, according to the fuperftitious belief of the vulgar, are the forerunners of political Revolutions; and, afterwards, to the death of Cæfar, and the battles of Pharfalia and Philippi. The manner in which the Poet returns to his original fubject, difplays that exquisite art which is to be derived only from the diligent and enlightened study of nature.

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cùm finibus illis
Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,
Exesa inveniet scabrâ rubigine pila ;

Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes,
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.

The facility with which ideas are affociated in the mind, is very different in different individuals: a circumftance which, as I fhall afterwards fhew, lays the foundation of remarkable varieties among men, both in refpect of genius and of character. I am inclined, too, to think that. in the other fex (proba bly in confequence of early education) ideas are more eafily affociated together, than in the minds of men. Hence the livelinefs of their fancy, and the fuperiority they poffefs in epiftolary writing, and in those kinds of poetry, in which the principal recommendations are, ease of thought and expreffion. Hence, too, the facility with which they contract or lofe habits, and accommodate their minds to new fitua tions; and, I may add, the difpofition they have to that species of fuperftition which is founded on accidental combinations of circumftances. The influence which this facility of affociation has on the pow er of Tafte, fhail be afterwards confidered.

SECTION III.

Of the Power which the Mind has over the Train of its Thoughts.

BY means of the Affociation of Ideas, a conftant current of thoughts, if I may use the expreffion, is made to pass through the mind while we are awake. Sometimes the current is interrupted, and the thoughts diverted into a new channel, in confequence of the ideas fuggefted by other men, or of the objects of perception with which we are furrounded. So completely, however, is the mind in this particular fubjected to phyfical laws, that it has been juftly obferved, we cannot, by an effort of our will, call up any one thought; and that the train of our ideas depends on caufes which operate in a manner inexplicable by us.

This obfervation, although it has been cenfured as paradoxical, is almost self-evident; for, to call up a particular thought, fuppofes it to be already in the mind. As I fhall have frequent occafion, however, to refer to the obfervation afterwards, I fhall endeavor to obviate the only objection which, I think, can reafanably be urged againft it; and which is founded on that operation of the mind, which is commonly called recollection or intentional memory.

It is evident, that, before we attempt to recollect the particular circumflances of any event, that event in general must have been an object of our attention. We remember the outlines of the ftory, but cannot at first give a complete account of it. If we wish to recal these circumstances, there are only two ways in which we can proceed. We must either form dif

*By Lord KAIMES, and others.

ferent fuppofitions, and then confider which of these tallies beft with the other circumftances of the event; or, by revolving in our mind the circumftances we remember, we muft endeavor to excite the recollection of the other circumftances affociated with them. The first of these proceffes is, properly speaking, an inference of reason, and plainly furnishes no exception to the doctrine already delivered. We have an inftance of the other mode of recollection, when we are at a lofs for the beginning of a sentence in reciting a compofition that we do not perfectly remember; in which cafe we naturally repeat over, two or three times, the concluding words of the preceding fentence, in order to call up the other words which ufed to be connected with them in the memory. In this inftance, it is evident, that the circumstances we defire to remember, are not recalled to the mind in immediate confequence of an exertion of volition, but are fuggefted by fome other circumftances with which they are connected, independently of our will, by the laws of our conftitution.

Notwithstanding, however, the immediate dependence of the train of our thoughts on the laws of affociation, it must not be imagined that the will posfeffes no influence over it. This influence, indeed, is not exercised directly and immediately, as we are apt to fuppofe, on a fuperficial view of the fubject: but it is, nevertheless, very extenfive in its effects; and the different degrees in which it is poffeffed by different individuals, conftitute fome of the most ftriking inequalities among men, in point of intellec tual capacity.

Of the powers which the mind poffeffes over the train of its thoughts, the most obvious is its power of fingling out any one of them at pleasure; of detaining it; and of making it a particular object of attention. By doing fo, we not only ftop the fucceffion that would otherwife take place; but in con