circumstances are to be regarded as the conftant, and which as the accidental, antecedents of the effect. If, in the course of our experience, the same combination of circumftances is always exhibited to us without any alteration, and is invariably followed by the fame refult, we must for ever remain ignorant, whether this refult be connected with the whole combination, or with one or more of the circumstances combined; and therefore, if we are anxious, upon any occafion, to produce a fimilar effect, the only rule that we can follow with perfect fecurity, is to imitate in every particular circumftance the combination which we have feen. It is only where we have an opportunity of feparating fuch circumftances from each other; of combining them varioufly together; and of observing the effects which refult from these different experiments, that we can afcertain with precifion, the general laws of nature, and ftrip phyfical caufes of their accidental and uneffential concom itants.

To illuftrate this by an example. Let us fuppofe that a favage, who, in a particular inftance, had found himself relieved of fome bodily indifpofition by a draught of cold water, is a fecond time afflicted with a fimilar diforder, and is defirous to repeat the fame remedy. With the limited degree of experience which we have here fuppofed him to poffefs, it would be impoffible for the acuteft philofopher, in his fituation, to determine, whether the cure was owing to the water which was drunk, to the cup in which it was contained, to the fountain from which it was taken, to the particular day of the month, or to the particular age of the moon. In order, therefore, to enfure the fuccefs of the remedy, he will very naturally, and very wifely, copy, as far as he can recollect, every circumftance which accompanied the firft application of it. He will make ufe of the fame cup, draw the water from the fame fountain, hold his

body in the fame pofture, and turn his face in the fame direction; and thus all the accidental circumftances in which the first experiment was made, will come to be affociated equally in his mind with the effect produced. The fountain from which the water was drawn will be confidered as poffeffed of particular virtues; and the cup from which it was drunk, will be fet apart from vulgar ufes, for the fake of thofe who may afterwards have occafion to apply the remedy. It is the enlargement of experience alone, and not any progrefs in the art of reasoning, which can cure the mind of thefe affociations, and free the practice of medicine from those fuperftitious obfervances with which we always find it incumbered among rude nations.

Many inftances of this fpecies of fuperftition might be produced from the works of philofophers who have flourished in more enlightened ages. In particular, many might be produced from the writings of thofe phyfical inquirers who immediately fucceeded to Lord Bacon; and who, convinced by his arguments, of the folly of all reasonings a priori, concerning the laws of nature, were frequently apt to run into the oppofite extreme, by recording every circumftance, even the moft ludicrous, and the moft obviously ineffential, which attended their experi

ments.* *

The obfervations which have been hitherto made, relate entirely to affociations founded on cafual combinations of material objects, or of phyfical events. The effects which thefe affociations produce on the

*The reader will scarcely believe, that the following cure for a dysentery, is copied verbatim from the works of Mr. Boyle:

"Take the thigh-bone of a hanged man, (perhaps another may serve, but this was still made use of,) calcine it to whiteness, and "having purged the patient with an antimonial medicine, give him "one dram of this white powder for one dose, in some good cor"dial, whether conserve or liquor."

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understanding, and which are so palpable, that they cannot fail to ftrike the most careless obferver, will prepare the reader for the remarks I am now to make, on fome analogous prejudices which warp our opinions on ftill more important fubjects.

As the established laws of the material world, which have been exhibited to our fenfes from our infancy, gradually accommodate to themselves the order of our thoughts; fo the most arbitrary and capricious inftitutions and customs, by a long and conftant and exclufive operation on the mind, acquire fuch an influence in forming the intellectual habits, that every deviation from them not only produces furprise, but is apt to excite fentiments of contempt and of ridicule. A person who has never extended his views beyond that fociety of which he himself is a member, is apt to confider many peculiarities in the manners and cuftoms of his countrymen as founded on the univerfal principles of the human conftitution; and when he hears of other nations, whofe practices in fimilar cafes are different, he is apt to cenfure them as unnatural, and to def pife them as abfurd. There are two claffes of men who have more particularly been charged with this weakness; thofe who are placed at the bottom, and those who have reached the fummit of the feale of refinement; the fromer from ignorance, and the latter from national vanity.

For curing this claís of prejudices, the obvious expedient which nature points out to us, is to extend our acquaintance with human affairs, either by means of books, or of perfonal obfervation. The effects of travelling, in enlarging and enlightening the mind, are obvious to our daily experience; and fimilar advantages may be derived (although, perhaps, not in an equal degree) from a careful study of the manners of paft ages or of distant nations, as they are defcribed by the hiftorian. In making,

however, these attempts for our intellectual improvement, it is of the utmoft confequence to us to vary, to a confiderable degree, the objects of our attention; in order to prevent any danger of our acquiring an exclufive preference for the caprices of any one people, whofe political fituation, or whofe moral character, may attach us to them as faultlefs models for our imitation. The fame weakness and versatility of mind; the fame facility of affociation, which, in the cafe of a person who has never extended his views beyond his own community, is a fource of national prejudice and of national bigotry, renders the mind, when forced into new fituations, easily fufceptible of other prejudices no lefs capricious; and fre quently prevents the time, which is devoted to travelling, or to ftudy, from being fubfervient to any better purpose, than an importation of foreign fafhions, or a still more ludicrous imitation of antient follies.

The philofopher whofe thoughts dwell habitually, not merely upon what is, or what has been, but upon what is best and most expedient for mankind; who, to the ftudy of books, and the obfervation of manners, has added a careful examination of the principles of the human conftitution, and of those which ought to regulate the focial order; is the only perfon who is effectually fecured against both the weakneffes which I have defcribed. By learning to feparate what is effential to morality and to happiness, from thofe adventitious trifles which it is the province of, fafhion to direct, he is equally guarded against the follies of national prejudice, and a weak deviation, in matters of indifference, from established ideas. Upon his mind, thus occupied with important subjects of reflection, the fluctuating caprices and fashions of the times lofe their influence; while accustomed to avoid the flavery of local and arbitrary habits, he poffeffes, in his

own genuine fimplicity of character, the fame power of accommodation to external circumftances, which men of the world derive from the pliability of their tafte, and the versatility of their manners. As the order, too, of his ideas is accommodated, not to what is cafually prefented from without, but to his own fyftematical principles, his affociations are fubject only to thofe flow and pleafing changes which arife from his growing light and improving reafon : and, in fuch a period of the world as the prefent, when the prefs not only excludes the poffibility of a permanent retrogradation in human affairs, but operates with an irrefiftible though gradual progress, in undermining prejudices and in extending the triumphs of philofophy, he may reasonably indulge the hope, that fociety will every day approach nearer and nearer to what he wishes it to be. A man of fuch a character, inftead of looking back on the past with regret, finds himself (if I may use the expreffion) more at home in the world, and more fatisfied with its order, the longer he lives in it. The melancholy contrafts which old men are fometimes difpofed to ftate, between its condition, when they are about to leave it, and that in which they found it at the commencement of their career, arifes, in most cafes, from the unlimited influence which in their early years they had allowed to the fashions of the times, in the formation of their characters. How different from those sentiments and profpects which dignified the retreat of Turgot, and brightened the declining years of Franklin!

The querulous temper, however, which is incident to old men, although it renders their manners disagreeable in the intercourfe of focial life, is by no means the most contemptible form in which the prejudices I have now been defcribing may display their influence. Such a temper indicates at least a certain degree of obfervation, in marking the viciffi