ent from those sentiments and prospects which dignified the retreat of Turgot, and brightened the declining years of Franklin!

Such

The querulous temper, however, which is incident to old men, although it renders their manners disagreeable in the intercourse of social life, is by no means the most contemptible form in which the prejudices I have now been discribing may display their influence. a temper indicates at least a certain degree of observation, in marking the vicissitudes of human affairs, and a certain degree of sensibility in early life, which has connected pleasing ideas with the scenes of infancy and youth. A very great proportion of mankind are, in a great measure, incapable either of the one or of the other; and, suffering themselves to be carried quietly along with the stream of fashion, and finding their opinions and their feelings always in the same relative situation to the fleeting objects around them, are perfectly unconscious of any progress in their own ideas, or of any change in the manners of their age. In vain the philosopher reminds them of the opinions they yesterday held; and forewarns them, from the spirit of the times, of those which they are to hold to-morrow. The opinions of the present moment seem to them to be inseparable from their constitution; and when the prospects are realized, which they lately treated as chimerical, their minds are so gradually prepared for the event, that they behold it without any emotions of wonder or curiosity, and it is to the philosopher alone, by whom it was predicted, that it appears to furnish a subject worthy of future reflection.

The prejudices to which the last observations relate, have their origin in that disposition of our nature, which accommodates the order of our ideas, and our various intellectual habits, to whatever appearances have been long and familiarly presented to the mind. But there are other prejudices, which, by being intimately associated with the essential principles of our constitution, or with the original and universal laws of our belief, are incomparably more inveterate in their nature, and have a far more extensive influence on human character and happiness.

III. The manner in which the association of ideas operates in producing this third class of our speculative errors, may be conceived, in part, from what was formerly said concerning the superstitious observances, which are mixed with the practice of medicine among rude nations. As all the different circumstances which accompanied the first administration of a remedy, come to be considered as essential to its future success, and are blended together in our conceptions, without any discrimination of their relative importance, so, whatever tenets and ceremonies we have been taught to connect with the religious creed of our infancy, become almost a part of our constitution, by being indissolubly united with truths which are essential to happiness, and which we are led to reverence and to love by all the best dispositions of the heart. The astonishment which the peasant feels, when he sees the rites of a religion different from his own, is not less great than if he saw some flagrant breach of the moral duties, or some direct act of impiety to God; nor is it easy for him to conceive, that there can be any thing worthy in a mind which treats with indifference, what awakens in his own breast all its best and sublimest emotions. "Is it possible," (says the old and expiring Bramin, in one of Marmontel's tales, to the young English officer who had saved the life of his daughter,)" is it possible,

"that he to whose compassion I owe the preservation of my child, and "who now soothes my last moments with consolations of piety, should "not believe in the god Vistnou, and his nine metamorphoses!"

What has now been said on the nature of religious superstition, may be applied to many other subjects. In particular, it may be applied to those political prejudices which bias the judgment even of enlightened men in all countries of the world.

How deeply rooted in the human frame are those important principles, which interest the good man in the prosperity of the world, and more especially in the prosperity of that beloved community to which he belongs! How small, at the same time, is the number of individuals who, accustomed to contemplate one modification alone of the social order, are able to distinguish the circumstances which are essential to human happiness, from those which are indifferent or hurtful! In such a situation, how natural is it for a man of benevolence, to acquire an indiscriminate and superstitious veneration for all the institutions, under which he has been educated; as these institutions, however capricious and absurd in themselves, are not only familiarized by habit to all his thoughts and feelings, but are consecrated in his mind by an indissoluble association with duties which nature recommends to his affections and which reason commands him to fulfil. It is on these accounts that a superstitious zeal against innovation both in religion and politics, where it is evidently grafted on piety to God, and good-will to niaukind, however it may excite the sorrow of the more enlightened philosopher, is justly entitled, not only to his indulgence, but to his esteem and affection.

The remarks which have been already made, are sufficient to shew, how necessary it is for us, is the formation of our philosophical principles, to examine with care all those opinions which in our early years, we have imbibed from our instructers; or which are connected with our own local situation. Nor does the universality of an opinion among men who have received a similar education, afford any presumption in its favour; for however great the difference is, which a wise man will always pay to common belief, upon those subjects which have employed the unbiassed reason of mankind, he certainly owes it no respect, in so far as he suspects it to be influenced by fashion or authority. Nothing can be more just than the observation of Fontenelle, that "the number "of those who believe in a system already established in the world, does not, in the least, add to its credibility; but that the number of those "who doubt of it has a tendency to diminish it.

The same remarks lead, upon the other hand, to another conclusion of still greater importance; that, notwithstanding the various false opinions which are current in the world, there are some truths which are inseparable from the human understanding, and by means of which, the errors of education, in most instances, are enabled to take hold of our belief.

A weak mind, unaccustomed to reflection, and which has passively derived its most important opinions from habit or from authority, when, in consequence of a more enlarged intercourse with the world, it finds, that ideas which it had been taught to regard as sacred, are treated by enlightened and worthy men with ridicule, is apt to lose its reverence for the fundamental and eternal truths on which these arcessory ideas are grafted, and easily falls a prey to that sceptical philosophy, which

teaches, that all the opinions, and all the principles of action by which mankind are governed, may be traced to the influence of education and example. Amidst the infinite variety of forms, however, which our versatile nature assumes, it cannot fail to strike an attentive observer, that there are certain indelible features common to them all. In one situation, we find good men attached to a republican form of government; in an other, to a monarchy; but in all situations, we find them devoted to the service of their country and of mankind, and disposed to regard, with reverence and love, the most absurd and capricious institutions which custom has led them to connect with the order of society. The different appearances, therefore. which the political opinions and the political conduct of men exhibit, while they demonstrate to what a wonderful degree of human nature may be influenced by situation and by early instruction, evince the existence of some common and original principles, which fit it for the political union, and illustrate the uniform opera tion of those laws of association, to which, in all the stages of society, it is equally subject.

Similar observations are applicable, and, indeed, in a still more striking degree, to the opinions of mankind on the important questions of religion and morality. The variety of systems which they have formed to themselves concerning these subjects, has often excited the ridicule of the sceptic and the libertine; but if, on the one hand, this variety shews the folly of bigotry, and the reasonableness of mutual indulgence, the curiosity which has led men in every situation to such speculations, and the influence which their conclusions, however absurd, have had on their character and their happiness, prove, no less clearly, on the other, that there must be some principles from which they all derive their origin; and invite the philosopher to ascertain what are these original and immutable laws of the human mind,

"Examine" (says Mr. Hume)" the religious principles which have "prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they "are any thing but sick men's dreams; or, perhaps, will regard them "more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the "serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who dignifies "himself with the name of rational."-"To oppose the torrent of scho"lastic religion by such feeble maxims as these. that it is impossible for the "same thing to be and not to be; that the whole is greater than a part; "that two and three make five; is pretending to stop the ocean with a "bulrush." But what is the inference to which we are led by these observations? Is it, (to use the words of this ingenious writer,)" that the "whole is a riddle, an ænigma, an explicable mystery; and that doubt, "uncertainty, and suspense, appear the only result of our most accurate "scrutiny concerning this subject ?" Or should not rather the melancholy histories which he has exhibited of the follies and caprices of superstition, direct our attention to those sacred and indelible characters on the human mind, which all these perversions of reason are unable to oblite. rate; like that image of himself, which Phidias wished to perpetuate, by stamping it so deeply on the buckler of his Minerva; “ut nemo de"lere posset aut divellere, qui totam statuam non imminueret."* In

⚫ Select Discourses by JOHN SMITH, p. 119. Cambridge, 1673.

truth, the more striking the contradictions, and the more ludicrous the ceremonies to which the pride of human reason has thus been reconciled, the stronger is our evidence that religion has a foundation in the nature of man. When the greatest of modern philosophers declares, that "he would rather believe all the fables in the Legends, and the Talmud, "and the Alcorau, than that this universal frame is without mind;"* he has expressed the same feeling, which, in all ages and nations, has led good men, unaccustomed to reasoning, to an implicit faith in the creed of their infaury; a feeling which affords an evidence of the existence of the Deity, incomparably more striking, than, if, unmixed with error and undebased by superstition, this most important of all principles had commanded the univer al assent of mankind. Where are the other truths, in the whole circle of the sciences, which are so essential to human happiness, as to procure an easy access, not only for themselves, but for whatever opinions may happen to be blended with them? Where are the truths so venerable and commanding, as to impart their own sublimity to every trifling memorial which recalls them to our remem. brane; to bestow solemnity and elevation on every mode of expression by which they are conveyed; and which, in whatever scene they have habitually occupied the thoughts, consecrate every object which it presents to our senses, and the very ground we have been accustomed to tread? To attempt to weaken the authority of such impressions, by a detail of the endless variety of forms, which they derive from casual associations, is surely an employment unsuitable to the dignity of philosophy. To the vulgar, it may be amusing, in this, as in other instances, to indulge their wonder at what is new or uncommon; but to the philosopher it belongs to perceive, under all these various disguises, the workings of the same common nature; and in the superstitions of Egypt no less than in the lofty visions of Plato, to recognise the existence of those moral ties which unite the heart of man to the Author of his be ing.

SECTION II.

Influence of the Association of Ideas on our Judgments in Matters of Taste.

THE very general observations which I am to make in this Section, do not presuppose any particular theory concerning the nature of Taste. It is sufficient for my purpose to remark, that taste is not a simple and original faculty, but a power gradually formed by experience and observation. It implies, indeed, as its ground-work, a certain degree of natural sensibility; but it implies also the exercise of the judgment; and is the slow result of an attentive examination and comparison of the agreeable or disagreeable effects produced on the mind by external objects.

Such of my readers as are acquainted with "An Essay on the Nature "and Principles of Taste," lately published by Mr. Alison, will not be surprised that I decline the discussion of a subject which he has treated with so much ingenuity and elegance.

The view which was formerly given of the process, by which the

LOBD BACON, in his Essays.

general laws of he material world are investigated, and which I endea⚫ voured to illustrate by the state of medicine among rude nations, is strictly applicable to the history of Taste. That certain objects are fitted to give pleasure and others disgust, to the mind we know from experience alone; and it is impossible for us, by any reasoning a priori, to explain how the pleasure or the pain is produced. In the works of nature we find, in many instances, Beauty and Sublimity involved among circumstances, which are either indifferent, or which obstruct the general effect and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can separate those circumstances from the rest, and ascertain with what particular qualities the pleasing effect it connected. Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies Nature, will copy her servilely, that he may be certain of securing the pleasing effect; and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of superfluous or of disagreeable concomitants. Experience and observation alone can enable him to make this discrimination, to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated aid to form a creation of his own, more faultless than ever fell under the observation of his senses.

This analogy between the progress of Taste from rudeness to refinement, and the progress of physical knowledge from the superstitions of a savage tribe, to the investigation of the laws of nature, proceeds on the supposition, that, as in the material world, there are general facts, beyond which philosophy is unable to proceed, so. in the constitution of Inan, there is an inexplicable adaption of the mind to the objects with which his faculties are conversant; in cousequence of which, these objects are fitted to produce agreeable or disagreeable emotions. In both cases, reasoning may be employed with propriety to refer particular phenomena to general principles; but in both cases, we must at last arrive at principles of which no account can be given, but that such is the will of our Maker.

A great part, too, of the remarks which were made in the last Section on the origin of popular prejudices, may be applied to explain the influence of casual associations on Taste; but these remarks do not so completely exhaust the subject, as to supersede the necessity of farther illustration. In matters of Taste, the effects which we consider, are produced on the Mind itself; and are accompanied either with pleasure or with pain. Hence the tendency to casual association is much stronger than it commonly is with respect to physical events; and when such associations are once formed, as they do not lead to any important inconvenience, similar to those which result from physical mistakes, they are not so likely to be corrected by mere experience, unassisted by study. To this it is owing that the influence of association on our judgments concerning beauty and deformity, is still more remarkable than on our speculative conclusions; a circumstance which has led some philosophers to suppose, that association is sufficient to account for the origin of these notions, and that there is no such thing as a standard of Taste, founded on the principles of the human constitution. But this is undoubtedly pushing the theory a great deal too far. The association of ideas can never account for the origin of a new notion, or of a pleasure essentially different from all the others which we know. It may, indeed, enable us to conceive how a thing, indifferent in itself, may be