He is impatient to show his performance to all about him, and thinks himself entitled to their applause. He is applauded by all, and feels the same kind of emotion from this applause, as a Roman consul did from a triumph. He has now a consciousness of some worth in himself. He assumes a superiority over those who are not so wise; and pays respect to those who are wiser than himself. He attempts something else, and is every day reaping new laurels.

416. As children grow up, they are delighted with tales, with childish games, with designs and stratagems: every thing of this kind stores the Fancy with a new regular Train of Thought, which becomes familiar by repetition, so that one part draws the whole after it in the Imagination. (Art. 422.)

Obs. 1. The imagination of a child, like the hand of a painter, is long employed in copying the works of others, before it attempts any invention of its own.

2. The power of Invention is not yet brought forth, but it is coming forward, and, like the bud of a tree, is ready to burst its integuments, when some accident aids its eruption.

417. There is no power of the understanding that gives so much pleasure to the owner as that of Invention; whether it be employed in mechanics, in science, in the conduct of life, in poetry, in wit, or in the fine arts.

Illus. One who is conscious of it, acquires thereby a worth and importance in his own eye which he had not before. He looks upon himself as one who formerly lived upon the bounty and gratuity of others, but who has now acquired some property of his own. (See Illus. 6 and 7. Art. 427.) When this power begins to be felt in the young mind, it has the grace of novelty added to its other charms, and, like the youngest child of the family, is caressed beyond all

the rest.

Corol. We may be sure, therefore, that as soon as children are conscious of this power, they will exercise it in such ways as are suited to their age, and to the objects about which they are employed. This gives rise to innumerable new associations, and regular Trains of Thought, which make the deeper impression upon the mind, as they are its exclusive property.

418. Thus we conceive, that the minds of children, as soon as they have judgment to distinguish what is regular, orderly, and connected, from a mere medley of Thought, are, by these means, furnished with regular Trains of Thinking.

Illus. 1. First and chiefly, by copying what they see in the works and in the discourse of others. Man is the most imitative of all animals; he not only imitates intentionally what he thinks has any grace or beauty, but even without intention, he is led by a kind of instinct (which it is difficult to resist) into the modes of speaking, thinking, and acting, which he has been accustomed to see and hear in his

early years. The more children see of what is regular and beautiful in what is presented to them, the more they are led to observe and to imitate it.

Corol. This is the chief part of their stock, and descends to them by a kind of tradition from those who came before them; and we shall find, that the Fancy of most men is furnished from those with whom they have conversed, as well as from their religion, language, and manners.

Illus. 2. Secondly, By the additions or innovations that are properly their own, their Trains of Thinking will be greater or less, in proportion to their study and invention; but in the bulk of mankind, study and invention are not very considerable. Hence the barrenness of their mind.

Obs. Every profession, and every rank in life, has a manner of Thinking, and a turn of Fancy, that are peculiarly its own; and by which it is characterized in plays and works of humor. The bulk of men of the same nation, of the same rank, and of the same occupation, are cast as it were in the same mould. This mould itself changes gradually, but slowly, by new inventions, by intercourse with strangers, or by other accidents.

419. The several imaginations even of men of good parts, never serve them readily, except in things wherein they have been much exercised. A minister of state holds a conference with a foreign ambassador, with no greater emotion than a professor in a college prelects to his pupils. The Imagination of each presents to him what the occasion requires to be said, and how it should be delivered. Let them change places, and either would find himself at a loss. (See Art. 421.)

Illus. The habits which the human mind is capable of acquiring by exercise, are in many instances wonderful; in none more wonderful, than in that versatility of Imagination, which a well-bred man acquires, by being much exercised in the various scenes of life. In the morning he visits a friend in affliction. Here his Imagination brings forth from its store every topic of consolation; every thing that is agreeable to the laws of friendship and sympathy, and nothing that is not so. From thence he drives to the minister's levee, where Imagination readily suggests what is proper to be said or replied to every man, and in what manner, according to the degree of acquaintance or familiarity, of rank or dependence, of opposition or concurrence of interests, of confidence or distrust, that is between them. Nor does all this employment hinder him from carrying on some design with much artifice, and endeavoring to penetrate into the views of others through the closest disguises. From the levee he goes to the House of Commons, and speaks upon the affairs of the nation; from thence to a ball or assembly, and entertains the ladies. His Imagination puts on the friend, the courtier, the patriot, the fine gentleman, with more ease than we put off one suit and put on another.

Corol. This is the effect of training and exercise. For a man of

equal parts and knowledge, but unaccustomed to those scenes of public life, is quite disconcerted when first brought into them. His thoughts are put to flight, and he cannot rally them.

420. Feats of Imagination may be learned by application and practice, as wonderful and as useless as the feats of balancers and rope-dancers. (Art. 131.)

Illus. 1. When a man can make a hundred verses standing on one foot, or play three or four games at chess at the same time, without seeing the board, it is probable he hath spent his life in acquiring such a feat. However, such unusual phenomena show what habits of Imagination may be acquired.

2. When such habits are acquired and perfected, they are exercised without any laborious effort; like the habit of playing upon an instrument of music. There are innumerable motions of the fingers upon the stops or keys, which must be directed in one particular train or succession. There is only one arrangement of those motions that is right, while there are ten thousand that are wrong, and would spoil the music. The musician thinks not in the least of the arrangement of those motions; he has a distinct idea of the tune, and wills to play it. The motions of the fingers arrange themselves, so as to answer his intention. (Illus. 2. Art. 138.)

3. In like manner, when a man speaks upon a subject with which he is acquainted, there is a certain arrangement of his Thoughts and words necessary to make his discourse sensible, pertinent, and grammatical. In every sentence, there are more rules of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, that may be transgressed, than there are words and letters in the sentence. He speaks without thinking of any of those rules, and yet observes them all, as if they were all in his eye.

4. This is a habit so similar to that of a player on an instrument, that both seem to be acquired in the same way, that is, by much practice, and the power of habit. (Art. 126.)

5. When a man speaks well and methodically upon a subject without study, and with perfect ease, I believe we may take it for granted that his Thoughts run in a beaten track. There is a mould in his mind, which has been formed by much practice, or by study, for this very subject, or for some other so similar and so analogous, that his discourse falls with ease into this mould, and takes its form from it.

The

III. Of the Means of improving a Train of Thought. 421. We have now considered the operations of Fancy that are either spontaneous or regular; and have endeavored to account for their regularity and arrangement. natural powers of Judgment and Invention, the pleasure that always attends the exercise of those powers, the means. we have of improving them by our imitation of others, and the effect of practice and habit, sufficiently account for this phenomenon, this Train of Thought, without supposing any

unaccountable attractions by which our Ideas arrange themselves. (See Art. 127 and 128.)

Illus. 1. But we are able to direct our thoughts in a certain course, so as to perform a destined task.

2. Every work of art has its model framed in the Imagination. Here the Iliad of Homer, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, were fabricated. Shall we believe, that those works took the form in which they now appear of themselves? That the sentiments, the manners, and the passions, arranged themselves at once in the mind of Homer, so as to form the Iliad? Was there no more effort in the composition, than there is in telling a well-known tale, or singing a favorite song? This cannot be believed. (Example, Art. 413.)

3. Granting that some happy Thought first suggested the design of singing the wrath of Achilles, yet, surely, it was a matter of Judgment and choice where the narration should begin, and where it should end.

4. Granting that the fertility of the poet's Imagination suggested a variety of rich materials; was not Judgment necessary to select what was proper, to reject what was improper, to arrange the materials into a just composition, and to adapt them to each other, and to the design of the whole? (Art. 244.)

5. No man can believe that Homer's ideas, merely by certain sympathies and antipathies, by certain attractions and repulsions inherent in their natures, arranged themselves according to the most perfect rules of epic poetry; and Newton's according to the rules of Mathematical composition. (See Art. 275. Example 2.)

Corol. The Train of Thinking, therefore, is capable of being guided and directed, much in the same manner as the horse we ride. The horse has his strength, his agility, and his mettle, in himself; he has been taught certain movements, and many useful habits that make him more subservient to our purposes, and obedient to our will; but to accomplish a journey, he must be directed by the rider.

422. In like manner, Fancy has its original powers, which are very different in different persons; it has, likewise, more regular motions, to which it has been trained by a long course of discipline and exercise; and by which it may, ex tempore, and without much effort, produce things that have a considerable degree of beauty, regularity and design. (Art. 264.)

Illus. But the most perfect works of design are never extemporary. Our first Thoughts are reviewed; we place them at a proper distance; examine every part, and take a complex view of the whole by our critical faculties, we perceive this part to be redundant, that deficient; here is a want of nerves, there a want of delicacy; this is obscure, that too diffuse: things are marshalled anew, according to a second and more deliberate judgment; what was deficient is supplied; what was dislocated is put in joint; redun

dancies are lopped off, and the whole polished. (See Art. 270. and Illus.)

2. Though poets, of all artists, make the highest claim to inspiration, yet, if we believe Horace, a competent judge, no production in that art can have merit, which has not cost such labor as this in the birth. (See Art. 277. and Illus.)

Corol. The conclusion we would draw from all that has been said upon this subject is, That every thing that is regular in that Train of Thought, which we call Fancy or Imagination, from the little designs and reveries of children, to the grandest productions of human genius, was originally the offspring of imitation, judgment, and taste, applied with soine effort, greater or less. (Corol. 1. and 2. Art. 264.) What one person composed with art and judgment, is imitated by another with great ease. What a man himself at first composed with pains, becomes by habit so familiar, as to offer itself spontaneously to his Fancy afterwards; but nothing of merit that is regular, was ever conceived without design, nor executed without attention and care. (See the Illus. and Examples to Art. 275.)

CHAPTER VII.

OF PREJUDICES.

423. THE perfection of judgment is, to compare our ideas fairly and candidly, either by juxtaposition, as in the case of intuitive propositions, or by the intervention of intermediate. ideas, when proof is requisite, and to pass a decision on that comparison, according to truth and justice, unbiased by partiality or prejudice, unseduced by fallacious appearances in things, by ambiguities in words, or by a disposition to deceive, or to be deceived. (See Art. 278. and 358.)

Illus. As, then, the purpose of all our inquiries is, to discover truth and knowledge, and as the completion of this discovery consists in discerning the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, it is plain that we cannot proceed one step without having constant recourse to the operation of judgment. We exert it immediately in cases of intuition; we exert it at the conclusion of every process of reasoning, in determining whether two principal ideas agree or disagree; and we exert it in every step of that process, in deciding concerning the agreement or disagreement of each couple of intermediate ideas. (Illus. Art. 279.) The candid inquirer, therefore, should study to preserve his mind in a state fitted to perform this operation in a proper manner, and to divest it of all obstructions or encumbrances which may interfere with its success. Without this precaution, it is vain to pretend to discover truth, because we shall only perplex and discompose our minds, spend our time in irksomeness to ourselves,