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serve here. I have mentioned it merely as an additional proof of that irresistible propensity to believe in the permanent order of physical events, which seems to form an original principle of the human constitution ;-a belief essential to our existence in the world which we inhabit, as well as the foundation of all physical science; but which we obviously extend far beyond the bounds authorized by sound philosophy, when we apply it, without any limitation, to that moral system, which is distinguished by peculiar characteristics, so numerous and important, and for the accommodation of which, so many reasons entitle us to presume, that the material universe, with all its constant and harmonious laws, was purposely arranged.

To a hasty and injudicious application of the same belief, in anticipating the future course of human affairs, might be traced a variety of popular superstitions, which have prevailed, in a greater or less degree, in all nations and ages; and those superstitions, for example, which have given rise to the study of charms, of omens, of astrology, and of the different arts of divination. But the argument has been already prosecuted as far as its connexion with this part of the subject requires. For a fuller illustration of it, I refer to some remarks in my former volume, on the superstitious observances which, among rude nations, are constantly found blended with the practice of physic; and which, contemptible and ludicrous as they seem, have an obvious foundation, during the infancy of human reason, in those important principles of our nature, which, when duly disciplined by a more enlarged experience, lead to the sublime discoveries of inductive science.

* Vol. I. pp. 355, 356, 357, 3d edit.

Nor is it to the earlier stages of society, or to the lower classes of the people, that these superstitions are confined. Even in the most enlightened and refined periods they occasionally appear; exercising, not unfrequently, over men of the highest genius and talents, an ascendant, which is at once consolatory and humiliating to the species.

"Ecce fulgurum monitus, oraculorum præscita, aruspicum prædicta, atque etiam, parva dictu in auguriis sternutamenta et offensiones pedum. Divus Augustus lævum prodidit sibi calceum præpostere inductum, quo die seditione militari prope afflictus est.”*

"Dr. Johnson (says his affectionate and very communicative biographer) had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was, his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or his left foot (I am not certain which) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the cere

*Plin. Nat. Hist. Lib. ii.
Dd

mony, and having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion."*

The remark may appear somewhat out of place, but af ter the last quotation, I may be permitted to say, that the person to whom it relates, great as his powers, and splendid as his accomplishments undoubtedly were, was scarcely entitled to assert, that "Education is as well known, and has long been as well known, as ever it can be."t What a limited estimate of the objects of education must this great man have formed! They who know the value of a well-regulated and unclouded mind, would not incur the weakness and wretchedness exhibited in the foregoing description, for all his literary acquirements and literary fame.

III.

Continuation of the Subject.-General Remarks on the Difference between the Evidence of Experience, and that of Analogy.

ACCORDING to the account of experience which has been hitherto given, its evidence reaches no farther than to an anticipation of the future from the past, in cases where the same physical cause continues to operate in exactly the same circumstances. That this statement is agreeable to the strict philosophical notion of experience,

* Boswell's Johnson, Vol. I. p. 264, 4to edit. + Ibid. p. 514.

will not be disputed. Wherever a change takes place, either in the cause itself, or in the circumstances combined with it in our former trials, the anticipations which we form of the future cannot with propriety be referred to experience alone, but to experience co-operating with some other principles of our nature. In common dis

course, however, precision in the use of language is not to be expected, where logical or metaphysical ideas are at all concerned; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered at, that the word experience should often be employed with a latitude greatly beyond what the former definition authorizes. When I transfer, for example, my conclusions concerning the descent of heavy bodies from one stone to another stone, or even from a stone to a leaden bullet, my inference might be said, with sufficient accuracy for the ordinary purposes of speech, to have the evidence of experience in its favour; if indeed it would not savour of scholastic affectation to aim at a more rigorous enunciation of the proposition. Nothing, at the same time, can be more evident than this, that the slightest shade of difference which tends to weaken the resemblance, or rather to destroy the identity of two cases, invalidates the inference from the one to the other, as far as it rests on experience solely, no less than the most prominent dissimilitudes which characterize the different kingdoms and departments of nature.

Upon what ground do I conclude that the thrust of a sword through my body, in a particular direction, would be followed by instant death? According to the popular use of language, the obvious answer would be,-upon experience, and experience alone. But surely this account.

of the matter is extremely loose and incorrect; for where is the evidence that the internal structure of my body bears any resemblance to that of any of the other bodies which have been hitherto examined by anatomists? It is no answer to this question to tell me, that the experience of these anatomists has ascertained a uniformity of struc ture in every human subject which has as yet been dissect ed; and that therefore I am justified in concluding that my body forms no exception to the general rule. My question does not relate to the soundness of this inference, but to the principle of my nature, which leads me thus not only to reason from the past to the future, but to rea son from one thing to another, which, in its external marks, bears a certain degree of resemblance to it. Something more than experience, in the strictest sense of that word, is surely necessary to explain the transition from what is identically the same, to what is only similar; and yet my inference in this instance is made with the most assured and unqualified confidence in the infallibility of the result. No inference, founded on the most direct and long-continued experience, nor indeed any proposition established by mathematical demonstration, could more imperiously command my assent.

In whatever manner the province of experience, strictly so called, comes to be thus enlarged, it is perfectly ma nifest, that without some provision for this purpose, the principles of our constitution would not have been duly adjusted to the scene in which we have to act. Were we not so formed as eagerly to seize the resembling features of different things and different events, and to extend our conclusions from the individual to the species, life would

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