be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early impreffions, or wanton fancies at firft, which would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily obferved. A grown perfon furfeiting with honey, no fooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries ficknefs and qualms to his ftomach, and he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of diflike, and fick nefs, and vomiting, prefently accompany it, and he is difturbed, but he knows from whence to date this weaknefs, and can tell how he got this indifpofition. Had this happened to him by an overdofe of honey, when a child, all the fame effects would have followed, but the cause would have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural.

§. 8. I mention this not out of any great neceffity there is, in this prefent argument, to diftinguish nicely between natural and acquired antipathies; but I take notice of it for another purpose, viz. that those who have children, or the charge of their education, would think it worth their while diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent the undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people. This is the time most fufceptible of lafting impreffions; and though those relating to the health of the body are by discreet people minded and fenced against, yet I am apt to doubt, that those which relate more peculiarly to the mind, and terminate in the understanding or paffions, have been much lefs heeded than the thing deferves: nay, thofe relating purely to the understanding have, as I fufpect, been by most men wholly overlooked.

of errours.

§. 9. This wrong connexion in our A great caufe minds of ideas in themselves loofe and independent of one another, has such an influence, and is of fo great force to fet us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural, paffions, reasonings and notions themfelves, that perhaps there is not any one thing that deferves more to be looked after.

§. 10. The ideas of goblins and sprights Inftances. have really no more to do with darkness than light; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate thefe often on the mind of a child, and raife them there to

gether,

423 gether, poffibly he shall never be able to separate them again fo long as he lives: but darkness fhall ever afterwards bring with it thofe frightful ideas, and they fhall be fo joined, that he can no more bear the one than

the other.

§. 11. A man receives a fenfible injury from another, thinks on the man and that action over and over; and by ruminating on them ftrongly, or much in his mind, fo cements thofe two ideas together, that he makes them almoft one: never thinks on the man, but the pain and displeasure he suffered comes into his mind. with it, fo that he fcarce diftinguishes them, but has as much an averfion for the one as the other. Thus hatreds are often begotten from flight and innocent occafions, and quarrels propagated and continued in the world.

§. 12. A man has fuffered pain or ficknefs in any place; he faw his friend die in fuch a room; though thefe have in nature nothing to do one with another, yet when the idea of the place occurs to his mind, it brings (the impreffion being once made) that of the pain and displeasure with it; he confounds them in his mind, and can as little bear the one as the other.

Why time

cures fome diforders in the mind, which reafon

cannot.

§. 13. When this combination is fettled, and while it lafts, it is not in the power of reafon to help us, and relieve us from the effects of it. Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will operate according to their natures and circumftances; and here we see the caufe why time cures certain affections, which reafon, though in the right, and allowed to be fo, has not power over, nor is able against them to prevail with thofe who are apt to hearken to it in other cafes. The death of a child, that was the daily delight of his mother's eyes, and joy of her foul, rends from her heart the whole comfort of her life, and gives her all the torment imaginable: ufe the confolations of reason in this cafe, and you were as good preach cafe to one on the rack, and hope to allay, by rational difcourses, the pain of his joints tearing asunder. Till time has by difufe feparated the fenfe of that enjoy

E e 4

ment,

ment, and its lofs, from the idea of the child returning to her memory, all reprefentations, though ever fo reasonable, are in vain; and therefore fome in whom the union between thefe ideas is never diffolved, fpend their lives in mourning, and carry an incurable forrow to their graves.

Farther in

ftances of the

effect of the

affociation of

ideas.

§. 14. A friend of mine knew one perfectly cured of madness by a very harsh and offenfive operation. The gentleman, who was thus recovered, with great fenfe

of gratitude and acknowledgment, owned the cure all his life after, as the greatest obligation he could have received; but whatever gratitude and reafon fuggefted to him, he could never bear the fight of the operator: that image brought back with it the idea of that agony which he fuffered from his hands, which was too mighty and intolerable for him to endure.

§. 15. Many children imputing the pain they endured at fchool to their books they were corrected for, fo join thofe ideas together, that a book becomes their averfion, and they are never reconciled to the study and use of them all their lives after; and thus reading becomes a torment to them, which otherwife poffibly they might have made the great pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough, that fome men cannot ftudy in, and fashions of veffels, which though ever fo clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by reafon of fome accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make them offenfive and who is there that hath not obferved fome man to flag at the appearance, or in the company of fome certain perfon not otherwife fuperior to him, but because having once on fome occafion got the afcendant, the idea of authority and diftance goes along with that of the perfon, and he that has been thus fubjected, is not able to feparate them?

§. 16. Inftances of this kind are fo plentiful everywhere, that if I add one more, it is only for the pleafant oddnefs of it. It is of a young gentleman, who having learnt to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to ftand an old trunk in the room

where

425 where he learnt. The idea of this remarkable piece of houfhold-ftuff had fo mixed itfelf with the turns and fteps of all his dances, that though in that chamber he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilst that trunk was there; nor could he perform well in any other place, unlefs that or fome fuch other trunk had its due pofition in the room. If this story fhall be fufpected to be dreffed up with fome comical circumftances, a little beyond precife nature; I answer for myself that I had it fome years fince from a very fober and worthy man, upon his own knowledge, as I report it: and I dare fay, there are very few inquifitive perfons, who read this, who have not met with accounts, if not examples of this nature, that may parallel, or at leaft justify this.

Let the

Its influence

on intelled tual habits.

§. 17. Intellectual habits and defects this way contracted, are not lefs frequent and powerful, though lefs obferved. ideas of being and matter be ftrongly joined either by education or much thought, whilft these are ftill combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings will there be about feparate fpirits? Let custom from the very childhood have joined figure and fhape to the idea of God, and what abfurdities will that mind be liable to about the Deity?

Let the idea of infallibility be infeparably joined to any person, and these two conftantly together poffefs the mind; and then one body, in two places at once, fhall unexamined be fwallowed for a certain truth, by an implicit faith, whenever that imagined infallible perfon dictates and demands affent without inquiry.

Obfervable

§. 18. Some fuch wrong and unnatural combinations of ideas will be found to efta- in different blish the irreconcilable oppofition between feets. different fects of philofophy and religion;

for we cannot imagine every one of their followers to impofe wilfully on himself, and knowingly refuse truth offered by plain reafon. Intereft, though it does a great deal in the cafe, yet cannot be thought to work whole focieties of men to fo univerfal a perverfeness, as that every one of them to a man fhould knowingly main

tain falfhood: fome at leaft must be allowed to do what all pretend to, i. e. to purfue truth fincerely; and therefore there must be something that blinds their understandings, and makes them not fee the falfhood of what they embrace for real truth. That which thus captivates their reafons, and leads men of fincerity blindfold from common fenfe, will, when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of: fome independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are by education, cuftom, and the conftant din of their party, fo coupled in their minds, that they always appear there together; and they can no more feparate them in their thoughts, than if there were but one idea, and they operate as if they were fo. This gives fenfe to jargon, demonftration to abfurdities, and confiftency to nonfenfe, and is the foundation of the greatest, I had almost said of all the errours in the world; or if it does not reach fo far, it is at least the most dangerous one, fince fo far as it obtains, it hinders men from feeing and examining. When two things in themselves disjoined, appear to the fight conftantly united; if the eye fees thefe things riveted, which are loofe, where will you begin to rectify the mistakes that follow in two ideas, that they have been accustomed fo to join in their minds, as to fubftitute one for the other, and, as I am apt to think, often without perceiving it themselves? This, whilft they are under the deceit of it, makes them incapable of conviction, and they applaud themfelves as zealous champions for truth, when indeed they are contending for errour; and the confufion of two different ideas, which a customary connexion of them in their minds hath to them made in effect but one, fills their heads with falfe views, and their reafonings with falfe confequences.

Conclufion.

§. 19. Having thus given an account of the original, forts, and extent of our ideas, with feveral other confiderations, about these (I know not whether I may fay) inftruments or materials of our knowledge; the method I at first proposed to myself would now require, that I fhould immediately proceed to fhow what use the understanding makes of them, and what knowledge we have by them. This was that