tar belongs to it, I will call it Man or Tartar, I may be justly thought fantaftical in the naming, but not erroneous in my judgment, nor the idea any way false.

§ 26. More properly to be called Right or Wrong. UPON the whole matter, I think that our ideas, as they are confidered by the mind, either in reference to the proper fignification of their names, or in reference to the reality of things, may very fitly be called right or wrong ideas, according as they agree or difagree to those patterns to which they are referred: But if any one had rather call them true or falfe, it is fit he ufe a liberty, which every one has, to call things by thofe names he thinks beft; though in propriety of fpeech, truth or falfehood, will, I think, fcarce agree to them, but as they, fome way or other, virtually contain in them fome mental propofition. The ideas that are in a man's mind, fimply confidered, cannot be wrong, unlefs complex ones, wherein inconfiftent parts are jumbled together: All other ideas are in themfelves right, and the knowledge about them right and true knowledge; but when we come to refer them to any thing, as to their patterns and archetypes, then they are capable of being wrong, as far as they difagree with fuch archetypes.

T

CHAP. XXXIII.

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

1. Something unreasonable in moft Men. HERE is fcarce any one that does not obferve fomething that seems odd to him, and is in itfelf really extravagant in the opinions, reafonings and actions of other men. The leaft flaw of this kind, if at all different from his own, every one is quick-fighted enough to efpy in another, and will by the authority of reafon forwardly condemn, though he be guilty of much greater unreasonableness in his own tenets and conduct, which he never perceives and will very hardly, if at all, be convinced of

§ 2.

Not wholly from Self love.

THIS proceeds not wholly from felf-love, though that has often a great hand in it. Men of fair minds, and

not given up to the over-weening of felf-flattery, are frequently guilty of it; and in many cafes one with amazement hears the arguings, and is aftonished at the obftinacy of a worthy man, who yields not to the evidence of reason, though laid before him as clear as daylight.

$ 3. Nor from Education.

THIS fort of unreasonableness is usually imputed to education and prejudice, and for the most part truly enough, though that reaches not the bottom of the disease, nor fhows diftinctly enough where it rifes, or wherein it lies. Education is often rightly affigned for the cause, and prejudice is a good general name for the thing itfelf; but yet I think he ought to look a little farther, who would trace this fort of madnefs to the root it fprings from, and fo explain it, as to fhow whence this flaw has its original in very fober and rational minds, and wherein it confifts.

§4. A degree of Madness.

I SHALL be pardoned for calling it by fo harsh a name as madness, when it is confidered, that oppofition to reason deferves that name, and is really madnefs; and there is scarce a man so free from it, but that if he fhould always, on all occafions, argue or do as in some cases he conftantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly paffion, but in the steady calm courfe of his life. That which will yet more apologise for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation on the greatest part of mankind, is, that inquiring a little by the by into the nature of madness, B. II. C. 11. § 13. I found it to spring from the very fame root, and to depend on the very fame cause we are here speaking of. This confideration of the thing itself, at a time when I thought not the leaft on the fubject which I am now treating of, fuggefted it to me. And if this be a weaknefs to which all men are fo liable, if this be a taint

which fo univerfally infects mankind, the greater care fhould be taken to lay it open under its due name, thereby to excite the greater care in its prevention and cure. 5. From a wrong Connection of Ideas.

SOME of our ideas have a natural correfpondence and connection one with another: It is the office and excellency of our reafon to trace these, and hold them together in that union and correspondence which is founded in their peculiar beings. Befides this, there is another connection of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom: Ideas that in themselves are not at all of kin, come to be fo united in fome mens minds, that it is very hard to feparate them; they always keep in company, and the one no fooner at any time comes into the understanding, but its affociates appear with it, and if they are more than two, which are thus united, the whole gang, always infeparable, fhow themselves together.

6. This Connection how made.

THIS ftrong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes in itfelf either voluntarily or by chance; and hence it comes in different men to be very different, according to their different inclinations, education, interefts, &c. Cuftom fettles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of motions in the body; all which feems to be but trains of motion in the animal fpirits, which once fet agoing, continue in the fame steps they have been used to, which, by often treading, are worn into a smooth path, and the motion in it becomes eafy, and as it were natural. As far as we can comprehend thinking, thus ideas feem to be produced in our minds; or if they are not, this may ferve to explain their following one another in an habitual train, when once they are put into that track, as well as it does to explain fuch motions of the body. A musician used to any tune, will find, that let it but once begin in his head, the ideas of the feveral notes, of it will follow one another orderly in his underftanding, without any care or attention, as regularly as his fingers move orderly over the keys of the organ to play out the tune he has begun, though his inattentive

123 thoughts be elsewhere a-wandering. Whether the natural cause of these ideas, as well as of that regular dancing of his fingers, be the motion of his animal fpirits, I will not determine, how probable foever, by this inftance, it appears to be fo; but this may help us a little to conceive of intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas.

§ 7. Some Antipathies an Effect of it.

THAT there are fuch affociations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think nobody will queftion, who has well confidered himself or others; and to this, perhaps, might be justly attributed moft of the fympathies and antipathies obfervable in men, which work as ftrongly, and produce as regular effects as if they were natural, and are therefore called fo, though they at firft had no other original but the accidental connection of two ideas, which either the strength of the first impreffion, or future indulgence, fo united, that they always afterwards kept company together in that man's mind, as if they were but one idea. I lay most of the antipathies, I do not fay all, for fome of them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early impreffions, or wanton fancies at first, 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 sickness and qualms to his ftomach, and he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of diflike, and fickness, and vomiting, prefently accompany it, and he is disturbed, but he knows from whence to date this weakness, and can tell how he got this indifpofition: Had this happened to him by an over-dofe of honey, when a child, all the fame effects would have followed, but the caufe would have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural. $8.

I MENTION this not out of any great neceflity 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 thofe who have children, or the charge of their education, would think it worth their while diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent the undue connection of ideas in the minds of young people: This is the time most fufceptible of lafting impreffions; and though thofe relating to the health of the body, are by difcreet 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 less heeded than the thing deferves; nay, thofe relating purely to the understanding, have, as I suspect, been by moft men wholly overlooked.

$9. A great Canfe of Errors.

THIS wrong connection in our minds, of ideas, in themfelves loofe and independent one of another, has fuch an influence, and is of fo great force to fet us awry in our actions, as well moral as natural, paffions, reafonings, and notions themselves, that perhaps there is not any one thing that deferves more to be looked after.

§ 10. Inftances.

THE ideas of goblins and fprights, have really no more to do with darkness than light; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, poflibly he fhall never be able to feparate them again fo long as he lives; but darkness fhall for ever afterwards bring with it thofe frightful leas, and they fhall be fo joined that he can no more bear the one than the other.

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 those two ideas together, that he makes them almoft one; never thinks on the man, but the pain and difpleasure he suffered comes into his mind with it, fo that he scarce diftinguishes them, but has as much an averfion for the one as the other: Thus hatreds are