ferves that name, and is really madness; and there is fcarce a man fo free from it, but that if he fhould always, on all occafions, argue or do as in fome cafes he conftantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil converfation. I do not here mean when he is under the power of an unruly paffion, but in the fteady calm courfe of his life. That which will yet more apologize for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation on the greateft part of mankind, is, that inquiring a little by the bye into the nature of madnefs, b. ii. c. xi. §. 13. I found it to fpring from the very fame root, and to depend on the very fame caufe we are here fpeaking of. This confideration of the thing itself, at a time when I thought not the least 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.

From a

wrong connexion of ideas.

§. 5. Some of our ideas have a natural correfpondence and connexion one with another it is the office and excellency of our reason to trace thefe, and hold them together in that union and correfpondence which is founded in their peculiar beings. Befides this, there is another connexion of ideas wholly owing to chance or cuftom ideas, that in themselves are not all of kin, come to be fo united in fome men's 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 affociate appears with it; and if they are more than two, which are thus united, the whole gang, always infeparable, fhow themfelves together.

This connexion how

§. 6. This ftrong combination of ideas, not allied by nature, the mind makes in made. 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 under

5

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 a-going, continue in the fame fteps 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 naturál. 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 their track, as well as it does to explain fuch motions of the body. A musician ufed 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 understanding, 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 unattentive thoughts be elsewhere a wandering. Whether the natural caufe of thefe 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. That there are fuch affociations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think no-body will queftion, who has well confidered himself or others; and to this, perhaps, might be juftly attributed most 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 connexion of two ideas, which either the ftrength 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 fay most of the antipathies, I do not fay all, for fome of themare truly natural, depend upon our original conftitution, and are born with us; but a great part of thofe which are counted natural, would have been known to

Ee 3

Some antipa

thies an ef

fect of it.

be

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 observed. A grown perfon furfeiting with honey, no fooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries fickness and qualms to his ftomach, and he cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of diflike, and ficknefs, and vomiting, prefently accompany it, and he is difturbed, but he knows from whence to date this weakness, 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 caufe 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 difcreet people minded and fenced againft, 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, those relating purely to the understanding have, as I suspect, been by most men wholly overlooked.

A great cause of errours.

§. 9. This wrong connexion in our minds of ideas in themselves loofe and independent of one another, has fuch 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.

Inftances.

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

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 shall 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 frongly, 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 avertion for the one as the other. Thus hatreds are often begotten from flight and innocent occafions, and quarrels propagated and continued in the world.

Why time cures fome diforders in the mind, which reafon

cannot.

§. 12. A man has fuffered pain or fickness in any place; he faw his friend die in fuch a room; though these 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. §. 13. When this combination is fettled, and while it lafts, it is not in the power of reason 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 those 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 reafon in this cafe, and you were as good preach cafe to one on the rack, and hope to allay, by rational difcourfes, the pain of his joints tearing afunder. afunder. Till time has by difufe feparated the fenfe of that enjoy

Book 2.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, spend 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 harfh 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 greateft obligation he could have received; but whatever gratitude and reafon fuggested 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 ufe 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 some men cannot study in, and fashions of veffels, which thought 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 haying learnt to dance, and that to great perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room

where