Class III. 2. 2. 4. OF VOLITION. 35 * 



ty of folly ? Thefe they have difbelieved and defpifed, but have 

 ever bowed their hoary heads to Truth and Nature. 



Mankind may be divided in refpecl to the facility of their be* 

 lief or conviction into two dalles ; thofe, who are ready to af* 

 fent to {ingle facts from the evidence of their fenfes, or from the 

 ferious afiertions of others \ and thofe, who require analogy to 

 corroborate or authenticate them. 



Our firft knowledge is acquired by our fenfes \ but thefe are 

 liable to deceive us, and we learn to detect thefe deceptions by 

 comparing the ideas prefented to us by one fenfe with thofe pre- 

 fented by another. Thus when we firft view a cylinder, it ap- 

 pears to the eye as a flat furface with different (hades on it, till we 

 correct this idea by the fenfe of touch, and find its furface to be 

 circular ; that is, having fome parts gradually receding further 

 from the eye than others. So when a child, or a cat, or a bird, 

 firft fees its own image in a looking-glafs, it believes that anoth- 

 er animal exifts before it, and detects this fallacy by going be- 

 hind the glafs to examine, if another tangible animal really exifts 

 there. 



Another exuberant fource of error confifts in the falfe notions, 

 which we receive in our early years from the defign or ignorance 

 of our inftructors, which affect all our future reafoning by their 

 perpetual intrufions 5 as thofe habits of mufcular actions of the 

 face or limbs, which are called tricks, when contracted in infan- 

 cy continue to the end of our lives. 



A third great fource of error is the vivacity of our ideas of 

 imagination, which perpetually intrude themfelves by various 

 aflbciations, and compofe the farrago of our dreams ; in which, 

 by the fufpenfion of volition, we are precluded from comparing 

 the ideas of one fenfe with thofe of another, or the incongruity 

 of their fucceffions with the ufual courfe of nature, and thus to 

 detect their fallacy. Which we do in our waking hours by a 

 perpetual voluntary exertion, a procefs of the mind above men- 

 tioned, which we have termed intuitive analogy. Sect. XVII. 



This analogy prefuppofes an acquired knowledge or things, 

 hence children and ignorant people are the molt credulous, as not 

 pofTefiing much knowledge of the ufual courfe of nature ; and 

 fecondly, thofe are moft credulous, whofe faculty of comparing 

 ideas, or the voluntary exertion of it, is flow or imperfect. Thus 

 if the power of the magnetic needle of turning towards the north, 

 or the mock given by touching both fides of an electrized coat- 

 ed jar, was related for the firft time to a philofopher, and to an 

 ignorant nerfon ; the former would be lefsreadv to believe them, 

 than the latter ; as he would find nothing fimilar m nature to 



compare 



