94 Rev, J. Wills on Mr. Stewart's Explanation of 



sensation. Unconscious from tlie very commencement, the combining process is 

 no worse than unconscious at the height and depth of its remotest combinations. 

 And if — in the indefinite progress of intellectual power, which no thinking per- 

 son will venture to limit — the elemental process which generates all our registered 

 and tangible combinations should give birth to combinations more broad, or 

 subtle, or varied, there is no reason why we should think it necessary to say that 

 these are beyond the limits of its office. 



It is easy to perceive, as a direct consequence, that the operation which I have 

 explained by so many examples, must react upon all our perceptions, and there- 

 fore modify the very consciousness. All that we see or hear, and every intima- 

 tion of the senses, must become variously involved with suggestion, — or combined 

 Into these complex notions which I have stated as an ultimate result. This pro- 

 cess not only supplies the successive trains of recollection, which will arise at the 

 sound of a name or the sight of a place : but it will, under circumstances, identify 

 them into that indissoluble connexion, that often gives to place Its peculiar aspect, 

 or to countenance its familiar expression. Thus it is, that to different persons, 

 the poet, painter, geologist, or agriculturist, the same prospect of a country pre- 

 sents so different a scene. The whole frame of intellect and perception are al- 

 tered, and all that meets the sense formed into different combinations. 



In the same manner, the moral structure of the mind is affected by the same 

 law. It would demand a separate essay to shew the precise operations by which 

 principles recognized by the intellect, and tendencies Implanted in the nature, 

 become variously involved, so as to become Inseparable in thought from circum- 

 stances, acts, and courses of conduct. For a dissertation admirably illustrative of 

 this, I would refer to Bishop Butler's chapter on Moral Habits. I shall here 

 content myself with pointing out an Important bearing of the principle. In pro- 

 portion as we act upon a determining motive, there takes place and grows a com- 

 bination which identifies the motive and the action, so that the principle becomes 

 Incorporated with the moving impulse. On the other hand, the converse process 

 takes place, when a separate attention Is frequently directed to laws of conduct 

 which are rarely carried into effect. The habit of distinctly regarding those 

 principles and observances, in proportion as it is cultivated, tends more and more 

 to give them separate identities in the mind ; so that the exercise of the reason 

 becomes less and less capable of moving the active tendencies of our nature. 



