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main stock of human ideas and capabilities of action ; to the 
second he had traced the process of memory; the third he 
would show to be mainly instrumental in invention, and in 
various ways operative in art and literature, as also upon human 
character and conduct, and, lastly, upon the operations of judg- 
ment and reasoning. 
The formation of new ideas by the mind might, he ob- 
served, be effected by means, not directly to be described as 
single operations of thought; of this nature were purely ar- 
tistic ideas, which might be framed by rules according to certain 
models, and then become ideas of association or not, according 
to circumstances. Such results were excluded from the author’s 
inquiry, and were only mentioned to guard against any mis- 
conception, and for the sake of a distinction, which would be 
available in his illustrations. 
The process at present to be considered by the author is 
mainly distinguishable from that examined in his first Essay, 
by the fact that, while the first class of associations were 
framed gradually from the immediate repetition of acts or per- 
ceptions, those now to be explained were instantaneously put 
together from general analogies, which were, however, them- 
selves framed from habitual experience, like the former. These 
analogies are insensibly contracted through life, and are the 
nearest approach to universal ideas, consisting of characters, 
forms, colours, proportions, and properties, which are variously 
combined throughout all known existence. Such are the ele- 
ments of conceptual power, or the faculty of spontaneous as- 
sociation, of which the action and exercise could be variously 
determined by the habits and character of each individual. 
The author briefly exemplified the mode of operation; and 
went on to say that he would pursue the subject in relation 
to literary composition and art,—to moral sentiment,—and, 
lastly, to the operations of reasoning. 
From this the author gave an explanation shewing the 
justice of Mr. Locke’s distinction between wit and judgment. 
