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observe how one form succeeds to another; but in these changes at 

 remote periods (as in the attainment of puberty, or the occurrence 

 of spontaneous disease) a process seems to have commenced, without 

 any preparatory acts or connecting links. What is the explanation 

 of a change of this sort? If this change is not produced by foreign 

 externals, which we have assumed, it can happen only by that pro- 

 gression the nature of which has been just explained. If the precise 

 subject or effect which we regard preserve its identity and then 

 alter it, apparently under habitual circumstances, it is because 

 changes are going on among connected agents which have no rela- 

 tion with the subject of our regards; until they have arrived at a 

 particular state, viz. one in which they hold a causative relation. 

 Thus, it happens that we suppose a process to originate, without 

 the preparatory changes, merely because we are regarding one set 

 of phenomena, while changes which come in time to affect these 

 phenomena (and then it is that change is first perceived) are going 

 on among connected properties. 



26. The growth of the body, and its changes, are similar to 

 those of the mind, and the former may be further illustrated by what 

 is more familiarly observed of the latter. The mind of an infant 

 has been said to be a blank tablet : this is said in the way of meta- 

 phor. The mind in this early stage is a state of properties which 

 has certain relations with the external world : the effect of these 

 relations is, that the mind which was a predisposition is made by a 

 common act of causation another identity, by the introduction or 

 combination of additional causes; or becomes, according to com- 

 mon metaphorical language, stored with ideas, which again are 

 related with each other, and help to accomplish the phenomena of 

 association and inference, &c. Thus much for our present pur- 

 pose: we see this mind by degrees making its acquisition of know- 

 ledge ; as its identity changes new relations are opened, its notices 

 are first on one set of objects, having attained the state which these 

 constitute its notices are extended to another set of objects, these 

 familiarized, its predisposition is again a new one, and it takes cogni- 

 zance of things to which it was before blind or unconscious. By 

 this progression, similar to that which all nature observes, one 

 acquisition disposes to another, materials are accumulated, new 

 associations arise, thought improves, taste is developed, and the 

 interchange of agencies in the constituents of mind itself or its 

 affections, by relation with the external world, are limited or exten- 

 sive; confined to the sober walk of industry, plodding upon a 

 business or upon domestic concerns; or, if it is so prepared, taking 

 a wider range; or soaring perpetually some bold flight of genius. 

 These processes make a growing predisposition, which can never 

 preserve one given state, because the constituents of mind being 

 related, and these relations being further extended to all the variety 

 of externals, progressive changes must succeed; and these are rapid 

 or slow, not necessarily in their own nature, for in this they are 

 perhaps uninterrupted, but in the apparent, and in the imperceptible 



