FALLACIES OF OBSERVATION. 355 



break this intense association ; and when such analytic habits 

 do not exist in the requisite degree, it is hardly possible to 

 mention any of the habitual judgments of mankind on subjects 

 of a high degree of abstraction, from the being of a God and 

 the immortality of the soul down to the multiplication table, 

 which are not, or have not been, considered as matter of direct 

 intuition. So strong is the tendency to ascribe an intuitive 

 character to judgments which are mere inferences, and often 

 false ones. No one can doubt that many a deluded visionary 

 has actually believed that he was directly inspired from 

 Heaven, and that the Almighty had conversed with him face 

 to face ; which yet was only, on his part, a conclusion drawn 

 from appearances to his senses, or feelings in his internal con- 

 sciousness, which afforded no warrant for any such belief. A 

 caution, therefore, against this class of errors, is not only 

 needful but indispensable ; though to determine whether, on 

 any of the great questions of metaphysics, such errors are 

 actually committed, belongs not to this place, but, as I have 

 so often said, to a different science. 



23z 



