442 



LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



order of occurrences, and of the connexion of cause and effect : 

 in other words, in . the one case a perceptive mind, with a 

 discriminate feeling of . the pleasurable and painful properties 

 of things, a sense of the grand and the beautiful, will be the 

 result: in the other, a mind attentive to the movements and 

 phenomena, a ratiocinative and philosophic intellect. Now it 

 is an acknowledged principle, that all sensations experienced 

 during the presence of any vivid impression, become strongly 

 associated with it, and with each other; and does it not 

 follow, that the synchronous feelings of a sensitive constitu- 

 tion, (i.e. the one which has vivid impressions,) will be more 

 intimately blended than in a differently formed mind ? . If 

 this suggestion has any foundation in truth, it leads to an 

 inference not unimportant; that where nature has endowed 

 an individual with great original susceptibility, he will pro- 

 bably be distinguished by fondness for natural history, a relish 

 for the . beautiful and great, and moral enthusiasm; where 

 there . is but a mediocrity of sensibility, a love of science, of 

 abstract truth, , with , a deficiency of taste and of fervour, is 

 likely, to be the result." . . 



We see from this example, that when the general laws of 

 mind are more accurately known, and above all, more skilfully 

 applied to the detailed explanation of mental peculiarities, 

 they will account for . many more, of those, peculiarities than 

 is j ordinarily supposed. Unfortunately the reaction . of , the 

 last and i present generation against the philosophy of the 

 eighteenth century has produced a very general . neglect of 

 this great i department of analytical inquiry ; of which, conse- 

 quently, the recent progress has been by no means propor- 

 tional to its early promise. The majority of those who 

 speculate on human nature, prefer dogmatically to assume 

 that the mental differences which they perceive, or think they 

 perceive, among human beings, are ultimate facts, incapable 

 of being either explained or altered, rather than take the 

 trouble of fitting themselves, by the requisite processes of 

 thought, for referring those mental differences to the outward 

 causes by which they are for the most part produced, and on 



