258 INDUCTION. 



terior to our bodies, and especially more so than any other case of the ap- 

 parent origination (as distinguished from the mere communication) of mo- 

 tion. Now, it is the natural tendency of the mind to be always attempting 

 to facilitate its conception of unfamiliar facts by assimilating them to oth- 

 ers which are familiar. Accordingly, our voluntary acts, being the most 

 familiar to us of all cases of causation, are, in the infancy and early youth 

 of the human race, spontaneously taken as the type of causation in general, 

 and all phenomena are supposed to be directly produced by the will of 

 some sentient being. This original Fetichism I shall not characterize in 

 the words of Hume, or of any follower of Hume, but in those of a religious 

 metaphysician. Dr. Reid, in order more effectually to show the unanimity 

 which exists on the subject among all competent thinkers. 



" When we turn our attention to external objects, and begin to exercise 

 our rational faculties about them, we find that there are some motions and 

 changes in them which we have power to produce, and that there are many 

 which must have some other cause. Either the objects must have life and 

 active power, as we have, or they must be moved or changed by something 

 that has life and active power, as external objects are moved by us. 



" Our first thoughts seem to be, that the objects in which we perceive 

 such motion have understanding and active power as we have. ' Savages,' 

 says the Abbe Raynal, ' wherever they see motion which they can not ac- 

 count for, there they suppose a soul.' All men may be considered as sav- 

 ages in this respect, until they are capable of instruction, and of using their 

 faculties in a more perfect manner than savages do. 



"The Abbe Raynal's observation is sufficiently confirmed, both from 

 fact, and from the structui-e of all languages. 



" Rude nations do really believe sun, moon, and stars, earth, sea, and air, 

 fountains, and lakes, to have understanding and active power. To pay 

 homage to them, and implore their favor, is a kind of idolatry natural to 

 savages. 



"All languages carry in their structure the marks of their being formed 

 when this belief prevailed. The distinction of verbs and participles into 

 active and passive, which is found in all languages, must have been origi- 

 nally intended to distinguish what is really active from what is merely pas- 

 sive ; and in all languages, we find active verbs applied to those objects, in 

 which, according to the Abbe Raynal's observation, savages suppose a soul. 



" Thus we say the sun rises and sets, and comes to the meridian, the 

 moon changes, the sea ebbs and flows, the winds blow. Languages were 

 formed by men who believed these objects to have life and active power 

 in themselves. It was therefore proper and natural to express their mo- 

 tions and changes by active verbs. 



" There is no surer way of tracing the sentiments of nations before they 

 have records, than by the structure of their language, which, notwithstanding 

 the changes produced in it by time, will always retain some signatures of 

 the thoughts of those by whom it was invented. When we find the same 

 sentiments indicated in the structure of all languages, those sentiments must 

 have been common to the human species when languages were invented. 



" When a few, of superior intellectual abilities, find leisure for specula- 

 tion, they begin to philosophize, and soon discover, that many of those ob- 

 jects which at first they believed to be intelligent and active are really 

 lifeless and passive. This is a very important discovery. It elevates the 

 mind, emancipates from many vulgar superstitions, and invites to further 

 discoveries of the same kind. 



