CLASS III. 2. 2. 4. OF VOLITION. 35 1 



ty of folly ? Thefe they have difbelieved andidefpifed, but have 

 ever bowed their hoary heads to Truth and Nature. 



Mankind may be divided in refpecl: to tljfc facility of their be-- 

 lief or convidl ion into two claries ; thofe, who are ready to af- 

 fent to fmgle fads from the evidence of their fenfes, or from the 

 ferious afiertions of others ; and thole, who require analogy to 

 corroborate or authenticate them. 



Our firft knowledge is acquired by our fenfes *, but thefe are 

 liable to deceive us, and we learn to detect thefe deceptions by 

 comparing the ideas prefented to us by one fenfe with thofe prc- 

 fented by another. Thus when we firft view a cylinder, it ap- 

 pears to the eye as a flat furface with different (hades on it, till we 

 correct this idea by the fenfe of touch, and find its furface to be 

 circular ; that is, having fome parts gradually receding further 

 from the eye than others. So when a child, or a cat, or a bird, 

 firft fees its own image in a looking-glafs, it believes that anoth- 

 er animal exifts before it, and detects this fallacy by going be- 

 hind the glafs to examine, if another tangible animal really exiiis 

 there. 



Another exuberant fource of error confifts in the falfe notions, 

 which we receive in our early years from the defign or ignorance 

 of our inftructors, which affect all our future reafoning by their 

 perpetual intrufions ; as thofe habits of mufcular actions of the 

 face or limbs, which are called tricks, when contracted in infan- 

 cy continue to the end of our lives. 



A third great fource of error is the vivacity of our ideas o 

 imagination, which perpetually intrude themfelves by various 

 aflbciations, and compofe the farrago of our dreams ; in which, 

 by the fufpenfion of volition, we are precluded from comparing 

 the ideas of one fenfe with thofe of another, or the incongruity 

 of their fucceflions with the ufuaicourfe of nature, and thus to 

 detect their fallacy. Which we do in our waking hours by a 

 perpetual voluntary exertion, a procefs of the mind above men- 

 tioned, which we have termed intuitive analogy. Seel. XVII. 



3- 7-. 



This analogy prefuppofes an acquired knowledge of things, 

 hence children and ignorant people are the moil crodulous,as not 

 poflefling much knowledge of the ufual courfe of nature ; and 

 fecondly, thofe are mod credulous, whofc faculty of comparing 

 ideas, or the voluntary exertion of it, is flow or imperfect. Thus 

 if the power of the magnetic needle of turning towards the north, 

 or the {hock given by touching both fides of an electrized coat- 

 ed jar, was related for the firft time to a phibfopher, and to an 

 ignorant perfon ; the former would be lefs ready to believe them, 

 than the htter ; as he would find nothing fimilar in nature to 



CO."- 



