8i DISCOURSE ON THE STU0Y 



ble objects, and is not brought into immediate re- 

 lation with them, we can only regard sensible 

 impressions as signals conveyed from them by a 

 wonderful, and, to us, inexplicable mechanism, to our 

 minds, which receives and reviews them, and, by 

 habit and association, connects them with corres- 

 ponding qualities or affections in the objects; just as 

 a person writing down and comparing the signals of 

 a telegraph might interpret their meaning. As, for 

 instance, if he had constantly observed that the 

 exhibition of a certain signal was sure to be followed 

 next day by the announcement of the arrival of a 

 ship at Portsmouth, he would connect the two facts 

 by a link of the very same nature with that which 

 connects the notion of a large wooden building, filled 

 with sailors, with the impression of her outline on 

 the retina of a spectator on the beach. 



(75) In captain Head's amusing and vivid de- 

 scription of his journey across the Pampas of South 

 America occurs an anecdote quite in point. His 

 guide one day suddenly stopped him, and, pointing 

 high into the air, cried out, " A lion !" Surprised at 

 such an exclamation, accompanied with such an act, 

 he turned up his eyes, and with difficulty perceived, 

 at an immeasurable height, a flight of condors 

 soaring in circles in a particular spot. Beneath 

 that spot, far out of sight of himself or guide, lay 

 the carcass of a horse, and over that carcass stood 

 (as the guide well knew) the lion, whom the con- 

 dors were eyeing with envy from their airy height. 

 The signal of the birds was to him what the sight 

 of the lion alone could have been to the traveller, 

 a full assurance of its existence. 



