BELIEF OR CONVICTION. 13 



example the best, and in most instances, the only 

 method of instruction ! 



The inference the belief, or perhaps rather the 

 conviction, according to which we judge or act, is 

 quite a different matter. It is not an immediate 

 exercise of the senses, but an act of the mind 

 something which follows, after the senses have 

 brought in their information ; though, as the mind 

 having no material substance to move through 

 space, requires no time to act, the act of the mind 

 often follows so close on the process of sensation 

 that we are not able to distinguish between the 

 one and the other. The distinction is, however, 

 a very important one : for the two are different, 

 and very different ; and if we confound them, we 

 understand neither, lose the government of our- 

 selves, remain ignorant, and fall into error in 

 judgment and in conduct. 



But though the act of the mind is different from 

 observation by the senses, that act never takes 

 place unless observation has gone before it ; and 

 there cannot be the least exercise of the mind 

 without a reference to /observation, either imme- 

 diate or remote. It has been already said that we 

 can have no knowledge of what the state of the 

 mind may or may not be when apart and separated 

 from the body ; but of this there can be no doubt, 

 that if we had been wholly without sensation, we 

 never could by possibility have known any thing 

 about the material world about that creation which 

 is the source of so much knowledge, and the foun- 

 tain of so many enjoyments. 



Try to recollect or call to memory any thought, 

 whether that thought related to the departed past, 

 or to the future which did not then or does not yet 



