PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL, 



trust to them. But before a man yields 

 to his experience, in opposition to the 

 clear evidence of others, or to well- 

 founded and well-connected reasonings, 

 he should consider what experience is, 

 and on what ground he has connected 

 belief with it. He will find that belief is 

 not a necessary attendant upon his expe- 

 rience, but that it has been connected 

 with it by means of intermediate links, 

 which might themselves have no satis- 

 factory claim to belief. For instance, if 

 a man has not observed accurately, or 

 has not a correct judgment, his experi- 

 ence may not be worth any thing-, nor 

 intitled to any belief. Now, in "" many 

 cases, it is almost impossible to recal the 

 intermediate links, in order to prove to 

 ourselves the correctness of our experi- 

 ence, and yet we must act upon it ; this 

 shows the importance of cultivating in 

 early life those habits of cool judgment 

 and accurate observation, which shall 

 give us a full right to believe, and to act 

 upon our belief, in the results of reflection 

 and observation ; but some truths, it may 

 be thought, have a necessary connection 

 with belief. We admit that there are 

 truths which are so accordant with all the 

 grounds of belief, that they instantane- 

 ously excite the belief of those who have 

 had the opportunity of knowing those 

 grounds, but no further. You immedi- 

 ately believe, that 2x2=4; and you 

 would think that man destitute of com- 

 mon sense who denied it, or who did not 

 immediately admit it. Yet we are well 

 convinced, that the belief is formed in 

 consequence of a number of external im- 

 pressions ; or, to state it more familiarly, 

 by frequently counting, in the early part 

 of childhood. We perhaps have not the 

 power of discovering the exact steps by 

 which we have ourselves proceeded to 

 the belief of this truth ; but we can ob- 

 serve them in some good measure in 

 others; and we can trace them in our- 

 selves, in similar circumstances. Often 

 belief in such truths is formed through 

 the medium of parental authoi-ity, or that 

 of instructors, And it is probable, that in 

 many instance^ children know no more 

 why 12x12=*: 144, than that they find 

 it so in their multiplication tables; but 

 where it has been formed by trials of 

 the truth, those trials are forgotten, and 

 the truth alone is remembered. We 

 should gladly enlarge more on these 

 points, but what has been already said 

 will probably answer the two purposes 

 which we have in view ; to show the ope- 

 ration of association in transferring belief; 



and in leading to the inference, that 

 belief ought not to be regarded as a 

 proof of truth ; and yet, that the being 

 unable to point out all the grounds of 

 belief, is not any reason why that belief 

 should be given up. 



42. Two opposite opinions have long 

 been entertained, and are still often ad- 

 vanced, respecting the disinterestedness 

 of the human mind; some have main- 

 tained, that the mind, in all its feelings 

 and promptings to actions, is actuated by 

 selfish motives ; that, in fact, there is no 

 action or feeling which can be called dis- 

 interested. Others have with more success 

 maintained, that the mind can be, and of- 

 ten is disinterested; that a person fre- 

 quently performs an action tending to the 

 good of others, in a greater or less degree, 

 without the remotest reference to himself; 

 with no other motive than a desire to do 

 the good which is the effect of the action. 

 The degrading system of the former is 

 seldom adopted but by speculative men, 

 who have been led by circumstances, hap- 

 pily not universal, to see merely the dark 

 side of human nature, and to form a more 

 gloomy picture of its selfishness than 

 truth would allow ; or by others who have 

 expected too much from the beauti- 

 ful speculations of theory, and having 

 been disappointed by comparing them 

 with their own feelings in many instances, 

 or with the general conduct of men, have 

 thence gone to the unfounded opinion, 

 that all the actions of all men are selfish. 

 If the opinion of those who maintain the 

 disinterestedness of the human mind, had 

 not been carried to an extreme, it would 

 have been attended with but little incon- 

 venience ; but unhappily its virtuous ad- 

 vocates have thought disinterestedness an 

 innate principle of the mind, and have con- 

 sidered it as the first step towards true 

 worth of character, whereas it is in reality 

 the last ; and have, therefore, decked the 

 commencement of virtue in colours which 

 belong only to its completion : and hence 

 two practical ill consequences have fol- 

 lowed ; some persons have neglected the 

 culture of disinterestedness, both in their 

 own minds and in those of others, from 

 supposing it to be a necessary quality of 

 the mind : and others have been driven 

 to despair, on comparing the representa- 

 tions of theory with the faulty state of 

 their own minds; supposing that they 

 could never attain to what is considered 

 as alone intitled to the appellation of vir- 

 tue. The more correct views, surely, 

 are, that disinterestedness is the last 



