156 



HABIT AND INTELLIGENCK. 



[cHAr. 



Belief is 

 subject to 

 the laws 

 of habit, 

 but habit 

 cannot 

 produce 

 belief. 



Physical 

 analogy. 



Objection 

 from the 

 incon- 

 stancy 

 of the 

 weather 



answered. 



The con- 

 stancy of 

 the order 



education. This is true : but it only sliows that belief, 

 like every other mental function, is subject to the laws 

 of habit, and consequently that particular beliefs may be 

 determined by habit ; it does not show that the laws of 

 habitual association are capable of accounting for the 

 general fact that the mind is capable of forming beliefs. 

 This distinction may appear strained, but it is capable of 

 being illustrated by an analogy drawn from the simplest of 

 the physical sciences. The action of all forces is governed 

 by the laws of motion, and yet the laws of motion will 

 not account for the origin of force ; just so, the formation 

 of beliefs, like all other mental actions whatever, takes 

 place subject to the laws of association, and yet it does 

 not follow tliat association is of itself able to produce 

 belief. 



It may be asked whether we should have this confidence 

 in the constancy of the order of things, if the order of 

 things were not constant ? To this 1 reply that I regard 

 this supposition as not only imaginary but impossible : of 

 the same kind of impossibility, I mean, as if it involved 

 a mathematical absurdity. I shall have to show the 

 grounds of tliis opinion fuither on. 



But, it may be said, the constancy of tlie order of things 

 is not perfect ; it is perfect in the motions of the heavens, 

 but imperfect in the changes of the weather. This is true 

 in a very obvious sense ; and it would not be altogether 

 relevant to reply, what is nevertheless true, that the bond 

 of cause and effect is, beyond all reasonable doubt, as real 

 and as rigid in atmospheric changes as in the celestial 

 motions, only less traceable. I reply, that in the sense in 

 which 1 speak of the constancy of nature, irregularly 

 succeeding phenomena are as much an instance of it as 

 regularly succeeding ones. From the fact that the changes 

 of the weather are irregular, we have learned to expect 

 that they will be so ; and this is a case of expecting that 

 what has been found true in the past will continue to be 

 found true in the future. 



It may be said that my argument assumes the con- 

 stancy of the course of things to be as certain as the 



