54) INTRODUCTION. 



that the subsequent sensations become associated 

 with the idea of the primitive one, and thus occasion 

 certain modifications of those general rules which 

 the understanding has framed for the rule of the 

 conduct. This is prudence. 



From the association of the rules just mentioned 

 to general ideas, certain formulae or modes of thought 

 result, which are easily adapted to particular cases: 

 to these we give the name of reasoning. 



A lively remembrance of original and associated 

 sensations, and of the impressions, the pleasure and 

 pain attached to them constitutes what is called 

 imagination, 



Man, a being of superior privileges, possesses the 

 faculty of associating his general ideas with certain 

 images more or less arbitrary, easily capable of be- 

 ing impressed on the memory, and useful for re- 

 calling to the mind such general ideas as they may 

 be intended to represent. To these images we give 

 the name of signs or symbols. Their assemblage 

 forms a language. When language is composed of 

 symbols addressed to the sense of hearing, it is 

 called speech : when they relate to the sense of 

 seeing they are denominated hieroglyphics. Writing 

 is a series of the latter sort of symbols, by which 

 we represent the elementary sounds, and, by their 

 combination, all those other symbols which relate 

 to the sense of hearing, and of which speech is com- 

 posed. Writing, therefore, is not a direct but a 

 mediate representation of ideas. 



