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thus affirmed. In fact, to appreciate exactly the power of repetition and association in this matter, we must advert to certain instinctive tendencies operating in alliance with our experience, and I will therefore proceed to discuss that class of influences.

11. I. The foremost rank, among our Intuitive tendencies involved in belief, is to be assigned to the natural trust that we have in the continuance of the present state of things, or the disposition to go on acting as we have once begun. This is a sort of Law of Perseverance in the human mind, like the first law of Motion in Mechanics. Our first experiences are to us decisive, and we go on under them to all lengths, being arrested only by some failure or contradiction. Having in our constitution primordial fountains of activity, in the spontaneous and voluntary impulses, we follow the first clue that experience gives us, and accept the indication with the whole force of these natural promptings. In other words, the more strongly we are urged into action by those primitive energies, the more strongly do we cling to that particular line of proceedings that an experience as yet uncontradicted has chalked out. The hungry beast having fallen on a road to some place yielding food, on the faith of a single experiment, goes with the whole impetus of its voluntary nature on that particular tract. Being under the strongest impulses to act somehow, an animal accepts any lead that is presented, and, if successful, abides by that lead with unshaken confidence. It is the very essence of our volition to sustain us under pleasure tasted, or pain mitigated, and this applies to our adherence to means as well as to the fruition of ends; so that there is contained, in the fundamental properties of the will, a source of the confident temper wherewith we follow up a single successful trial without waiting for repeated confirmations. This is that instinct of credulity so commonly attributed to the infant mind. We are ready to act and follow out every opening, accepting as a sure ground of confidence any one that answers the end on the first experiment. Thus the tendency to act carries with it the state of confidence, if only the smallest

success.

encouragement is present, and there be a total absence of illIt is not the single instance, or the repetition of two or three, that makes up the strong tone of confidence; it is the mind's own active determination, finding some definite vent in the gratification of its ends, and abiding by the discovery with the whole energy of the character, until the occurrence of some check, failure, or contradiction.

All the considerations involved in the primitive constitution of the will, and all the observations of the first start of the intellectual and voluntary powers, are in favour of this view of intense primitive credulity. At the commencing stage, the measure of credulity is the measure of the spontaneous and voluntary energies. The creature that wills strongly believes strongly at the origin of its career. The general tendencies of mankind, as exhibited in their mature convictions, show the continued operation of the same force. To be satisfied that this is so, we have only to look at such facts as these: -Every man, until convinced of the contrary, believes in the permanence of the state of things that he is born into. Not only do we expect that what is will remain, but we conclude that other places and times must resemble our own. It is constantly noted as a peculiarity of ignorant tribes, to refuse credence to anything different from what they have been accustomed to. The earliest experiences are generalized so as to override the whole unexperienced world, and present a formidable obstacle to the admission of new facts at a later period. The mind shows an obstinacy in maintaining that the absent must resemble the present, and that other minds are of the same mould with itself. Those first impressions, under which action took place in all the vigour of pristine freshness, have acquired a hold and a confidence that it is difficult to compete with afterwards; and although contrary appearances happening early would prevent their consolidation into beliefs, they become at last too strong to be unseated by any amount of contradiction. Although repetition cannot but strengthen the confidence in a particular course, it is not true that five repetitions give exactly five times the assurance of one. A

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single trial, that nothing has ever happened to impugn, is able of itself to leave a conviction sufficient to induce reliance under ordinary circumstances. It is the active prompting of the mind itself that instigates, and in fact constitutes, the believing temper; unbelief is an after-product, and not the primitive tendency. Indeed, we may say that the inborn energy of the brain gives faith, and experience scepticism. After a number of trials, some of our first impressions are shaken, while those that sustain the ordeal of experiment are all the more confirmed by contrast with the others which have given way. As we become familiar with the breaking down process, we cling the more to whatever impressions have stood every trial.

12. The force of belief then is not one rising from zero to a full development by slow degrees according to the length of experience. We must treat it rather as a strong primitive manifestation, derived from the natural activity of the system, and taking its direction and rectification from experience. The anticipation of nature,' so strenuously repudiated by Bacon, is the offspring of this characteristic of the mental system. In the haste to act, while the indications imbibed from contact with the world are still scanty, we are sure to extend the application of actual trials a great deal too far, producing such results as have just been named. With the active tendency at its maximum, and the exercise of intelligence and acquired knowledge at the minimum, there can issue nothing but a quantity of rash enterprises. That these are believed in, we know from the very fact that they are undertaken. In an opposite condition of things, where intellect and knowledge have made very high progress, and constitutional activity is feeble,-a sceptical, hesitating, incredulous temper of mind is the usual characteristic. The respectable name 'generalization,' implying the best products of enlightened scientific research, has also a different meaning, expressing one of the most erroneous impulses and crudest determinations of untutored human nature. To extend some familiar and narrow experience, so as to comprehend cases

the most distant, is a piece of mere reckless instinct, demanding the severest discipline for its correction. I have mentioned the case of our supposing all other minds constituted like our own. The veriest infant has got this length in the career of fallacy. As soon as we are able to recognise personalities distinct from ourselves, we presume an identity between them and us; and, by an inverse operation, we are driven out of this over-vaulting position after the severe findings of contrary facts. Sound belief, instead of being a pacific and gentle growth, is, in reality, the battering of a series of strongholds, the conquering of a country in hostile occupation. This is a fact common both to the individual and to the race. Observation is unanimous on the point. The only thing for mental philosophy to do on such a subject, is to represent, as simply and clearly as possible, those original properties of our constitution that are chargeable with such wide-spread pheno

mena.

It will probably be long ere the last of the delusions attributable to this method, of believing first, and proving afterwards, can be eradicated from humanity. For, although all those primitive impressions that find a speedy contradiction in realities from which we cannot escape, cease to exercise their sway after a time, there are other cases less open to correction, and remaining to the last as portions of our creed.

13. The common notions with reference to Causation are, in the judgment of many persons, with whom I concur, tainted with the primitive corruption of this part of our nature. The method of rational experience would lead us by degrees to recognise with reference to every event, or new appearance, some other assemblage of events or appearances that preceded it, as an established rule; while, in some cases, the same event has a plurality of causes. We should find that this arrangement prevails in a very great number of instances, while there would be a considerable class wherein no prior invariable antecedent was discernible. A just experience would simply confine itself to mentioning the cases of either sort; and if it so happened that, while many appear

ances that at first sight could not be connected with any antecedent, came afterwards to show such a connexion, on the other hand, those so connected from the first, continued to be so, there would arise a fair presumption that the existence of antecedents to phenomena or events was the rule, and that the exceptions were likely to disappear as our knowledge. was extended. I can conceive no other course to be taken on this matter by the human mind, gathering its conviction solely by the course of experience; but would this lead to the astounding assumption, made even previous to the detailed survey of the world, that everything that exists, not only has, but must have a beginning? No amount of experience can either lead to, or justify, this affirmation; and the origin of it is therefore some intuition or instinct. The notion, already commented upon, that mind must needs be the primitive cause of natural changes, could not arise from any large experience. The agency of men and animals, beings endowed with mind, is, of course, a fact to be admitted, but there are other natural agencies,-wind, water, heat, gravity, &c.-each good in its own sphere, without any accompaniment of mental facts. Experience unbiassed by foreign impulses would simply put these down as causes side by side with animal power, without resolving them into that agency. But the generalizing impetus of the untutored mind makes use of the near and familiar to explain everything else; and the type of activity closest at hand, is the activity of the animal's own volition. This is to us the most conceivable of all forms of causation, and we presume that it must prevail everywhere, and over all kinds of effects. There is no better authority for the assumption than for the belief that other minds are in all respects like our own, or that water, which is liquid to the dweller in the tropics, is liquid everywhere else.

14. II. So much as regards the intuitive as a source of belief. The second source has been also dwelt upon by way of a contrasting illustration to the first. I must now remark farther, on the subject of the growth of conviction from Experience, that the instinctive impulse of Perseverance above explained,