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by a separate class of individuals in the community, who devoted themselves to the pacific profession of poetry, and to the cultivation of that creative power of the mind, which anticipates the course of human affairs; and presents, in prophetic vision, to the poet and the philosopher, the blessings which accompany the progress of reason and refine

ment.

Nor must we omit to mention the important effects of Imagination in multiplying the sources of innocent enjoyment, beyond what this limited scene affords. Not to insist on the nobler efforts of genius, which have rendered this part of our constitution subservient to moral improvement; how much has the sphere of our happiness been extended by those agreeable fictions which introduce us to new worlds, and make us acquainted with new orders of being! What a fund of amusement, through life, is prepared for one who reads, in his childhood, the fables of ancient Greece! They dwell habitually on the memory, and are ready, at all times, to fill up the intervals of business, or of serious reflection; and in his hours of rural retirement and leisure, they warm his mind with the fire of ancient genius, and animate every scène he enters, with the offspring of classical fancy.

It is, however, chiefly in painting future scenes that Imagination loves to indulge herself, and her prophetic dreams are almost always favourable to happiness. By an erroneous education, indeed, it is possible to render this faculty an instrument of constant and of exquisite distress; but in such cases (abstracting from the influence of a constitutional melancholy) the distresses of a gloomy imagination are to be ascribed not to nature, but to the force of early impressions.

The common bias of the mind undoubtedly is, (such is the benevolent appointment of Providence,) to think favourably of the future; to overvalue the chances of possible

good, and to underrate the risks of possible evil; and in the case of some fortunate individuals, this disposition remains after a thousand disappointments. To what this bias of our nature is owing, it is not material for us to inquire: the fact is certain, and it is an important one to our happiness. It supports us under the real distresses of life, and cheers and animates all our labours: and although it is sometimes apt to produce, in a weak and indolent mind, those deceitful suggestions of ambition and vanity, which lead us to sacrifice the duties and the comforts of the present moment, to romantic hopes and expectations; yet it must be acknowledged, when connected with habits of activity, and regulated by a solid judgment, to have a favourable effect on the character, by inspiring that ardour and enthusiasm which both prompt to great enterprises, and are necessary to ensure their success. When such a temper is united (as it commonly is) with pleasing notions, concerning the order of the universe, and in particular concerning the condition and the prospects of man, it places our happiness in a great measure beyond the power of fortune. While it adds a double relish to every enjoyment, it blunts the edge of all our sufferings; and even when human life presents to us no object on which our hopes can rest, it invites the imagination beyond the dark and troubled horizon which terminates all our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of futurity. A man of benevolence, whose mind is enlarged by Philosophy, will indulge the same agreeable anticipations with respect to society; will view all the different improvements in arts, in commerce, and in the sciences, as co-operating to promote the union, the happiness, and the virtue of mankind; and, amidst the political disorders resulting from the prejudices and follies of his own times, will look forward with transport, to the blessings which are reserved for posterity in a more enlightened age.

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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

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Note (A.) page 4.

I AM happy in being able to quote the following passage, in illustration of a doctrine, against which I do not conceive it possible to urge any thing, but the authority of some illustrious

names.

66

66

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Puisque l'existence des corps n'est pour nous que la permanence d'etres dont les propriétés répondent à un certain ordre "de nos sensations, il en résulte qu'elle n'a rien de plus certain que celle d'autres etres qui se manifestent également par 'leurs effets sur nous; et puisque nos observations sur nos propres facultés, confirmées par celles que nous faisons sur "les etres pensants qui animent aussi des corps, ne nous montrent aucune analogie entre l'etre qui sent ou qui pense et l'etre qui "nous offre le phénomene de l'étendue ou de l'impénétrabilité, "il n'y a aucune raison de croire ces etres de la même nature. "Ainsi la spiritualité de l'ame n'est pas une opinion qui ait be"soin de preuves, mais le résultat simple et naturel l'une analyse "exacte de nos idées, et de nos facultés."-Vie de M. Turgot par M. Condorcet.

Des Cartes was the first philosopher who stated, in a clear and satisfactory manner, the distinction between mind and matter, and who pointed out the proper plan for studying the intellectual phenomena. It is chiefly in consequence of his precise ideas with respect to this distinction, that we may remark, in all his metaphysical writings, a perspicuity which is not observable in those of any of his predecessors.

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Dr. Reid has remarked, that although Des Cartes infers the existence of mind, from the operations of which we are conscious, yet he could not reconcile himself to the notion of an unknown substance, or substratum, to which these operations belonged. And it was on this account, he conjectures, that he made the essence of the soul to consist in thought; as, for a similar reason, he had made the essence of matter to consist in extension. But I am afraid, that this supposition is not perfectly reconcilable with Des Cartes' writings; for he repeatedly speaks with the utmost confidence of the existence of substances of which we have only a relative idea; and, even in attempting to shew that thought is the essential attribute of mind, and extension of matter, he considers them as nothing more than attributes or qualities belonging to these substances.

"Per substantiam nihil aliud intelligere possumus, quam rem quæ ita existit, ut nulla alia re indigeat ad existendum. Et qui"dem substantia quæ nulla plane re indigeat, unica tantum potest "intelligi, nempe Deus. Alias vero omnes, non nisi ope con

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cursus Dei existere posse percipimus. Atque ideo nomen sub"stantiæ non convenit Deo et illis univoce ut dici solet in scholis; "hoc est, nulla ejus'nominis significatio, potest distincte intelligi, 66 quæ Deo, et creaturis sit communis.

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“Possunt autem substantia corporea, et mens, sive substantia cogitans, creata, sub hoc communi conceptu intelligi; quod sint res, quæ solo Dei concursu agent ad existendum. Verumtamen non potest substantia primum animadverti ex hoc solo, quod sit res existens, quia hoc solum per se nos non afficit: sed facile ipsam agnoscimus ex quolibet ejus attributo, per communem "illam notionem, quod nihili nulla sunt attributa, nullæve propri"etates aut qualitates. Ex hoc enim, quod aliquod attributum "adesse percipiamus, concludimus aliquam rem existentem, sive "substantiam cui illud tribui possit, necessario etiam adesse.

"Et quidem ex quolibet attributo substantia cognoscitur: sed "una tamen est cujusque substantiæ præcipua proprietas, quæ "ipsius naturam essentiamque constituit, et ad quam aliæ omnes "referuntur. Nempe extensio in longum, latum et profundum "substantiæ corporeæ naturam constituit; et cogitatio constituit

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