By this instinct, a real connexion is formed between our words and our thoughts, and thereby the former become fit to be signs of the latter, which they could not otherwise be. And although this connexion is broken in every in- stance of lying and equivocation, yet these instances being comparatively few, the authority of human testimony is only weakened by them, but not destroyed.
Another original principle implanted in us by the Su- preme Being, is a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and to believe what they tell us. This is the coun- ter part to the former; and as that may be called the prin- ciple of veracity, we shall, for want of a more proper name, call this the principle of credulity. It is unlimited SECT. XXIV.] OF SEEING. 233 ia children, until they meet with instances of deceit and falsehood: and it retains a very considerable degree of strength through life.
If nature had left the mind of the speaker in equilibria, without any inclination to the side of truth more than to that of falsehood; children would lie as often as they speak truth, until reason was so far ripened as to suggest the imprudence of lying, or conscience, as to suggest its immo- rality. And, if nature had left the mind of the hearer in equilibria, without any inclination to the side of belief more than to that of disbelief, we should take no man's word until we had positive evidence that he spoke truth. His testi- mony would, in this case, have no more authority than his dreams; which may be true or false, but no man is dis- posed to believe them, on this account, that they were dreamed. It is evident that, in the matter of testimony, the balance of human judgment is by nature inclined to the side of belief; and turns to that side of itself, when there is nothing put into the opposite scale. If it was not so, no proposition that is uttered in discourse would be be- lieved until it was examined and tried by reason; and most men would be unable to find reasons for believing the thousandth part of what is told them. Such distrust and incredulity would deprive us of the greatest benefits of society, and place us in a worse condition than that of savages.
Children, on this supposition, would be absolutely in- credulous; and therefore absolutely incapable of instruc- tion: those who had little knowledge of human life, and of the manners and characters of men, would be in the next degree incredulous; and the most credulous men would be those of greatest experience, and of the greatest pene- tration; because, in many cases, they would be able to rind good reasons for believing testimony which the weak and the ignorant could not discover.
In a word, if credulity were the effect of reasoning and experience, it must grow up and gather strength in the same proportion as reason and experience do. But, if it is the gift of nature, it will be strongest in childhood, and 234 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. VI.
limited and restrained by experience; and the most super- ficial view of human life shows, that the last is really the case, and not the first.
It is the intention of nature that we should be carried in arms before we are able to walk upon our less; and it is likewise the intention of nature that our belief should be guided by the authority and reason of others, before it can be guided by our own reason. The weakness of the infant and the natural affection of the mother plainly in- dicate the former; and the natural credulity of youth and authority of age as plainly indicate the latter. The infant, by proper nursing and care, acquires strength to walk without support. Reason hath likewise her infancy when she must be carried in arms: when she leans entirely upon authority, by natural instinct, as if she was conscious of her own weakness; and without this support she becomes vertiginous. When brought to maturity by proper culture, she begins to feel her own strength, and leans less upon the reason of others; she learns to suspect testimony in some cases, and to disbelieve it in others; and sets bounds to that authority to which she was at first entirely subject. But still, to the end of life, she finds a necessity of bor- rowing light from testimony, where sho has none within herself, and of leaning in some degree upon the reason of others, where she is conscious of her own imbecility.
And as in many instances, Reason, even in her matu- rity, borrows aid from testimony; so in others, she mutu- ally gives aid to it, and strengthens its authority. For as we find good reason to reject testimony in some cases, so in others we find good reason to rely upon it with perfect security, in our most important concerns. The character, the number, and the disinterestedness of witnesses, the impossibility of collusion, and the incredibility of their concurring in their testimony without collusion, may give an irresistible strength to testimony, compared to which its native and intrinsic authority is very inconsiderable.
Having now considered the general principles of the human mind which fit us for receiving information fixfcn our fellow creatures by the means of language; let us SECT. XXIV.] OF SEEING. 235 next consider the general principles which tit us for re- ceiving the information of nature by our acquired percep- tions.
It is undeniable, and indeed is acknowledged by all, that when we have found two things to have been con- stantly conjoined in the course of nature, the appearance of one of them is immediately followed by the conception and belief of the other. The former becomes a natural sign of the latter; and the knowledge of their constant conjunction in time past, whether got by experience or otherwise, is sufficient to make us rely with assurance upon the continuance of that conjunction.
This process of the human mind is so familiar that we never think of inquiring into the principles upon which it is founded. We are apt to conceive it as a self-evident truth, that what is to come must be similar to what is past. Thus, if a certain degree of cold freezes water to day, and has been known to do so in all time past, we have no doubt but the same degree of cold will freeze water to- morrow, or a year hence. That this is a truth which all men believe as soon as they understand it, I readily ad- mit; but the question is, Whence does its evidence arise? Not from comparing the ideas, surely. For when I com- pare the idea of cold with that of water hardened into a transparent solid body, I can perceive no connexion be- tween them: no man can show the one to be the neces- sary effect of the other: no man can give a shadow of reason why nature hath conjoined them. But do we not learn their conjunction from experience? True; expe- rience informs us that they have been conjoined in time past; but no man ever had any experience of what is future: and this is the very question to be resolved, How we come to believe that the future will be like the past? Hath the Author of Nature promised this? Or, were we admitted to his council when he established the present laws of nature, and determined the time of their continuance? No, surely, Indeed, if we believe that there is a wise and good Author of Nature, we may see a good reason why he should continue the same laws of 236 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. VI.
nature, and the same connexions of things for a long time: because, if he did otherwise, we could learn nothing from what is past, and all our experience would be of no use to us. But though this consideration, when we come to the use of reason, may confirm our belief of the continuance of the present course of nature, it is certain that it did not give rise to this belief; for children and idiots have this belief as soon as they know that fire will burn them. It must therefore be the effect of instinct, not of reason.
The wise Author of our nature intended, that a great and necessary part of our knowledge should be derived from experience, before we are capable of reasoning, and he hath provided means perfectly adequate to this inten- tion. For, first, He governs nature by fixed laws, so that we find innumerable connexions of things which con- tinue from age to age. Without this stability of the course of nature, there could be no experience; or, it would be a false guide, and lead us into error and mischief. If there were not a principle of veracity in the human mind, men's words would not be signs of their thoughts: and if there were no regularity in the course of nature, no one thing could be a natural sign of another. Secondly, He hath implanted in human minds an original principle by which we believe and expect the continuance of the course of nature, and the continuance of those connexions which we have observed in time past. It is by this general principle of our nature, that when two things have been found connected in time past, the appearance of the one produces the belief of the other.
I think the ingenious author of the Treatise of Human Nature first observed, that our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature cannot be founded either upon know- ledge or probability: but, far from conceiving it to be an original principle of the mind, he endeavours to account for it from his favourite hypothesis, That belief is nothing but a certain degree of vivacity in the idea of the thing be- lieved. I made a remark upon this curious hypothesis in the second Chapter, and shall now make another.
The belief which we have in perception is a belief of SECT. XXIV.] OF SEEING. 237 the present existence of the object; that which we have in memory is a belief of its past existence; the belief of which we are now speaking is a belief of its future ex- existence, and in imagination there is no belief at all. Now, I would gladly know of this author, how one de- gree of vivacity fixes the existence of the object to the present moment; another carries it back to time past; a third, taking a contrary direction, carries it into futurity; and a fourth carries it out of existence altogether. Sup- pose, for instance, that I see the sun rising out of the sea; I remember to have seen him rise yesterday; I believe he will rise to-morrow near the same place; I can likewise imagine him rising in that place without any belief at all. Xo\v, according to this sceptical hypothesis, this percep- tion, this memory, this foreknowledge, and this imagina- tion, are all the same idea, diversified only by different degTees of vivacity. The perception of the sun rising is the most lively idea; the memory of his rising yesterday is the same idea a little more faint; the belief of his rising to- morrow is the same idea, yet fainter; and the imagination of his rising is still the same idea, but faintest of all. One is apt to think, that this idea might gradually pass through all possible degrees of vivacity, without stirring out of its place. But if we think so, we deceive ourselves; for no sooner does it begin to grow languid than it moves backward into time past. Supposing this to be granted, we expect at least that as it moves backward by the decay of its vivacity, the more that vivacity decays, it will go back the farther, until it remove quite out of sight. But here we are deceived again; for there is a certain period of this declining vivacity, when, as if it had met an elastic obsta- cle in its motion backward, it suddenly rebounds from the past to the future, without taking the present in its way. And now having got into the regions of futurity, we are apt to think that it has room enough to spend all its re- maining vigour: but still we are deceived; for, by an- other sprightly bound, it mounts up into the airy region of imagination. So that ideas, in the gradual declension of their vivacity, seem to imitate the inflection of verbs in 238 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. VI.
grammar. They begin with the present, and proceed in order to the preterite, the future, and the indefinite. This article of the sceptical creed is indeed so full of mystery, on whatever side we view it, that they who hold that creed, are very injuriously charged with incredulity: for to me it appears to require as much faith as that of St. Athanasius.
However, we agree with the author of the Treatise of Human Nature in this, That our belief of the continuance of nature's laws is not derived from reason. It is an in- stinctive prescience of the operations of nature, very like to that prescience of human actions which makes us rely upon the testimony of our fellow creatures; and as, with- out the latter, we should be incapable of receiving infor- mation from men by language; so, without the former, we should be incapable of receiving the information of nature by means of experience.
All our knowledge of nature beyond our original per- ceptions is got by experience, and consists in the interpre- tation of natural signs. The constancy of nature's laws connects the sign with the thing signified, and, by the. natural principle just now explained, we rely upon the con- tinuance of the connections which experience hath dis- covered; and thus the appearance of the sign is followed by the belief of the thing signified.
Upon this principle of our constitution, not only ac- quired perception, but all inductive reasoning, and all our reasoning from analogy, is grounded; and therefore, for want of another name, we shall beg leave to call it the in- ductive principle. It is from the force of this principle that we immediately assent to that axiom upon which all our knowledge of nature is built, That effects of the same kind must have the same cause. For effects and causes, in the operations of nature, mean nothing but signs and the things signified by them. We perceive no proper casualty or efficiency in any natural cause; but only a connection established by the course of nature between it and what is called its effect. Antecedently to all rea- soning, we have, by our constitution, an anticipation, that SECT. XXIV.] OF SEEING. 239 there is a fixed and steady course of nature: and we have an eager desire to discover this course of nature. We attend to every conjunction of things which presents itself, and expect the continuance of that conjunction. And when such a conjunction has been often observed, we con- ceive the things to be naturally connected, and the ap- pearance of one, without any reasoning or reflection, car- ries along with it the belief of the other.
If any reader should imagine that the inductive prin- ciple may be resolved into what philosophers usually call the association of ideas, let him observe, that, by this principle, natural signs are not associated with the idea only, but with the belief of the things signified. Now, this can with no propriety be called an association of ideas, unless ideas and belief be one and the same thing. A child has found the prick of a pin conjoined with pain; hence he believes and knows that these things are natu- rally connected; he knows that the one will always follow the other. If any man will call this only an association of ideas, I dispute not about words, but I think he speaks very improperly. For if we express it in plain English, it is a prescience, that things which he hath found conjoined in time past, will be conjoined in time to come. And this prescience is not the effect of reasoning, but of an original principle of human nature, which I have called the induc- tive principle.
This principle, like that of credulity, is unlimited in in- fancy, and gradually restrained and regulated as we grow up. It leads us often into mistakes, but is of infinite ad- vantage upon the whole. By it the child once burnt shuns the fire; by it, he likewise runs away from the surgeon by whom he was inoculated. It is better that he should do the last than that he should not do the first.
But the mistakes we are led into by these two natural principles are of a different kind. Men sometimes lead us into mistakes when we perfectly understand their lan- guage, by speaking lies. But nature never misleads us in this way: her language is always true; and it is only by misinterpreting it that we fall into error. There must 240 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. VI.
be many accidental conjunctions of things, as well as na- tural connexions; and the former are apt to be mistaken for the latter. Thus, in the instance abovementioned, the child connected the pain of inoculation "with the surgeon; whereas it was really connected with the incision only. Philosophers and men of science are not exempted from such mistakes; indeed all false reasoning in philosophy is owing to them: it is drawn from experience and analogy, as well as just reasoning, otherwise it could have no veri- similitude: but the one is an unskilful and rash, the other a just and legitimate interpretation of natural signs. If a child, or a man of common understanding, were put to in- terpret a book of science wrote in his mother tongue,.how many blunders and mistakes wrould he be apt to fall into? Yet he knows as much of this language as is necessary for his manner of life.
The language of nature is the universal study; and the students are of different classes. Brutes, idiots, and chil- dren, employ themselves in this study, and owe to it all their acquired perceptions. Men of common understand- ing make a greater progress, and learn, by a small degree of reflection, many things of which children are ignorant.
Philosophers fill up the highest form in this school, and are critics in the language of nature. All these different classes have one teacher, Experience, enlightened by the inductive principle. Take away the light of this inductive principle, and Experience is as blind as a mole: she may indeed feel what is present, and what immediately touches her: but she sees nothing that is either before or behind, upon the right hand or upon the left, future or past.
The rules of inductive reasoning, or of a just interpreta- tion of nature, as well as the fallacies by which we are apt to misinterpret her language, have been, with wonderful sa- gacity, delineated by the great genius of Lord Bacon: so that his Novum Organum may justly be called a grammar of the language of nature. It adds greatly to the merit of this work, and atones for its defects, that at the time it was written, the wrorld had not seen any tolerable model of inductive reasoning, from which the rules of it might be SECT. XXIV.] OF SEEING. 241 copied. The arts of poetry and eloquence were grown up to perfection when Aristotle described them; but the art of interpreting nature was yet in embryo when Bacon de- lineated its manly features and proportions. Aristotle drew his rules from the best models of those arts that have yet appeared; but the best models of inductive reasoning that have yet appeared, which I take to be the third book of the Principia and the Optics of Newton, were drawn from Bacon's rules. The purpose of all those rules is to teach us to distinguish seeming or apparent connexions of things in the course of nature from such as are real.
They that are unskilful in inductive reasoning are more apt to fall into error in their reasonings from the pheno- mena of nature than in their acquired perceptions; be- cause we often reason from a few instances, and thereby are apt to mistake accidental conjunctions of things for natural connexions: but that habit of passing, without reasoning, from the sign to the things signified, which constitutes acquired perception, must be learned by many instances or experiments; and the number of experiments serves to disjoin those things which have been accidentally conjoined, as well as to confirm our belief of natural con- nexions.
From the time that children begin to use their hands, nature directs them to handle every thing over and over, to look at it while they handle it, and to put it in various positions, and at various distances from the eye. We are apt to excuse this as a childish diversion, because they must be doing something, and have not reason to entertain themselves in a more manly way. But if we think more justly, we shall find that they are engaged hi the most se- rious and important study; and if they had all the reason of a philosopher, they could not be more properly em- ployed. For it is this childish employment that enables them to make the proper use of their eyes. They are thereby every day acquiring habits of perception, which are of greater importance than any thing we can teach them. The original perceptions which nature gave them are few, and insufficient for the purposes of life; and there- of 242 OF THE HUMAN MIND. [CHAP. VI.
fore she made them capable of acquiring many more per- ceptions by habit. And to complete her work, she hath given them an unwearied assiduity in applying to the ex- ercises by which those perceptions are acquired.
This is the education which nature gives to her children. And since we have fallen upon this subject, we may add, that another part of nature's education is, That, by the course of things, children must often exert all their mus- cular force, and employ all their ingenuity, in order to gratify their curiosity and satisfy their little appetites. What they desire is only to be obtained at the expense of labour and patience, and many disappointments. By the exercise of body and mind necessary for satisfying their desires, they acquire agility, strength, and dexterity in their motions, as well as health and vigour to their consti- tutions; they learn patience and perseverance; they learn to bear pain without dejection, and disappointment without despondence. The education of nature is most perfect in savages, who have no other tutor; and we see, that, in the quickness of all their senses, in the agility of their motions, in the hardiness of their constitutions, and in the strength of their minds to bear hunger, thirst, pain, and disappoint- ment, they commonly far exceed the civilized. A most ingenious writer, on this account, seems to prefer the sa- vage life to that of society. But the education of nature could never of itself produce a Rousseau. It is the intention of nature, that human education should be joined to her institution, in order to form the man. And she hath fitted us for human education by the natural principles of imitation and credulity, which discover themselves almost hi infancy, as well as by others which are of later growth.
When the education which we receive from men does not give scope to the education of nature, it is wrong di- rected; it tends to hurt our faculties of perception, and to enervate both the body and mind. Nature hath her way of rearing men, as she hath of curing their diseases. The art of medicine is to follow nature, to imitate and to assist her in the cure of diseases; and the art of education is to follow nature, to assist and to imitate her in her way of SECT. XXIV.]. OF SEEING. 243 rearing men. The ancient inhabitants of the Baleares fol- lowed nature in the manner of teaching their children to be good archers, when they hung their dinner aloft by a thread, and left the younkers to bring it down by their skill in archery.
The education of nature, without any more human care than is necessary to preserve life, makes a perfect savage. Human education, joined to that of nature, may make a good citizen, a skilful artisan, or a well bred man. But Reason and Reflection must superadd their tutory, in order to produce a Rousseau, a Bacon, or a Newton.
Notwithstanding the innumerable errors committed in human education, there is hardly any education so bad as to be worse than none. And I apprehend, that if even Rousseau were to choose whether to educate a son among the French, the Italians, the Chinese, or among the Esqui- maux, he would not give the preference to the last.
When Reason is properly employed, she will confirm the documents of nature, which are always true and whole- some; she will distinguish, in the documents of human education, the good from the bad, rejecting the last with modesty, and adhering to the first with reverence.
Most men continue all their days to be just what nature and human education made them. Their manners, their opinions, their virtues, and their vices are all got by habit, imitation, and instruction; and Reason has little or no share in forming them.
M2 244 OF THE HUMAN MIND.
CHAP. VII. CONCLUSION.
Containing Reflections upon the Opinions of Philoso- phers on this Subject.
THERE are two ways in which men may form their notions and opinions concerning the mind, and concerning its powers and operations. The first is the only way that leads to truth; but it is narrow and rugged, and few have entered upon it. The second is broad and smooth, and hath been much beaten, not only by the vulgar, but even by philosophers; it is sufficient for common life, and is well adapted to the purposes of the poet and orator: but, in philosophical disquisitions concerning the mind, it leads to error and delusion.
We may call the first of these wrays, the way of reflec- tion. When the operations of the mind are exerted we are conscious of them; and it is in our power to attend to them, and to reflect upon them, until they become familiar objects of thought.
This is the only way in which we can form just and ac- curate notions of those operations. But this attention and reflection is so difficult to man, surrounded on all hands by external objects which constantly solicit his attention, that it has been very little practised, even by philosophers. In the course of this Inquiry we have had many occasions to show how little attention hath been given to the most fa- miliar operations of the senses.
The second, and the most common way in which men form their opinions concerning the mind and its operations, we may call the way of analogy. There is nothing in the course of nature so singular, but we can find some resem- blance, or at least some analogy, between it and other CHAP. VII.] CONCLUSION. 245 things with which we are acquainted. The mind natu- rally delights in hunting after such analogies, and attends to them with pleasure. From them poetry and wit derive a great part of their charms; and eloquence not a little of its persuasive force.
Besides the pleasure we receive from analogies, they are of very considerable use, both to facilitate the concep- tion of things when they are not easily apprehended without such a handle, and to lead us to probable conjectures about their nature and qualities, when we want the means of more direct and immediate knowledge. When I con- sider that the planet Jupiter, in like manner as the earth, rolls round his own axis, and revolves round the sun, and that he is enlightened by several secondary planets, as the earth is enlightened by the moon; I am apt to conjecture, from analogy, that as the earth by these means is fitted to be the habitation of various orders of animals, so the planet Jupiter is, by the like means, fitted for the same purpose: and having no argument more direct and conclusive to de- termine me in this point, I yield to this analogical reason- ing a degree of assent proportioned to its strength. When I observe that the potatoe plant very much resembles the solanum in its flower and fructification, and am informed that the last is poisonous, I am apt from analogy to have some suspicion of the former: but in this case I have ac- cess to more direct and certain evidence; and therefore ought not to trust to analogy, which would lead me into an error.