any thing as all invention implies novelty, and that certain things or thoughts are put together which were never fo put together before. Now this inventing power is afcribed, as obferved already, to the imagination or fancy, and, when regulated by good fenfe and applied to useful purpofes, is called genius. One may be learned who is not ingenious; in other words, one may have a good memory well ftored with knowledge, and yet have little imagination or invention; as, on the other hand, one may be very ingenious with little learning. But genius and learning, when they meet in one perfon, are mutually and greatly affiftant to each other; and, in the poetical art, Horace declares that ei ther without the other can do little.

140. The fucceffion of our thoughts is often regulated by memory; as when we go over in our mind the particulars of a place we have feen, of a conversation we have heard, or of a book we have read. At other times, when our attention is not fixed on any one thing, a ftate of mind called a reverie, we may obferve, that our thoughts

thoughts are continually changing, fo that in a little time our imagination wanders to fomething very different from that which we were thinking of juft before. Yet if we could remember every thing that passed through our mind during this reverie, we fhould probably find, that there was fome relation, connection, or bond of union, be tween those thoughts that accompanied, or came next after, one another. The relations, or bonds of union, which thus determine the mind to affociate ideas, 'are

various.

141. First, Refemblance is an affociating quality that is, when we perceive, or think of, any thing, it is natural for us, at the fame time, or immediately after, to think of fomething that is like it. When we hear a story, or see a person, we are apt to think of other fimilar ftories or perfons. Our difcourfe we often embellish with metaphors, allegories, and those other figures of fpeech, that are founded in likeness. And when any powerful paffion, as anger or forrow, takes hold of the mind, the thoughts that occur to us have generally a refemblance

O 2

refemblance to that paffion, and tend to

encourage

it.

142. Contrariety or contraft is another af fociating principle, especially when the mind is in a disagreeable state. Great cold makes us think of heat, and wifh for it. Hunger and thirst put us in mind of eating and drinking. In poetry, and other works of fancy, we are fometimes pleased when we find things of oppofite natures fucceeding each other; when, for example, the burry of a battle is interrupted, as in Homer it often is, with a descriptive fimilitude taken from ftill life or rural affairs; or when, in the fame fable, perfons appear of oppofite characters, and the violent is opposed to the gentle, the cunning to the generous, and the rash to the prudent.

143. Thirdly: When we think of any place which we are acquainted with, we are apt to think at the fame time of the neighbouring places and perfons: here the affociating principle is Contiguity or nearness of fituation. The fight of a house, in which we have formerly been happy or unhappy, renews the agreeable or disagreeable ideas

that

Hence

that were formerly realifed there. in part arises that partiality which most people have for the town, province, or country, in which they paffed their early years. Hence, on entering a church, even when no body is prefent, a confiderate mind is apt to feel fome of thofe religious im preffions which it has formerly experienced in fuch places and fentiments of a differ ent nature arife, when we go into playhouses, ball-rooms, or apartments that we have feen appropriated to purposes of festivity.

144. Fourthly: Things related as caufe and effect do mutually fuggeft each other to the mind. When we fee a wound, we think of the weapon or the accident that caused it, and of the pain which is the effect of it. The idea of fnow or of ice brings along with it that of cold; and we can hardly think of the fun without thinking of light and heat at the fame time. The affociations founded on this principle are equally strong whether the caufation be real or imaginary. He who believes, that darkness and folitude are the cause of the appearance

:

appearance of ghofts, will find, when he is in the dark and alone, that the idea of fuch beings will occur to him as naturally, as if the one were really the cause of the other. It is true, that folitude and darkness may reasonably produce fome degree of fear; because where we cannot fee we must be in fome danger; and, when every thing is filent about us, we must be at some distance from the protection and other comforts of fociety. But ghosts and apparitions have nothing more to do with darkness than with light: and the ftories told of them will be found, on examination, to arife, either from imperfect fenfations, owing to the darknefs, or from thofe horrors which diforder the imagination when one is much afraid, or from the folly, credulity, or falfehood of them who circulate those filly tales.

very

145. Cuftom or habit is a very extensive principle of affociation. Things and thoughts that have no other bond of union

may, by appearing together, or being frequently joined together, become fo closely related, that the one shall ever after introduce the

other