which these miracles are produced, there are truly no limits,— not in external things, for these it can mingle at pleasure,not in the affections of the soul, for these, in its spiritual creations, are as obedient to it as the mere forms of matter,-not even in infinity itself, for after it has conceived one infinity, it can still, in its speculations, add to it another and another, as if what would be impossible in nature, were possible in it.

"What wealth in souls,

That, scorning limit, or from place or time,
Bold on creation's confines walk and view
What was and is, and more than e'er shall be,

Souls that can grasp whate'er the Almighty made,
And wander wild through things impossible."

The conceptions, which rise and mingle in our living pictures of fancy, being derived, not merely from the various climes of the earth which we inhabit, but from every part of the immensity of the universe, give to our imagination, if we consider it relatively to the objects of conception, a species of virtual omnipresence, or a rapidity of passage almost as wonderful as omnipresence itself. "Tot virtutes accepimus tot artes, animum denique," says Seneca, "animum denique, cui nihil non eodem quo intendit momento pervium est, sideribus, velociorem, quorum post multa sæcula futuros cursus antecedit."* To the same purpose, but more quaintly, says an ingenious French writer, comparing the velocity of our thought with that of the swiftest of material things. "Whatever rapidity we may give to light, what is it to that of my imagination? I wish to rise to the planet Saturn, at the distance of three hundred millions of leagues from the earth. I am there. I will to ascend still higher, to the region of the fixed stars, at a distance from the earth, which is no longer to be counted by millions of leagues, but by millions of millions. I have already passed over all this immensity that intervenes. Would I explore the twelve famous constellations of the Zodiac? The Sun takes twelve months to journey through them. I have already traversed them all, in less time than it would have taken for me to pronounce their names."

"Adde quod in terris nihil est velocius illa,

Et formas subit extemplo quascunque, locosque;
Nunc fera, nunc volucris nunc priscæ mania Romæ
Nunc petit Ægyptum viridem, fontesque latentes
Ambiguos Nili, et Libya deserta peragrat.
Abdita nunc terræ ingreditur; nunc proxima Soli
Inter et errantes per cœlum volvitur ignes,
Et sola æternum videt indefessa Tonantem.

* De Beneficiis, Lib. II. c. xxix.

Proximaque assequitur, cœptisque audacibus urget.
Quoque magis toto diversa a corpore fertur,
Hoc magis immensas diversa a corpore vires
Explicat, ac victrix membrorum incedit, et ultro
Evolat ad superos, propriisque enititur alis."*

The next class of phenomena to which, as in their chief circumstances, modes of the principles of suggestion, I would direct your attention, are the phenomena of Habit.

The effects of habit are, by Dr. Reid, ascribed to a peculiar ultimate principle of the mind; and though I flatter myself, after the discussions which have engaged us, you are not very likely to fall into this error, it may be proper to enter into some fuller illustration and analysis of an influence, which is unquestionably one of the most powerful in our mental constitution.

In treating of the secondary laws of suggestion, I before considered the effect of general habit, if it might so be termed, in modifying the suggestions of mere analogy. The habit which we are now to examine, however, is that in which the effects are not analogous merely, but strictly similar, in a tendency to the repetition of the same actions.

The nature of habit may be considered in two lights; as it thus produces a greater tendency to certain actions, and as it occasions greater facility and excellence in those particular

actions.

The first form of its influence, then, which we have to consider, is that by which it renders us more prone to actions that have been frequently repeated.

That the frequent repetition of any action increases the tendency to it, all of you must have experienced in yourselves, in innumerable cases, of little importance, perhaps, but sufficiently indicative of the influence; and there are few of you, probably, who have not had an opportunity of remarking in others the fatal power of habits of a very different kind. In the corruption of a great city, it is scarcely possible to look around, without perceiving some warning example of that blasting and deadening influence, before which, every thing that was generous and benevolent in the heart, has withered, while every thing which was noxious has flourished with more rapid maturity; like those plants, which can extend their roots, indeed, and odours, but which burst out in all their luxuriance, only from even in a pure soil, and fling out a few leaves amid balmy airs a soil that is fed with constant putrescency, and in an atmos

* Heinsius de Contemptu Mortis, Lib. II.

phere which it is poison to inhale. It is not vice,-not cold and insensible, and contented vice, that has never known any better feelings,-which we view with melancholy regret. It is virtue, at least what was once virtue,-that has yielded progressively and silently to an influence scarcely perceived, till it has become the very thing which it abhorred. Nothing can be more just, than the picture of this sad progress, described in the well known lines of Pope:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace."*

In the slow progress of some insidious disease, which is scarcely regarded by its cheerful and unconscious victim, it is mournful to mark the smile of gaity, as it plays over that very bloom, which is not the freshness of health, but the flushing of approaching mortality, amid studies perhaps just opening into intellectual excellence, and hopes, and plans of generous ambition that are never to be fulfilled. But how much more painful is it, to behold that equally insidious, and far more desolating progress, with which guilty passion steals upon the heart, when there is still sufficient virtue to feel remorse, and to sigh at the remembrance of purer years, but not sufficient to throw off the guilt, which is felt to be oppressive, and to return to that purity in which it would again, in its bitter moments, gladly take shelter, if only it had energy to vanquish the almost irresistible habits that would tear it back!

"Crimes lead to greater crimes, and link so straight,

What first was accident, at last is fate;

The unhappy servant sinks into a slave,

And virtue's last sad strugglings cannot save."

We must not conceive, however, that habit is powerful only in strengthening what is EVIL,-though it is this sort of operation which, of course, forces itself more upon our observation and memory,-like the noontide darkness of the tempest, that is remembered, when the calm, and the sunshine, and the gentle shower are forgotten. There can be no question, that the same principle which confirms and aggravates what is evil, strengthens and cherishes also what is good. The virtuous, indeed, do not require the influence of habitual benevolence or devotion to force them, as it were, to new acts of kindness to man, or to new sentiments of gratitude to God. But the temptations, to which even virtue might sometimes be in danEssay on Man, Ep. II. v. 217-220.

VOL. II.-Q

ger of yielding in the commencement of its delightful progress, become powerless and free from peril when that progress is more advanced. There are spirits which, even on earth, are elevated above that little scene of mortal ambition, with which their benevolent wishes, for the sufferers there, are the single tie that connects them still. All with them is serenity; the darkness and the storm are beneath them. They have only to look down, with generous sympathy, on those who have not yet risen so high; and to look up, with gratitude, to that Heaven which is above their head, and which is almost opening to receive them.

To explain the influence of habit, in increasing the tendency to certain actions, I must remark,-what I have already more than once repeated,-that the suggesting influence which is usually expressed in the phrase association of ideas,-though that very improper phrase would seem to limit it to our ideas of conceptions only, and has unquestionably produced a mistaken belief of this partial operation of a general influence,is not limited to these more than to any other states of the mind, but occurs also with equal force in other feelings, which are not commonly termed ideas or conceptions; that our desires, or other emotions, for example, may, like them, form a part of our trains of suggestion; and that it is not more wonderful, therefore, that the states of the mind, which constitute certain desires, after frequently succeeding certain perceptions, should, on the mere renewal of the perceptions, recur once more, than that any one conception should follow, in this manner, any other conception,-that the mere picture of a rose, for example, should suggest its fragrance; or that verses, which we have frequently read, should rise once more successively in our memory, when the line which precedes them has been repeated to us, or remembered by us. To him who has long yielded servilely to habits of intoxication, the mere sight, or the mere conception, of the poisonous beverage, to which he has devoted and sacrificed his health, and virtue, and happiness, will induce, almost as if mechanically, the series of mental affections, on which the worse than animal appetite, and the muscular motions necessary for gratifying it, depend. Perhaps, at the early period of the growth of the passion, there was little love of the wine itself, the desire of which was rather a consequence of the pleasures of gay conversation that accompanied the too frequent draught. But whatever different pleasures may originally have accompanied it, the perception of the wine and the draught itself were frequent parts of the complex process; and, therefore, those particular mental states, which constituted the repeated volitions necessary for the par

ticular muscular movements; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that all the parts of the process should be revived by the mere revival of a single part.

What is called the power of habit is thus suggestion, and nothing more. The sight of the wine before him has coexisted innumerable times with the desire of drinking it. The state of mind, therefore, which constitutes the perception, induces, by the common influence of suggestion, that other state of mind which constitutes the desire, and the desire all those other states or motions which have been its usual attendants.

This influence of habit, then,-in increasing the tendency to certain motions,-is not very difficult of explanation, without the necessity of having recourse to any principle of the mind distinct from that on which all our simple suggestions depend. If feelings tend to produce other feelings, in consequence of former proximity or coexistence, it would, indeed, be most wonderful if habitual tendencies were not produced. But the tendency to certain actions is not merely increased, the action itself, in cases of complicated motion, becomes easier. In what manner is this increased facility to be explained?

If any of you were to try, for the first time, any one of the wonderous feats of the circus,-vaulting, dancing on the rope, or some of the more difficult equestrian exercises,there is very little reason to think that the individual, whatever general vigour and agility he might possess, would be successful; and if he were so singularly fortunate as to perform the feat at all, there can be no doubt that he would perform it with great labour, and comparative awkwardness. A certain series of muscular contractions, alone, are best fitted for producing a certain series of attitudes; and though we may all have the muscles necessary for these particular attitudes, and the power of producing in them the requisite contractions, we have not, merely from the sight or conception of the particular attitude,-a knowledge either of the particular muscles that are to be moved, or of the particular degrees of motion that may be necessary. In our first attempts, accordingly, though we may produce a rude imitation of the motion which we wish to imitate,-the imitation must still be a very rude one; because, in our ignorance of the particular muscles, and particular quantities of contraction, we contract muscles which ought to have remained at rest, and contract those which ought to be contracted only in a certain degree, in a degree either greater or less than this middle point. By frequent repetition, however, we gradually learn and remedy our mistakes; but we acquire this knowledge very slowly,