Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

The fight of a place in which we have been happy or unhappy, renews the thoughts and the feelings that we formerly experienced there, With what rapture, after long abfence, do we revifit the haunts of our childhood, and early youth! A thousand ideas, which had been for many years forgotten, now crowd upon the Imagination, and revive within us the gay paffions of that romantick period. The fame effect is produced, though perhaps in a fainter degree, when in a foreign land we talk of, or recollect, the place of our nativity. And from thefe, and other Affociations of a like nature, arifes in part that most important principle, the love of our country; whereof the chief objects are, our friends, and fellow-citizens, and the government that has fo long protected us and our fathers; but in which is alfo comprehended a fondness for the very fields and mountains, the vales, the rocks, and the rivers, which formed the scenery of our first amufements and adyen

tures.

Most persons feel fomething of this fondness: and those who do not, may yet admit the reality of it, when they are told, that the natives of certain countries, when abroad in foreign parts, do sometimes fall fick, and even die, of a defire to revifit their native land. The Swifs were formerly fo liable to this malady, that they diftinguished it by a particular name. The Scots, too, have fuffered from it. And in general it has been thought, that the natives of a mountainous region are more fubject to this infirmity, than those who have been born and bred in level countries. For precipices, rocks, and torrents, are durable things; and, being more striking to

the

the fancy than any natural appearances in the plains, take fafter hold of the memory; and may therefore more frequently recur to the abfent native, accompanied with an idea of the pleasures formerly enjoyed in those places, and with regret that he is now removed to fo great a diftance from them. To which we may add, that the daily contemplation of the grand phanomena of nature, in a mountainous country, X elevates, and continually exercises, the Imagination of the folitary inhabitant; one effect of which is, to give thofe fenfibilities to the nervous fyftem, which render the mind in a peculiar degree fufceptible of wild thoughts, and warm emo

tions.

On entering a place confecrated to religion, ferious minds are generally confcious of devout impreffions; the furrounding fcene recalling fome of those habits of thinking, which have been formed in this or in fimilar places. And, for the fame reason, playhouses and ball-rooms, and other places of publick diverfion, have a tendency to fuggeft thoughts of a different nature. Such is the effect of Cuftom, and of Contiguity, confidered as Principles of Affociation.

See Effay on Poetry and Mufick. Part i. chap. 6. fection 3.

SECT.

SECT. II.

Principles of Affociation.-Fourthly, The Relation of Caufe and Effect.-Superftitions arifing from this and the preceding Principle.

4. THINGS related as cause and effect naturally fuggeft each other to the mind. When we think of the fun, we can hardly avoid thinking of the influence of his beams: the notion of fnow, or of ice, brings along with it that of cold: the fight of a wound conveys an idea of the weapon that gave it, and of the pain that attends it. All men, and even children, have a propenfity to think of, and inquire into, the caufe of any event that attracts their notice; and are continually forming conjectures in regard to the confequences of their own and other people's conduct.

The fame mutual attraction takes place among thofe objects and ideas, that are supposed to stand in the relation of Effect and Caufe; even though in fact they have no influence upon each other. The falling of falt; the clicking of that little infect, which we call a death-watch; the twinkling of a glow-worm; the howling of a dog; or the fhriek of an owl, have nothing to do with impending calamity: but to the fuperftitious, who regard them as omens, fuggeft that idea as effectually, as if they were known to be the real caufes, or the certain fore-runners, of misfortune.

It is therefore incumbent on thofe, who fuperintend education, to inftil right notions into the young mind, and guard it against these, and the like Affociations; which, notwithstanding their abfurdity, have often embittered human life, and even perverted men's ideas of the Divine Providence. Superftition is one of the worst difeafes of the foul. It is equally unfriendly to happiness, to rational piety, and to found philofophy. And this peculiar evil attends thofe forms of it which I now allude to; that one is not always proof against their influence, even when one is fatisfied that they are unreasonable. At the falling of falt, or at finding the number of perfons at table to be exactly thirteen, I have known people of good understanding exceedingly difconcerted: who would yet acknowledge, that they believed it was idle to take notice of fuch a thing; but that, having once looked upon it as ominous, they could not, on fecing it, diveft themfelves of ap prehenfion.

"The ideas of goblins and fpirits (fays Locke) "have really no more to do with darkness than "with light yet let but a foolish maid inculcate "thefe often on the mind of a child, and raise "them there together, poffibly he fhall never be "able to feparate them again fo long as he lives: "but darkness fhall ever afterwards bring along "with it thofe frightful ideas." I will not fay, that children, or that men, either may be, or ought to be, as free from fear by night, as by day: darkness and folitude create fome degree of horror in every mind; and, where our eyes give no diftinct information of furrounding objects, we must be more expofed to danger, than where we have the free ufe of all our faculties. But I fay,

with Locke, that the notion of ghofts or goblins appearing in the dark, is wholly artificial; being the effect of certain Affociations, formed in infancy, and founded on those idle tales with which children are amused and terrified; and which, too often, even when they come to a right ufe of reason, continue to haunt them: and fometimes, efpecially in bad health, are attended with melancholy confequences. Certain it is, that children who never hear of ghosts, are never afraid of them. Is it not, then, a matter of importance, to keep them ignorant of what fuperftitious people believe, in regard to thefe idle tales? Addifon justly remarks, that, next to a good confcience and clear judgment, the greatest bleffing in life is a found Imagination. And he recommends piety, and rational habits of thinking, as the best prefervative against thofe impertinent notions, whereby this faculty is liable to be perverted.

To the fame cause, namely, to abfurd Affocia tions formed in early life from falfe opinions concerning Causes and Effects, it is owing, that weak minds have annexed to certain places the ideas of fpirits, demons, and other dreadful beings. Hence churches and church-yards become objects of terror. And where a perfon has died, with circumftances of peculiar diftrefs, the place has been supposed to be haunted by his ghoft. So prevalent in former times was this folly, that there was hardly a large old houfe to be feen, which had not in it two or three apartments that were believed to be infefted with troubled, or with evil fpirits. Defolate houses, heaps of ruins, deep groves, the fides of rivers, and monumental mounds of earth, or heaps of ftones, were avoid

ed

« НазадПродовжити »