the name Frugality or Virtue to this conduct, it may be called a false idea, if it be supposed agreeing with that idea to which the name frugality properly belongs, or, conformable to that Law which is the standard of virtue and vice. Our complex ideas of substances, being all referred to patterns in things themselves, may be false: 1st, when we put together simple ideas, which in the real existence of things have no union; as when to the shape and size of a horse we join the barking of a dog: 2dly, when from any collection of simple ideas which always exist together, we separate any simple idea which is constantly joined with them; as when to extension, solidity, fusibility, the peculiar weight and colour of gold, any one adds the Idea of less fixedness than is in lead or copper: but should any one leave out altogether the idea of fixedness, I think his complex idea ought rather to be called imperfect or inadequate than false; for though it does not contain all the simple ideas united in the nature of gold, yet it puts together none but what really exist.

Though in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have shewn in what sense and upon what ground our Ideas may be sometimes called True or False, yet if we will look a little nearer into the matter in all cases where any idea is called true or false, it is some judgment (that the mind makes or is supposed to make) that is true or false: for Truth and

Falshood being never without some affirmation or negation express or tacit, it is not to be found but where signs are joined or separated according to the agreement or disagreement of the things they stand for.

The Signs we chiefly use are either Ideas or Words, wherewith we make either mental or verbal propositions; and Truth lies in so joining or separating these representatives as the things they stand for agree or disagree: Our ideas then, whether conformable or not to the existence of things, or to ideas in the minds of others, camrot properly for this alone be called false, since they must represent something. But the falshood is, 1st, when we falsely suppose our ideas to agree with those of other men signified by the same name: 2dly, when we make a complex idea out of inconsistent simple ones, and suppose it to agree with some real existence: 3dly, when we suppose an incompleat complex idea to be adequate: 4thly, when we suppose any complex idea to express the real essence of things.-Upon the whole, I think our ideas, considered with respect to names, or to the reality of things, may more properly be called right or wrong, - than true or false.

CHAP. XXXIII.

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

WE are apt enough to discover and condemn the extravagancies of other men in their opinions, reasonings, and actions; though we are almost always blind to much greater faults of a similar nature in ourselves. This does not proceed wholly from self-love; for ingenuous men are frequently guilty of it. It is usually attributed to education and prejudice; for the most part truly, though that does not show distinctly whence the disease arises. Education is often rightly assigned the cause; and Prejudice is a good general name for the thing itself; but we must look farther for the original cause of this sort of madness; which though a harsh name, is really the proper one for this Opposition to Reason.

There is scarcely a man so free from it, as that, if he was to argue or act usually as he does occasionally, (even when not under the power of unruly passion) he would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than. civil conversation: and indeed enquiring by the bye into the nature of madness, I found it to spring from the very same root as the unreasonableness we are here speaking of. Some of our ideas have a natural connection with one another; and it is the office

and excellence of our reason to keep them united in that correspondence which is founded in their peculiar beings. There is another connexion of ideas wholly owing to chance or custom : ideas in themselves not at all related come to be so united in some men's minds, that one no sooner comes into the understanding than its associate appears with it; and when there are more than two so united, the whole set always shew themselves together. This combination of ideas is either voluntary or casual; and so varies in different men according to their difference of inclination, education, interest, &c.

Custom settles habits of thinking in the Understanding, as well as of determining in the will, and of moving in the body; all which seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which when once set a going continue in the same track they have been used to, till the motion becomes easy, and as it were natural. As far as we can comprehend Thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our minds; or if not, this may serve to explain their following one another in an habitual train, when once put into a certain track, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A musician used to any tune will find the ideas of the notes follow one another, and his fingers strike the keys orderly, without any care or attention. To such associations of ideas may be attributed most of the Sympathies and Anti

pathies observable in men, which work as strongly, and produce as regular effects as if they were natural; and are therefore called so, though at first they had no other original than the accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the strength of the first impression, or future indulgence so united, that they afterwards appear in the mind as one idea. Some of our antipathies indeed are truly natural, depending on our original constitution, and born with us: but many, which we think natural, might be traced to early impressions of which we took no notice. The name of Honey excites immediately ideas of dislike and sickness in the mind of a grown person who has been surfeited with it; but then he knows the origin of this indisposition: had it been given him when a child, the same effects would have followed, but he would have mistaken the cause, and counted the antipathy natural.-I do not mention this for the purpose of distinguishing nicely between natural and acquired antipathies, but to prevent the undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people, who are most susceptible of lasting impressions; and this connexion of ideas tends more than any thing to give a wrong bias to our natural and moral actions, to our passions, reasonings, and notions.-The idea of Goblins has no more connexion with darkness than light; but if you once raise the two ideas together in the mind of a