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In an indolent ftate, or in a reverie, objects make but a flight impreffion; far from what they make when they command our attention. In a train of perceptions, no fingle object makes fuch a figure as it would do fingle and apart: for when the attention is divided among many objects, no fingle object is intitled to a large fhare. Hence the ftillness of night contributes to terror, there being nothing to divert the attention.

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Horror ubique animos, fimul ipfa filentia terrent. Eneid. 2.

Zara. Silence and folitude are ev'ry where!
Through all the gloomy ways and iron doors
That hither lead, nor human face nor voice
Is feen or heard: A dreadful din was wont

To grate the fenfe, when enter'd here, from groans
And howls of flaves condemn'd, from clink of

chains,

And crash of rufty bars and creeking hinges;

And ever and anon the fight was dafh'd
With frightful faces and the meagre looks
Of grim and ghaftly executioners.

and it is manifeft that between fleeping and waking, when all the fenfes are bound and fufpended, mufic is far fweeter than when one is fully waking.

Yet

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Yet more this ftillness terrifies my foul
Than did that scene of complicated horrors..
Mourning Bride, act 5. fc. 8.

And hence it is, that an object feen at the
termination of a confined view, is more a-
greeable than when feen in a group with,
the furrounding objects,

The crow doth fing as fweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she fhould fing by day,
When ev'ry goofe is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

Merchant of Venice.

34. In matters of flight importance, attention, in a great measure, is directed by will; and for that reafon, it is our own fault if trifling objects make any deep impreffion.. Had we power equally to with-hold our attention from matters of importance, we might be proof against any deep impreffion. But our power fails us here: an interesting object feizes and fixes the attention beyond the poffibility of control; and while our attention is thus forcibly attached by one ob

ject,

ject, others may folicit for admittance; but in vain, for they will not be regarded. Thus a small misfortune is fcarce felt in presence of a greater:

Lear. Thou think'ft 'tis much, that this conten*tious ftorm

Invades us to the fkin; fo 'tis to thee;

But where the greater malady is fix'd,

The leffer is fcarce felt. Thou'd'ft fhun a bear; But if thy flight lay tow'rd the roaring sea,

Thou'd'ft meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free,

The body's delicate the tempeft in my mind
Doth from my fenfes take all feeling elfe,

Save what beats there.

King Lear, alt 3. Sc. 5.

35. Genus, fpecies, modification, are terms invented to distinguish beings from each other. Individuals are distinguished by their, qualities: a large clafs of individuals enjoying qualities in common, is termed a genus :· a fubdivifion of fuch clafs is termed a fpecies. Again, that circumftance which diftinguisheth one genus, one fpecies, or even one individual, from another, is term

ed

ed a modification: the fame particular that is termed a property or quality when confidered as belonging to an individual or a class of individuals, is termed a modification when confidered as diftinguishing the individual or the class from another. A black skin and foft curled hair, are properties of a ne gro: the fame circumftances confidered as marks that diftinguifh a negro from a man of a different fpecies, are denominated modifications.

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36. Objects of fight, being complex, are distinguishable into the feveral particulars that enter into the compofition: these objects are all of them coloured; and they all have length, breadth, and thickness. When I behold a fpreading oak, I diftinguish in this object, fize, figure, colour, and fometimes/motion : viewing a flowing river, I distinguish colour, figure, and conftant motion: a dye has colour, black fpots, fix plain furfaces, all equal and uniform. The objects of touch, have all of them extenfion. Some of them are felt rough, fome smooth: fome of them are hard, fome foft. With respect to the other fenfes, fome of their ob

MALjects

jects are fimple, fome complex: a found, a tafte, a fmell, may be fo fimple as not to be distinguishable into any parts: others are perceived to be compounded of different founds, different taftes, and different fmells. 37. The eye at one look can take in a number of objects, as of trees in a field, or men in a crowd: as these objects are distinct from each other, each having a separate and independent exiftence, they are diftinguishable in the mind as well as in reality; and there is nothing more easy, than to abstract from fome and to confine our contemplation to others. A large oak with its spreading branches, fixes our attention upon itself, and abstracts us from the shrubs that furround it. In the fame manner, with refpect to compounded founds, taftes, or smells, we can fix our thoughts upon any one of the component parts, abstracting our attention from the reft. But the power of abstraction is not confined to objects that are feparable in reality as well as mentally: it also takes place where there can be no real feparation. The fize, the figure, the colour, of a tree, are infeparably connected, VOL. III.

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