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Show 34 OBSBR VAT !ON IS NATURAL· we no more doubt that that song is the s?ng of the birds than we can doubt that we are heanng a song. So also, if we lay our hand upon any ~ubstance, as a piece of woollen cloth or a piece of uon, or. taste any substance, as a bit of bread ?r of sugar' If we have been formerly acquainted with. that substance, and have been accustomed to call It by that name, we can no more deny that it is the substance than we can deny our own existence. . These matters may seem to be _so simple? and so self-evident, that it is a waste of time to ~nte them down or to read them after they are _wntten. But that i~ an error; and it is the error whiCh_keeps very many of us in ignorance, and ~ake~ us hstless, ~nd even vicious, when we otherwise mig-ht be occupied, happy, and doing right. That wh~ch we alrea~y know is the instrument, and the onlymstrument, with which we can "work out" more knowledge, and turn it to account· and our senses, or organs of OBSERVA· TION, are the 'only means through which that instru-· ment can work. Those organs of observation. will n~t cease from making their revelations to u~, If the circ~mstanc~s under which we are placed WI~l at a~l a~m:t of their actino-. We cannot mark their begmmngs; and, as we h~ve no positive knowledge b?t w~ere we have had experience, we cannot even Imagme what our knowledge or our enjoyment may be ~hen we are " out of the body ;" but what ~e rece~ve through them, and the arrangement of It after It h~s been received are all our occupation and all our enJoyment in this ,~orld, and the immediate purpose of these remarks extends no further. . . To observe is, indeed, the very COJ?-Stltutwn of our nature ; and though our own memones do not reac~ back to that period, and those who are very near It cannot inform us, yet we ~ave e~ry reason to ~elieve that life and observation begin at the same mstant, and hold on their course, and close together' BELIEF OR CONVICTION. 35 and that there is nothing that we can know or ?elieve, or deny, for. which we ar_e not immediately .ndebted to observatwn, or of whiCh the foundation may not be traced to something that we have observed, however removed it may seem to be from the ordinary exercise of the senses. vVhen we call a man of intelligent mind "a man of sense," we ;lo not therefore speak falsely, or even figuratively. We speak the literal truth, for we mean a man who has us~d his senses to good purpose-a man of observation. From want of knowing what led us to make the first observation, and how that observation was made we are unable directly to school or instruct each other in the process of observing. But after we have observed and profited by it, we can retrace the process back~ards, w~ich is teaching by example-the best, and m most mstances the only, method of instruction! T~e ~nference-:the belief, or perhaps rather the co~w1ch~n accordmg to which we judge or act, is qmte a different matter. It is not an immediate exercise of the senses, but an act of the mind-some~ hing :W~ich foll?ws, after the senses have brought m the~r mformatwn ; though, as the mind, having no mat~nal substance to move through space, requires no time to act, the act of the mind often follows so close on the process of sensation that we are not able to distinguish between the one and the other. The distinction i~, however, a very important one : for the two are different, and very different ; and if we confound them, we understand neither, lose the ~overnme~t of ourselves, remain ignorant, and fall mto error Ill judgment and in conduct. But though the act of the mind is different from observation by t?e senses, that act never takes place unless observation has gone before it; and there cannot be the least exercise of the mind without a reference to observation. either immediate or re- O |