Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

CONCEPTION. 91
eral conviction, that there is no ground for the feelings we experience; but the momentary influences of imagination are so
powerful as to produce these feelings, before reflection has time
to come to our relief.
or representations of spectres and demons, and of invisible scenes of horror, produce their effect, not through the medium of reasoning and judgment, but of the powers of conception and imagination. No argument is
alleged to prove their existence; but strong and lively notions of them are
conveyed; and, in proportion as this is done, the belief of them becomes
steady and habitual. It is even sufficient in many cases, to resist all the
force of argument to the contrary, or, if it yields to it during the bustle of
business and the light of day, its influence returns in the hours of solitude
and darkness. When the mind, too, is weakened by disease, or the infirmities of age, and when the attention ceases to be occupied with external objects, the thoughts are apt to revert to their first channel, and to dwell on
the conceptions to which they were accustomed in the nursery. "Let
custom," says Locke, "from the very childhood, have joined figure and
shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will that mind be liable to
about Deity 1 " A person of a lively but somewhat gloomy imagination
once aclnowledged to me, that he could trace some of his superstitious
impressions with respect to the Deity, to the stern aspect of a judge whom
he had seen, when a school-boy, pronounce sentence of death upon a criminal. Hence it would appear, that he who has the power of modelling the
habitual conceptions of an infant mind, is, in a great measure the arbiter
of its future happiness or misery. By guarding against the spectres conjured up by superstitious weakness, and presenting to it only images of
what is good, lovely, and happy, he may secure through life a perpetual
sunshine to the. soul, and may perhaps make some provision against the
physical evils to which humanity is exposed. Even in those awful diseases which disturb the exercise of reason, I am apt to think, that the
complexion of madness, in point of gayety or of despondency, depends
much on the nature of our first conceptions: and it would surely be no
inconsiderable addition to the comfort of any individual to know, that some
provision had been made by the tender care of his first instructors, to
lighten the pressure of this greatest of all earthly calamities, if it ever
should be his lot to bear it. In truth, the only effectual antidote against
superstitious weakness is to inspire the mind with just and elevated notions of the administration of the universe; for we may rest assured, that
religion, in one form or another, is the natural and spontaneous growth of
man's intellectual and moral constitution; and the only question in the
case of individuals is, whether, under the regulation of an enlightened
understanding, it is to prove the best solace of life and the surest support