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 ...

244 THE INFLUENCE OF CASUAL ASSOCIATIONS.
of Hobbes and of Mandeville, to degrade the dignity of human
nature; but it leads to no skeptical conclusions concerning the
rule of life. For although we were to grant, that all our principles of action are acquired; so striking a difference among
them must still be admitted, as is sufficient to distinguish clearly
those universal laws which were intended to regulate human
conduct, from the local habits which are formed by education
and fashion. It must still be admitted, that, while some active
principles are confined to particular individuals, or to particular
tribes of men, there are others, which, arising from circumstances
in which all the situations of' mankind must agree, are common
to the whole species. Such active principles as fall under this
last description, at whatever period of life they may appear, are
to be regarded as a part of human nature, no less than the instinct of' suction; in the salve manner as the acquired perception
of distance by the eye, is to be ranked among the perceptive
powers of man, no less than the original perceptions of any of
our other senses.
Leaving, therefore, the question concerning the origin of our
active principles and of the moral faculty, to be the subject of
future discussion, I shall conclude this Section with a few
remarks of a more practical nature.
Opinion of the relative value qf different pursuits.- It has
been shown by different writers, how much of the beauty and
sublimity of material objects arise fiom the ideas and feelings which we have been taught to associate with them. The
impression produced on the external senses of a poet by the
imost striking scene in nature, is precisely the same with what is
produced on the senses of a peasant or a tradesman; yet how
different is the degree of pleasure resulting from this impression! A great part of' this difference is undoubtedly to be
ascribed to the ideas and feelings which the habitual studies and
amusements of the poet have associated with his organical perceptions.
A similar observation may be applied to all the various objects
of our pursuit in life. Hardly any one of them is appreciated
by any two men in the same manner; and frequently, what one