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 ...

THE INFLUENCE OF CASUAL ASSOCIATIONS. 245
man considers as essential to his happiness is regarded with
indifference or dislike by another. Of these differences of
opinion much is, no doubt, to be ascribed to a diversity of constitution, which renders a particular employment of the intellectual or active powers agreeable to one man which is not equally
so to another. But much is also to be ascribed to the effect of
association; which, prior to any experience of human life, connects pleasing ideas and pleasing feelings with different objects,
in the minds of different persons.
In consequence of these associations, every man appears to
his neighbor to pursue the objects of his wishes with a zeal disproportioned to its intrinsic value; and the philosopher (whose
principal enjoyment arises from speculation) is frequently apt to
smile at the ardor with which the active part of mankind pursue what appear to him to be mere shadows. This view of
human affairs some writers have carried so far, as to represent
life as a scene of mere illusions, where the mind refers to the
objects around it, a coloring which exists only in itself; and
where, as the poet expresses it,
-" Opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds which beautify our days,"
It may be questioned, if these representations of human life
be useful or just. That the casual associations which the mind
forms in childhood and in early youth, are frequently a source
of inconvenience and of misconduct, is sufficiently obvious; but
that this tendency of our nature increases, on the whole, the
sum of human enjoyment, appears to me to be indisputable;
and the instances in which it misleads us from our duty and our
happiness, only prove to what important ends it might be subservient if it were kept under proper regulation.
Nor do these representations of life (admitting them in their
full extent) justify the practical inferences which have been
often deduced fiom them with respect to the vanity of our pursuits. In every case, indeed, in which our enjoyment depends
upon association, it may be said, in one sense, that it arises
from the mind itself; but it does not, therefore, follow, that the
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