Page:Observations on Man 1834.djvu/86

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admitted, but that the sensorium, in men at least, ought to be placed in the internal parts of the brain.

Cor. V. It is of the utmost consequence to morality and religion, that the affections and passions should be analysed into their simple compounding parts, by reversing the steps of the associations which concur to form them. For thus we may learn how to cherish and improve good ones, check and root out such as are mischievous and immoral, and how suit our manner of life, in some tolerable measure, to our intellectual and religious wants. And as this holds, in respect of persons of all ages, so it is particularly true, and worthy of consideration, in respect of children and youth. The world is, indeed, sufficiently stocked with general precepts for this purpose, grounded on experience; and whosoever will follow these faithfully, may expect good general success. However, the doctrine of association, when traced up to the first rudiments of understanding and affection, unfolds such a scene as cannot fail both to instruct and alarm all such as have any degree of interested concern for themselves, or of a benevolent one for others. It ought to be added here, that the doctrine of association explains also the rise and progress of those voluntary and semi-voluntary powers, which we exert over our ideas, affections, and bodily motions (as I shall shew hereafter, Prop. XXI.) and by doing this, teaches us how to regulate and improve these powers.

Cor. VI. If beings of the same nature, but whose affections and passions are, at present, in different proportions to each other, be exposed for an indefinite time to the same impressions and associations, all their particular differences will, at last, be overruled, and they will become perfectly similar, or even equal. They may also be made perfectly similar, in a finite time, by a proper adjustment of the impressions and associations.

Cor. VII. Our original bodily make, and the impressions and associations which affect us in passing through life, are so much alike, and yet not the same, that there must be both a great general resemblance amongst mankind, in respect to their intellectual affections, and also many particular differences.

Cor. VIII. Some degree of spirituality is the necessary consequence of passing through life. The sensible pleasures and pains must be transferred by association more and more every day, upon things that afford neither sensible pleasure nor sensible pain in themselves, and so beget the intellectual pleasures and pains.

Cor. IX. Let the letters a, b, c, d, e, &c. represent the sensible pleasures; x, y, and z, the sensible pains, supposed to be only three in number; and let us suppose all these, both pleasures and pains, to be equal to one another: If now the ideas of these sensible pleasures and pains be associated together, according to all the possible varieties, in order to form intellectual pleasures and pains, it is plain, that pleasure must prevail in all the