But though, in following out a historical chain, our bent is to proceed orderly from causes to their effects, we find not the same bent in matters of science. There we seem rather disposed to proceed from effects to their causes, and from particular propositions to those which are more general. Why this difference in matters that appear so nearly related? The cases are similar in appearance only, not in reality. In a historical chain, every event is particular, the effect of some former event, and the cause of others that follow. In such a chain, there is nothing to bias the mind from the order of nature. Widely different is the case of science, when we endeavour to trace out causes and their effects. Many experiments are commonly reduced under one cause; and again, many of these under some one still more general and comprehensive. In our progress from particular effects to general causes, and from particular propositions to the more comprehensive, we feel a gradual dilatation or expansion of mind, like what is felt in proceeding along an ascending series, which is extremely delightful. The pleasure here exceeds what arises from following the course of nature; and it is this pleasure which regulates our train of thought in the case now mentioned, and in others that are similar. These observations, by the way, furnish materials for instituting a comparison betwixt the synthetic and analytic methods of reasoning. The synthetic method descending regularly from principles to their consequences, is more agreeable to the strictness of order. But in following the opposite course in the analytic method, we have a sensible pleasure, like mounting upward, which is not felt in the other. The analytic method is more agreeable to the imagination. The other method will be preferred by those only who with rigidity adhere to order, and give no indulgence to natural emotions[7].