“_A condition_ has been usually caused _causa sine quâ non_, or a cause without which the effect is not produced. It is generally applied to something which is requisite in order to the effect, though it hath not a proper actual influence in producing that effect. Daylight is a condition of ploughing, sowing, and reaping; darkness is a condition of our seeing stars and glowworms; clearness of the stream is the condition of our spying sand and pebbles at the bottom of it; being well dressed with a head uncovered is a condition of a man’s coming into the presence of a king; and paying a peppercorn yearly is the condition of enjoying an estate. How far the perfect idea of the word condition, in the civil law, may differ from this representation is not my present work to determine. “_Note._—These three last causes may possibly be all ranked under the general name of conditions, but I think it more proper to distinguish them into their different kinds of causality.” We perhaps repeat ourselves in these last remarks, for all is an illustration of that perspicuity which we mentioned as Watts’ first characteristic; but in him perspicuity was not the attribute of a small mind, or a limited range of vision; perspicuous speech is the natural instrument of perspicuous thought: how can that man express himself clearly who does not see clearly? Hence dark language must be the companion of dark vision; but the perspicuity of a child amongst its playthings, in its playground or its garden is one thing, and the perspicuity of the pilot of a vessel, or a gifted astronomer, is quite another. However wide or vast the subjects upon which Watts wrote, it seemed he had cleared thought in his own mind, by the clearness with which speech served him in making the things in his own mind the property of others; and upon whatsoever he wrote there was always the same suffusing light of the devoutness of the spiritual mind. Here is no flippancy; here are no impertinent epigrams, no hard words even for opponents; we have to search a long way through his works before we find an expression of severity, we will not say of contempt—perhaps there are such—but we are sure they will only be used of those who, by some abandonment of sentiment, had separated themselves from the common feeling of mankind. Yet there was considerable nervousness in his speech, he was a great preacher, he commanded attention; judging from the testimony of Johnson, he must have been, to cultivated minds, one of the most distinguished preachers of his day: his enunciation was clear, forcible, and distinct, and what was wanting to an imposing presence was made up from the earnestness of the manner, the calm luminousness, elevation, and we would even say, the sustained but subdued vehemence of his diction.