that he should often act in opposition to both, is as lamentable as certain: in the transport of immediate gratification, or in the hopes of enjoyment, precept ceases to influence, and example loses its warning. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. FOOTNOTES: [12] In some of these instances, where the will has ceased to influence the muscles, the due sensibility of the nerves has remained.--Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. ix. p. 8. [13] So little does the infant appear to possess any control over those organs which afterwards become subject to voluntary influence, that it may be sufficient to remark the flow of saliva, of urine, and the more solid evacuations, are subject to no restraint, and for some time are passed with little or no consciousness: even the motions which are excited in the limbs, appear to be spasmodic, rather than the effect of direction. [14] Vide Darwin's Thesis de Spectris Ocularibus. ON THOUGHT OR REFLECTION. Those recollected objects, which have been transmitted by the senses, or which we have perceived by their means, are the subjects of our thoughts or reflections; for these terms will be indifferently employed, as designating the same faculty or process. The obvious meaning of the word _reflection_, is the representation of any object in a mirror. This term, so well understood in that department of natural philosophy named optics, has been transferred to mind, in order to explain a process, supposed to be similar. If, however, we examine the analogy, it will not accord:--to produce reflection in the mirror, the object must be present; in the mind, the reflection takes place when the object is absent. Although the simile, strictly speaking, is imperfect, yet the figure is beautiful, and, considering the metaphorical nature of language, as applied to mental operations, the most natural and appropriate that could have been selected; for, speaking in a general way, our thoughts, in themselves appear very much as the shadows or reflection of our perceptions. As we are but little capable of communicating the nature of our perceptions, independently of language, we must have recourse to inference and conjecture. It is fully understood that our visual perceptions, through the medium of recollection, may be represented by the skilful execution of the hand; and that those of smell, taste, and touch do not directly admit of such delineation. We might next inquire, if the odours we perceive are as strongly impressed on the olfactory organ, as the subjects of visual perception on the eye? Are they as fully and distinctly recollected? and are they capable by themselves of affording the materials for thought or reflection? Animals possess certain senses in common with ourselves; and, in many, the organs are more susceptible than our own; but there are no circumstances which have yet transpired, to induce us to suppose that the perceptions they have acquired are reviewed by their minds,