stop-watch.

When an idea of our own person, or a reflex idea of our pleasures and
pains, desires and aversions, makes a part of this catenation, it is termed
consciousness; and if this idea of consciousness makes a part of a
catenation, which we excite by recollection, and know by the facility with
which we excite it, that we have before experienced it, it is called
identity, as explained above.

7. In respect to freewill, it is certain, that we cannot will to think of a
new train of ideas, without previously thinking of the first link of it; as
I cannot will to think of a black swan, without previously thinking of a
black swan. But if I now think of a tail, I can voluntarily recollect all
animals, which have tails; my will is so far free, that I can pursue the
ideas linked to this idea of tail, as far as my knowledge of the subject
extends; but to will without motive is to will without desire or aversion;
which is as absurd as to feel without pleasure or pain; they are both
solecisms in the terms. So far are we governed by the catenations of
motions, which affect both the body and the mind of man, and which begin
with our irritability, and end with it.

* * * * *

SECT. XVI.

OF INSTINCT.

Haud equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium, aut rerum fato prudentia major.--Virg. Georg. L. I. 415.