HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY,

a 3

when it observes even a fingle event fall out inthis unufual manner :/for the violent diforder canarise from nothing hut the too frequent repetitionof this smaller uneafinefs.

That it is the unufualnefs alone of the fucceffionwhich occasions this Hop and interruption, in theprogress of the imagination, as well as the notionof an interval betwixt the two immediately suc-ceeding objefts, to be filled up by some chain ofintermediate events, is not lefs evident. The fameorders of fucceffion, which to one set of men seemquite according to the natural course of things,and such as require no intermediate events to jointhem, Hi all to another appear altogether, incohe-rent and disjointed, unless some fuch events besupposed: and this for no other reason, but be-cause such orders of fucceffion are familiar to theone, and strange to the other. When we enterthe work-houfes of the moft common artisans;fuch as dyers, brewers, diflillers ; we observe anumber of appearances, which present them-selves in an order that seems to us very flrange andwonderful. Our thought cannot eafily follow it,we feel an interval betwixt every two of them,and require fome chain of intermediate events, tofill it up, and link them together. But the arti-san himielf, who has been for many years familiarwith the conjeeruences of all the operations of hisart, .feels no inch interval. They fall in withwhat custom has made the natural movement ofhis imagination: the} no longer excite his Won-der, and if he is not a genius superior to his pro-