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Notes passed, of which he took no notice at the instant—but when his breakfast was brought in presently
after, he found his appetite for it gone—the day had lost its freshness in his eye—he was uneasy
and spiritless; and without any cause that he could discover, a total change had taken place in his
feelings. While he was trying to account for this odd circumstance, the same face passed again—
it was the face of Taylor the spy; and he was longer at a loss to explain the difficulty. He had
before caught only a transient glimpse, a passing side-view of the face; but though this was not
sufficient to awaken a distinct idea in his memory, his feelings, quicker and surer, had taken the
alarm; a string had been touched that gave a jar to his whole frame, and would not let him rest,
though he could not at all tell what was the matter with him. To the flitting, shadowy, half-
distinguished profile that had glided by his window was linked unconsciously and mysteriously,
but inseparably, the impression of the trains that had been laid for him by this person;—in this
brief moment, in this dim, illegible short-hand of the mind he had just escaped the speeches of the
Attorney and Solicitor-General over again; the gaunt figure of Mr. Pitt glared by him; the walls of
a prison enclosed him; and he felt the hands of the executioner near him, without knowing it till
the tremor and disorder of his nerves gave information to his reasoning faculties that all was not
well within. That is, the same state of mind was recalled by one circumstance in the series of
association that had been produced by the whole set of circumstances at the time, though the
manner in which this was done was not immediately perceptible. In other words, the feeling of
pleasure or pain, of good or evil, is revived, and acts instantaneously upon the mind, before we
have time to recollect the precise objects which have originally given birth to it. The incident here
mentioned was merely, then, one case of what the learned understand by the association of ideas:
but all that is meant by feeling or common sense is nothing but the different cases of the association
of ideas, more or less true to the impression of the original circumstances, as reason begins with
the more formal development of those circumstances, or pretends to account for the different cases
of the association of ideas. But it does not follow that the dumb and silent pleading of the former
(though sometimes, nay often, mistaken) is less true than that of its babbling interpreter, or that
we are never to trust its dictates without consulting the express authority of reason. Both are
imperfect, both are useful in their way, and therefore both are best together, to correct or to
confirm one another. It does not appear that in the singular instance above mentioned, the sudden
impression on the mind was superstition or fancy, though it might have been thought so, had it
not been proved by the event to have a real physical and moral cause. Had not the same face
returned again, the doubt would never have been properly cleared up, but would have remained
a puzzle ever after, or perhaps have been soon forgot.—By the law of association as laid down by
physiologists, any impression in a series can recall any other impression in that series without
going through the whole in order; so that the mind drops the intermediate links, and passes on
rapidly and by stealth to the more striking effects of pleasure or pain which have naturally taken
the strongest hold of it. By doing this habitually and skillfully with respect to the various impressions
and circumstances with which our experience makes us acquainted, it forms a series of
unpremeditated conclusions on almost all subjects that can be brought before it, as just as they are
of ready application to human life; and common sense is the name of this body of unassuming but
practical wisdom. Common sense, however, is an impartial, instinctive result of truth and nature,
and will therefore bear the test and abide the scrutiny of the most severe and patient reasoning. It
is indeed incomplete without it. By ingrafting reason on feeling, we ‘make assurance double sure.’
’Tis the last key-stone that makes up the arch... Then stands it a triumphal mark! Then
men Observe the strength, the height, the why and when It was erected; and still
walking under,Meet some new matter to look up, and wonder.
But reason, not employed to interpret nature, and to improve and perfect common sense and
experience, is, for the most part, a building without a foundation. The criticism exercised by
reason, then, on common sense may be as severe as it pleases, but it must be as patient as it is
severe. Hasty, dogmatical, self-satisfied reason is worse than idle fancy or bigoted prejudice. It is

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