d yet the world
will say that he acts very imprudently. To the taste or smell of those
who are in a fever, objects not only appear, but really are, to the
patients different from what they appear to persons in sound health:
in the same manner to the imagination, objects have really a different
value in moments of enthusiasm, from what they have in our cooler
hours, and we scarcely can believe that our view of objects will ever
vary. It is in vain to oppose reason to false associations; we must
endeavour to combat one set of associations by another, and to alter
the situation, and consequently, the views,[99] of the mistaken
person. Suppose, for instance, that a child had been in a coach and
six upon some _pleasant_ excursion (it is an improbable thing, but we
may suppose any thing:) suppose a child had enjoyed, from some
accidental circumstances, an extraordinary degree of pleasure in a
coach and six, he might afterwards long to be in a similar vehicle,
from a mistaken notion, that it could confer happiness. Here we should
not oppose the force of reasoning to a false association, but we
should counteract the former association. Give the child an equal
quantity of amusement when he is not in a coach and six, and then he
will form fresh pleasurable associations with other objects which may
balance his first prepossession. If you oppose reason ineffectually to
passion or taste, you bring the voice and power of reason into
discredit with your pupil. When you have changed his view of things,
you may then reason with him, and show him the cause of his former
mistake.

In the excellent fable of the shield that was gold on one side and
silver on the other, the two disputants never could have agreed until
they changed places.--When you have, in several instances, proved by
experiment, that you judge more prudently than your pupil, he will be
strongly inclined to listen to your counsels, and then your experience
will be of real use to him; he will argue from it with safety and
satisfaction. When, after recovering from fits of passion or
enthusiasm, you have, upon several occasions, convinced him that your
admonitions would have prevented him from the pain of repentance, he
will recollect this when he again feels the first rise of passion in
his mind; and he may, in that lucid moment, avail himself of your calm
reason, and thus avoid the excesses of extravagant passions. That
unfortunate French monarch,[100] who was liable to tem