On our right the plain dipped below the horizon while still but a few feet above the level of the river; but in the distant sky we discerned some objects like white clouds, which from their immobility and fixedness of outline I soon discovered to be snow-crowned hills, lower, however, than those to the northward, and perhaps some forty miles distant.

Nobody joins the voice of a sheep with the shape of a horse; nor the colour of lead with the weight and fixedness of gold, to be the complex ideas of any real substances; unless he has a mind to fill his head with chimeras, and his discourse with unintelligible words.

To which the name METAL being annexed, there is a genus constituted; the essence whereof being that abstract idea, containing only malleableness and fusibility, with certain degrees of weight and fixedness, wherein some bodies of several kinds agree, leaves out the colour and other qualities peculiar to gold and silver, and the other sorts comprehended under the name metal.

Further trials discover fusibility and fixedness.

For, let us consider, when we affirm that 'all gold is fixed,' either it means that fixedness is a part of the definition, i. e., part of the nominal essence the word gold stands for; and so this affirmation, 'all gold is fixed,' contains nothing but the signification of the term gold.

Or else it means, that fixedness, not being a part of the definition of the gold, is a property of that substance itself: in which case it is plain that the word gold stands in the place of a substance, having the real essence of a species of things made by nature.

For, though in the substance of gold one satisfies himself with colour and weight, yet another thinks solubility in aqua regia as necessary to be joined with that colour in his idea of gold, as any one does its fusibility; solubility in aqua regia being a quality as constantly joined with its colour and weight as fusibility or any other; others put into it ductility or fixedness, &c., as they have been taught by tradition or experience.

For example: he that shall make malleability, or a certain degree of fixedness, a part of his complex idea of gold, may make propositions concerning gold, and draw consequences from them, that will truly and clearly follow from gold, taken in such a signification: but yet such as another man can never be forced to

admit, nor be convinced of their truth, who makes not malleableness, or the same degree of fixedness, part of that complex idea that the name gold, in his use of it, stands for.

He that adds to his complex idea of gold that of fixedness and solubility in AQUA REGIA, which he put not in it before, is not thought to have changed the species; but only to have a more perfect idea, by adding another simple idea, which is always in fact joined with those other, of which his former complex idea consisted.

For, he that to the yellow shining colour of gold, got by sight, shall, from my enumerating them, have the ideas of great ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility, in aqua regia, will have a perfecter idea of gold than he can have by seeing a piece of gold, and thereby imprinting in his mind only its obvious qualities.

Thus when we pronounce concerning gold, that it is fixed, our knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, that fixedness, or a power to remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in AQUA REGIA, which make our complex idea signified by the word gold. 7.

Fixedness, for example, having no necessary connexion that we can discover, with the colour, weight, or any other simple idea of our complex one, or with the whole combination together; it is impossible that we should certainly know the truth of this proposition, that all gold is fixed. 9.

As there is no discoverable connexion between fixedness and the colour, weight, and other simple ideas of that nominal essence of gold; so, if we make our complex idea of gold, a body yellow, fusable, ductile, weighty, and fixed, we shall be at the same uncertainty concerning solubility in AQUA REGIA, and for the same reason.

The fixedness of habit tends to make us move in ruts unless we exert continuous effort to learn new things.

If, when you are memorizing, you continually tremble for fear that you will not recall at the desired moment, the fixedness of the impression will be greatly hindered.

Shall we take lessons in fixedness of principle from the Whig-Antislavery Member from Federalist Essex?in stable convictions from the Tyler-Commissioner to China?in consistency from the Democratic Attorney-General?in an amalgam of all three from the Coalition Judge?

They are especially useful in enabling us to form a correct opinion as to the merits of the works that have lately appeared on China; and everyone must acknowledge his rare talent, must value his immovable fixedness of purpose, and must admire his zealous perseverance in the cause of science, and his unshaken belief in the principles of his religion.

But they are not so; they have an interest which holds the reader with a fixedness of grasp which he cannot loosen.

There was neither love nor scorn in his look,a mere fixedness of purpose to make use of her some day.

But when the sudden stress Of passion is resistlessness, It drags the flood that sweeps away, For anchorage, or hold, or stay, Or saving rock of stableness, And there is none, No underlying fixedness to fasten on: Unsounded depths; unsteadfast seas; Wavering, yielding, bottomless depths:

It engages the attention of the mind, with the more fixedness and intenseness to that kind of objects; which causes it to have a clearer view of them, and enables it more clearly to see their mutual relations, and occasions it to take more notice of them.

The Skimmer showed no yielding of the nerves though it was evident, by his attitude of thought and the momentary fixedness of his eye, that he foresaw danger was near.

As there was no expression on his face, so also there was no expression in his eyes: no distant longing, no far-off fixedness; nothing, indeed, to awaken sad sympathy.

If there is any one particular report of the senses which would seem to be beyond doubt or question, it certainly would be this elementary sense report of the fixedness of the earth beneath our feet, and the movements of the heavenly bodies around