Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 3).pdf/82

 and its simple modes, in order to shew my uncle Toby, by what mechanism and mensurations in the brain it came to pass, that the rapid succession of their ideas, and the eternal scampering of discourse from one thing to another, since Dr. Slop had come into the room, had lengthened out so short a period, to so inconceivable an extent.—"I know not how it happens,—cried my father,—"but it seems an age."

—'Tis owing, entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the succession of our ideas.

My father, who had an itch in common with all philosophers, of reasoning upon every thing which happened, and accounting for it too,—proposed infinite pleasure to himself in this, of the succession of ideas, and had not the least appre-