e, or the continuation of the existence of ourselves, or any
thing else, commensurate to the succession of any ideas in our minds,
the duration of ourselves, or any such other thing co-existing with our
thinking--and so according to that preconceived--You puzzle me to death,
cried my uncle Toby.

--'Tis owing to this, replied my father, that in our computations of
time, we are so used to minutes, hours, weeks, and months--and of clocks
(I wish there was not a clock in the kingdom) to measure out their
several portions to us, and to those who belong to us--that 'twill be
well, if in time to come, the succession of our ideas be of any use or
service to us at all.

Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound
man's head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other,
which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said
my uncle Toby--A train of a fiddle-stick!--quoth my father--which follow
and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like
the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of
a candle.--I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are more like a
smoke-jack,--Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon
that subject, said my father.

Chapter 2.XII.

--What a conjuncture was here lost!--My father in one of his best
explanatory moods--in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into
the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have
encompassed it about;--my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions
for it in the world;--his head like a smoke-jack;--the funnel unswept,
and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and
darkened over with fuliginous matter!--By the tomb-stone of Lucian--if
it is in being--if not, why then by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear
Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes!--my father and my uncle Toby's discourse
upon Time and Eternity--was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and
the petulancy of my father's humour, in putting a stop to it as he did,
was a robbery of the Ontologic Treasury of such a jewel, as no coalition
of great occasions and great men are ever likely to restore to it again.

Chapter 2.XIII.

Tho' my father persisted in not going on with the discourse--yet he
could not get my uncle Toby's smoke-jack out of his head--piqued as
he was at first with it;--there was something in the comparison at the
bottom, which hit his fancy; for