2935. H. Thomson, Clitheroe-Machinery, etc., for stretching textile fabrics, etc. 2936. R. W. Waithman, Bentham House, York-Bands, etc., for driving machinery, etc. Dated 17th December 1853. 2938. J. Horton, Birmingham-Metallic vessels. 2940. C. Bedells, Leicester-Elastic fabrics. 2455. Thomas Summerfield, of Birmingham-Improvements in the 2942. J. Greenwood, 10, Arthur street West-Preventing drafts of 2475. air into rooms, etc. 2944. M. P. Houghton, and A. Stewart, Hillmorton, Warwick-2476. Accidents upon railways. 2946. R. Whewell, Little Bolton-Machines for cutting paper. Dated 19th December, 1853. 2948. J. Tribelhorn, St. Gall, and Dr. P. Bolley, Aarau, Switzerland-Bleaching vegetable fibrous substances. (A communication.) 2950. W. Crossby, Devonshire street, Sheffield-Ventilation of granaries, etc., and grinding of grain, etc. 2952. R. Waygood, Newington causeway-Portable forges. Dated 20th December, 1853. 2954. A. Paterson, Westminster-Cooking apparatus. 2956. J. L. Clark, 2 Chester villas, Canonbury park South-Insulating electric telegraph wires. 2958. P. Wagenmann, Bonn-Parafine. 2960. E. V. F. Lemaire, 2, Rue Drouot, Paris-Tanning. 2966. G. Boccius, Hammersmith-Breeding and rearing of fish. 2496. 2497. 2526. 2530. matters. John Johnson, of Over Darwen-Improvements in looms for weaving terry and other similar fabrics. John Whitehead, and Thomas Whitehead, both of LeedsCertain improvements in cutting-tools, and in the working of iron, brass, and other metals, and wood, and other materials. Joseph Bauer, of Prague-Invention for cultivating and digging the soil by means of a steam-digging and harrowing-machine. 2544. James Howard, of Bedford-Improvements in horse-rakes and harrows. 2545. Richard Edward Hodges, of Southampton row, Russell square -Improvements in fastening the ends of springs made of India-rubber. 2546. Charles Iles, of Peel Works, Birmingham-Improvements in 2551. Thomas Irving, of Dalton, Kirkheaton-Improvements in 2575. 2587. 1559. Carlo Minasi, of Camden Town-Improvements in concer-2579. 1581. William Charles Spooner, of Eling House, near Southampton 1609. Peter Armand le Comte de Fontaine Moreau, of South street, 2597. John Rubery, of Birmingham-Improvements in the manufacture of open caps for sticks of umbrellas and parasols. Henry Pershore, and Timothy Morris, both of Birmingham— Improvements in the deposition of metals and metallic alloys. Alfred Vincent Newton, of Chancery lane-Certain improved Thomas Dunn, of the Windsor bridge Iron Works, Pendleton, John Rollinson, of Kingswinford, and William Rollinson, of Brierly hill-New or improved apparatus for preventing explosions in steam boilers. Samuel Wellman Wright, of Chalford-Improvements in machinery or apparatuses for reducing and pulverising gold and other metalliferous quartz and earths, and in separating metal therefrom. Richard Archibald Brooman, of Fleet street-Certain machinery for converting caoutchouc into circular blocks or cylinders, and for manufacturing the same into sheets. (A communication.) Decimus Julius Tripe, of Commercial road East-Improve- 1610. John Hood, and William Hood, of Glasgow-Improvements in No. 60. Vol. II.] JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. Journal of the Society of Arts. FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1854. Leeward Islands, Antigua, Dec. 8, 1853. MY LORD DUKE,-In accordance with the tenor of the suggestion of the Council of the Society of Arts, conveved in your Grace's Circular Despatch of 24th April, 1852, I have the honour to acquaint your Grace that the Lieut.-Governor of St. Kitts has reported to me that a committee has been appointed by persons in that Island desiring to keep themselves in communication with that Society, consisting of Thomas Swanston, Esq., M.D., James Samuel Berridge, and James Deans Rogers, Esqrs. I have, &c., (Signed) R. J. MACKINTOSH His Grace the Duke of Newcastle. INSTITUTE BOOK ORDERS. The Council have much pleasure in bringing under the notice of the Institutions the following statements, showing the extent to which the arrangements with the leading [Jan. 13, 1854. publishers, for the supply of hooks and maps at reduced prices, under certain conditions, to institutions, has been taken advantage of. Those conditions, it will be remembered, were, that the Society of Arts should collect the Institute orders once a month,-that these orders should be sent in duplicate, one copy to be returned to the Institute and the other to be retained by the Society-that the Society's book agent would price the invoices, with a view of avoiding errors-and that the Institutes should remit is that they may, in some degree at least, partake of a to the Society the several amounts before the orders could be executed. The object in collecting the orders monthly will then be seen how far it will be possible to receive wholesale character. Should they increase in amount it and execute the orders bi-monthly. The plan came into operation in November last. The subjoined statements show that Aberdeen, Mechanics' Institution 11 tific Institution Mechanics' Institute ... 1 1 15 0 3 16 6 00 700 610 122 Full Price. £ s. d. 08 9 1 6 Red. Price. £ s. d. 870 6 15 7 2 14 0 ... 5 0 1 19 2 10 8 3 0 18 10 62 6 4 3 10 6 8 8 4 3 19 ... 6 2 17 4 2 12 0 3 1 1 18 7 26 2 5 13 10 4 9 2 EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE AND AN ART. By M. A. GARVEY. (Continued from page 118.) Having in our last paper taken a rapid survey of the general properties of mind, including consciousness, the belief in our continued identity, memory, the principle of belief generally, and habit; and having shown that they all depend in some manner upon that fundamental tendency of the mind to exist again in the states in which it previously existed, which we have called the Iterative Principle; we proceed in the present number to review the laws which regulate the conception and evolution of thought. All the elements of our knowledge are acquired in the first instance through the organs of sense; they are the media by which the mind maintains its correspondence with the external world. By the external world we must, however, understand not only the things that exist apart from our bodies, but also the bodily organization itself, which, however closely united to the mind, is as truly external to it as the most distant object. The knowledge we acquire through the senses, as well as the feelings of pain or pleasure, of uneasiness or comfort, which arise from the condition of the physical frame, are equally termed sensation, and although the latter cannot be referred to any of the organs of sense, there is no doubt that, like the former, they are states of the mind that arise in consequence of certain recondite changes which take place in the nervous system. We shall take another opportunity of pointing out the important influence they exercise upon the mind, but at present our observations will be directed to the nature of the knowledge we acquire through the organs of sense. The physical changes that take place in the organs previous to the rise of sensation in the mind, belong rather to the departments of physiology and anatomy than to mental science. It is questionable whether these changes can ever be accurately investigated unless means be discovered of observing the living organ with all its hidden machinery, in the healthful, normal discharge of its functions; but even were the whole process observed and described with the most scientific accuracy, it could give us no assistance in the investigation of the mental changes which follow it, and which do not commence until the physical process is ended. The data for such investigation must be gathered from the diligent and cautious observation of what is going on continually in our own minds. The nature of the sensations derived through the several organs requires no description; the most ignorant man understands it better, probably, than the most pro. found philosopher. But the manner in which these sensations coalesce in the mind is not so generally understood, and as it is of much importance in the science of education we must dwell upon it for a moment. The association of ideas is the name commonly given to that general law of thought by which feelings adhere together in the mind in certain orders, and according to certain relations, so that when any feeling arises, it immediately calls up those that are thus connected with it. It is necessary to bear this in mind in order to understand the true nature of sensation. Two or more of these senses may be addressed at the same moment by one object, and the sensation in the mind will appear perfectly simple, though there can be no doubt that it is made up of the separate and different sensations derived through the several organs addressed. On account of this intimate blending of the sensations felt simultaneously, we often refer to one sense the knowledge place to a far greater extent amongst what may be which we really obtain through another. This takes called the three intellectual senses of hearing, touch, and sight, than it does in the case of taste and smell, which may be regarded as bearing a more purely animal and instinctive character. Yet, even in these, how difficult is it sometimes to separate the sensation of taste from that of odour? And how frequently do we compare them together in our minds? There are many tastes which we consider like smells, and, conversely, many odours which instantly suggest savours; though, when we reflect upon their nature, we must be aware that they bear as little real resemblance to each other as our feeling of any one property of matter does to our feeling of any other, that they are, in fact, as different from each other as the sensation of colour is from that of sound, or of warmth. It is in what we have called the three intellectual senses, however, that this transference of sensations to organs from which they do not immediately arise, exercises the most important influence upon our elementary acquisitions. There is nothing more common, for example, than for people to say they can see to a certain distance around them, and they would be very much astonished, if not indignant, should any one tell them that they cannot see to the distance of even an inch. And yet there is no truth in science more firmly established than the fact that longitudinal distance could never be perceived by sight, unaided by the other senses. The sole object of sight is the light reflected from the surfaces we look at. The sensation of vision can amount, therefore, to no more than to various gradations in the feeling of colour. This is not merely a conclusion of abstract reasoning; it has been determined by experiment. Mr. Locke and Dr. Browne both mention the case of a young man who had been blind from his infancy, and was suddenly restored to sight by a surgical operation, Here the sense of sight had at first to act entirely alone, without any aid from the other senses, and the result accords perfectly with what we have stated above. The window of the chamber in which the patient was placed opened upon an extensive and diversified landscape; but to him the whole appeared a flat surface, as if a piece of canvass had been let into the window frame, and the various objects depicted upon it with colours varying from the faintest to the most vivid; but he had no notion of perspective or of what painters call aërial distance. He considered the church steeple, which was many miles distant, and the bars of the window itself, as equally within his reach. But it may be asked, do we not discover figure and magnitude by the eye? Whether figure enters into the sensation of vision or not is open to question. In all probability the only knowledge we receive through the eye is that of colour, though, as we have always seen colour upon surfaces which we have known to be expanded and figured, these notions have become so essentially connected with it, that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove that it could exist without them. However this may be, it is very certain that we are indebted to other organs than the eye for our notions both of distance and magnitude, though these notions are so intimately associated or rather blent with the sensation of vision, from their constantly occurring together, that they instantly suggest, and at the same time modify, one another. The idea of the three dimensions of matter -length, breadth, and thickness,-is obtained at first from the tactual organ, and the sensations attending muscular contractions and extensions, and this idea afterwards developes itself into the notions of longitudinal and lateral distance; but these notions constantly arise at the same time with the sensation of colour; and since colour is found to fade as the coloured object recedes from the eye, its faintness becomes, by the principle of association, representative of distance; in like manner the size of bodies appears to diminish by distance, in consequence of the smaller angle of the diverging rays reflected from it, which the eye subtends, and by association diminutiveness becomes also a symbol of distance. These two facts taken together, not separately, constitute the foundation of the painter's art, so that, by smallness and faintness, he can represent distance; and nearness, by a proportionate increase of size and distinctness of colouring. have said, the elements of all our knowledge; and the most profound intellectual operations can effect no more than the arrangement, re-arrangement, composition, and analysis of the elements thus acquired, together with the discovery of resemblances, and analogies between them. All these operations proceed meanwhile in accordance with certain fixed laws, to which we shall next direct our attention. Every one who has bestowed any notice upon his own thoughts, must have observed that they arise and succeed one another in a certain order, and that the order in which they occur varies with the manner in which they were originally impressed upon the mind. These variations in the order of occurrence admit of classification according to established principles or laws of thought; and the first of these which claims our notice is briefly designated as the principle of "Contiguity in time or place." The influence of this principle is familiar to every one in the daily experience of life; it is in fact the commonest and most extensive of all the principles by which our thoughts and feelings are associated together and with one another. A great sorrow or joy is for ever connected in the memory with the places and objects amidst which it was felt; and though the bitterness of the one or the exstacy of the other may have long since faded from the mind, the sight of the objects which were the mute and inanimate witnesses of our emotions will revive them once more in all their original poignancy. On the same principle the events of domestic life are dated from one another in proportion to their nearness one to another, without any reference to the arbitrary eras of chronology. The mass of mankind thus recall the incidents most interesting to them as having happened before, at the same time, or immediately subsequent to some great prominent event, such as a war, a pestilence, a season of dearth, a severe winter, the death of some eminent personage, or any other occurrence of a striking and unusual character which deeply impresses the mind. The Abyssinians, after Park's visit, dated the events which occurred amongst them as having happened so many seasons after the white man passed, until, perhaps, some other incident equally unusual arose and formed a new point of departure in their reckonings. In like manner we may notice that in every family some few prominent events form the centres or nuclei around which are grouped all the minor occurrences which form the little history of the household. Nothing, perhaps, can give us a more striking idea of the extensive influence which this substitution of one Thus the mere fact that any two or more states of mind sense for another exercises upon our conceptions, than the have followed one another in immediate succession, or illusions of perspective and colour in the productions of have been produced by objects contiguous to one another the art just mentioned. A landscape appears to extend in place, is sufficient to establish a permanent association itself before us for many miles on every side, with all its between them; and this is true whatever the states of variety of hill and dale, of plains, woods, and lakes, of mind may be called, whether thoughts, emotions, or churches, castles, cottages, and villages, even the distant simple sensations. The appearance and odour of a flower mountains which lie far beyond our horizon, are faintly will recall the high thoughts of an overruling and watchvisible, lifting their blue summits to the sky, into which ful providence with which we once contemplated the they seem to melt and vanish; whilst all we look upon in simple beauty of a similar flower, remembering that the reality is a small surface of canvass, covered with various lips of truth had proclaimed it to be more perfectly arrayed coloured touches by the artist's pencil. Many more than Solomon in all his glory. The thought that imexamples might be adduced of this unconscious transfer-pressed itself upon the mind in the perusal of a book will ence of sensation from organ to organ; but enough has been said to show the immense importance to the educator of a knowledge of the fact that such transferences are constantly taking place, as well as of the necessity of being able at the instant to assign to each sense the amount of knowledge it has contributed to any complex impression upon the mind. It is the surest safeguard against the deception or illusion of the senses, for in a healthy state of the organs, illusion can seldom take place as regards the peculiar sensations proper to them severally; it is only in the sensations which they represent that they are commonly deceived; and if we know the organ to which the office properly belongs of conveying to the mind that knowledge, the genuineness of which we suspect as conveyed by the representative sense, we can refer to it at once for correction or confirmation. The impressions derived through the senses, are, as we be associated in the memory with the place which the words that expressed it occupied upon the page, when the number of that page, the chapter, and the volume, are totally forgotten. The sound of an instrument will revive all the circumstances of a happy evening spent with friends in times gone by, when similar tones enlivened the gaiety of the party. The whole scene will rise before us: the persons who were present, the dresses they wore, the manner in which they conducted themselves, the saloon in which they were assembled, its furniture and proportions, the urbanity of the host and hostess, their condition in life and subsequent history, the acquaintances we made there, and a thousand other particulars; and each of these, should it be recalled by any circumstance, will, like the sound of the instrument, have the power of recalling all the others. The whole system of human language depends upon We proceed to notice the second principle of association between our thoughts, which is usually called "resemblance." this principle of association by contiguity in time or place. We look at an object for the first time; we handle it, taste it, or smell it, and at the same time we hear a peculiar sound, which is the name of the object. The inind immediately connects that sound with the conception of the object as perceived by the other senses, and when this has been repeated sufficiently often the connexion becomes indissoluble, the sound will revive the conception, and the conception the sensation of the sound. This is unquesture in a stranger, to a friend who has been long dead, or tionably the source of oral speech. Written language stands on a different footing. The spoken word is the symbol of the mental conception; the written word is the symbol of that symbol. Hieroglyphical writing may appear an exception, but it is indeed no language at all, and consists only in rude pictorial representations, which aim at recalling the original mental effect either directly or by analogy In all tonic languages what we have stated will be found to prevail without exception. The influence of this law of the mind is also very extensive, and is felt by us all with more or less intensity. Examples in illustration of it may be drawn in abundance from all our mental processes, but our space will admit of a few only. A similarity of voice or of fearemoved from us by distance, will instantly recall his image, as he lived and moved when present to our senses. The proportions and furniture of a room will revive a long train of joyful or sorrowful emotions experienced in one which resembled it; and the aspect of nature at different seasons of the year will renew the remembrance of speculations, studies, or occupations which engaged us at similar seasons in other years. We have classed the principles of association separately, for the sake of exposition, but it must be carefully borne in mind that they do not operate separately. They all, in fact, frequently influence our trains of thought at the same moment. Thus the principle of contiguity co-operates with that of resemblance-the faint similarity of a single object to another that formed part of a complex scene, or the revival of a feeling resembling one which arose from a long succession of events, will, like the touch of a talisman, place the whole once more before the intellectual gaze. In this principle of resemblance we have to remark, however, as regards sensation, at least, that when we discover a likeness to one object in another, it may be considered as a substitute for that which it resembles, and the feeling to which it gives rise in the mind is rather a renewed perception than a resemblance. The process that takes place is this: we see an object which resembles another; it renews the feeling which that other object first awakened ; this renewed feeling instantly recalls the object by which it was originally excited, and the original object, being thus recalled, revives all the accessory thoughts and feelings with which it was associated by contiguity in time or place. The power and value of this mental principle are strikingly exemplified in the fact, that it can thus com bine the arbitrary sounds of the human voice so intimately with the conceptions of the mind, that they shall for ever afterwards stand as indexes to these conceptions, and by their mere utterance have the power of exciting similar thoughts and feelings in the minds of others; and not only so, but afterwards cement the arbitrary vocal symbol with another symbol still more arbitrary, addressed to the sight, in such a manner that they never fail to suggest each other, as well as the thoughts and emotions of which they are the complex exponents. If novelty and strangeness were not in some measure necessary to the feeling of wonder, and that we could continue to regard things that have grown familiar to us with the feelings they would have awakened had we discovered them for the first time; some of the commonest actions of our daily life would appear to us little less than miraculous. What can be more truly marvellous, for example, than that very ordinary and humble acquirement, which enables me by tracing a few signs upon this paper, to convey to other minds the invisible and intangible thoughts that occupy my own? What incredulous This leads us to notice the important facts, that astonishment would seize us if informed for the first thoughts and emotions mutually suggest each other actime that, by gazing upon some black marks arranged cording to the principles of association in which they upon a white substance we should be carried back as by a originally affected the mind, and that similar feelings may spell of some potent magic to the very beginning of time, be excited by causes of a different nature. It would be and enabled to contemplate the infancy of the world and difficult to state verbally in what the resemblance between of our race; that we should be placed in a position from our feelings consists, but the fact is undoubted, as any which we could survey the rise of nations which have one may convince himself by attending to the manner in vanished from history; see the foundations laid of cities which emotions arise in his own mind. The sight of unand temples whose very ruins are sought for in vain, and sullied snow inspires a feeling resembling that produced mingle with the counsels of the rulers who swayed the by the contemplation of moral purity and stainless virtue. destinies of the earliest tribes of men. That by the mere The opening spring, with its manifold promise of the fruitinspection of these marks our minds shall be thrown into fulness which is to crown the future harvest, fills the the same strain of thought and feeling which filled the bosom with hopes of success in the various enterprises of minds of men who died thousands of years before our life; and winter, presenting everywhere images of decay birth; that we shall share in their joys and sympathize and death in the vegetable world, awakens in the mind with their grief; that the finest shades of thought which corresponding feelings of sadness and gloom. The early crossed their minds shall be renewed in ours; that, in morning when all nature is fresh and vigorous, and the short, by this wondrous mental principle we are made gradually increasing light reveals new beauties on every partakers in the accumulated wisdom, genius, and ex-side, is not only a striking emblem of childhood, but perience of mankind. It is not, however, in language only that its importance is exemplified; it is the essential element in every branch of human knowledge which embraces local connexions and relations of space, such as geography, topography, geology, astronomy, and all sciences depending upon sequence of time, as history, or upon process, as chemistry, medicine, and every kind of art and manufacture. The very existence of these sciences depend upon that law of thought which in the former cases enables the mind to connect together in one conception a vast number of separate objects according to their local relations, and in the latter a series of facts and events in the order of succession, or of physical operations, in the relation of cause and effect, each being in itself the effect of that which precedes it, and the cause of that which follows, derives its emblematical character from awaking within us feelings similar to those with which we notice the unfolding of the infant powers, and are carried forward in anticipation to the contemplation of their fully developed splendour. On the same principle the falling shades of evening remind us of the decline of life; and sleep in its stillness and helplessness has been in all ages chosen as the most expressive symbol of death. It is upon this resemblance or analogy between our emotions that the whole language of metaphor and figure depends, and a correct rhetorical style cannot be acquired without a knowledge of the mental principle upon which the resemblance or analogy is founded. The rules usually given for the formation of style, will in many cases be unintelligible without such an acquaintance with the laws of thought; but with it their meaning will be dis |