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in the inmost cavity, called the labyrinth. The laby- | response is directed to the six muscles that move the
rinth is filled with liquid, and contains an irregular eyeball, and turn it on every side to face the quarter
structure of bone described as consisting of a cockle- of the rays of light. These muscles have the usual
shell, and three semicircular canals; on the inner sur- function of tightening up and adapting the organ to
face of these bones the nerves are spread out. The confront agreeable radiation; while for disagreeable
vibrations of sound strike the drum of the ear; the sensations there is the additional apparatus of the eye-
movements of the drum are communicated to the bones lids, which, by a reflex action, screen the eye from a
of the middle ear, and by them communicated as vibra-painful impression. The eyeball itself is essentially
tions to the liquid of the inner ear, which presses on
the nerve surface with more or less force, according as
it is acted on by the bone in contact with it.

The impressions are carried in to an auditory ganglion,
and the responsive movements are made by means of
four muscles attached to the bones of the middle ear,
whose action either tightens or slackens the drumhead
or membrane: when a sound is agreeable, the membrane
is tightened to receive it more distinctly; when dis-
agreeable, the opposite happens, according to the usual
law of the responsive action of the senses.

an optic lens. (See Nos. 8 and 16.)

The sensations of Sight correspond with the infinitely mined by the surfaces they come from. The sun's various character of luminous emanations, as deterlight falling on bodies is reflected from each in a modified form dependent on the texture of the surface, and the sensations resulting are to us one means of distinguishing surfaces. The recognised varieties of light, as ascertained by our sensations, are chiefly intensity and colour, both of which are subject to innumerable material substances presented by nature. shades of difference, according to the variety of the

direction more accurately and decidedly than either The muscular portion of the eye gives the sense of hearing or touch. The adjustment of the eye to points of objects (the discrimination of which is exceedingly close) by the muscles, yields a most accurate estimate of their direction, such as the other moving organs can proceed upon in making for such points. The change of the ball from confronting one point to fixing it on another, gives the feeling of length in space; and the feeling of surface and expansion. There are certain muscular adjustments adapted to the distance of the object, and from these arise the feeling of distance from the eye; and when this is combined with the former, we have the feeling of cubical space. When the colours and shades of bodies unite their sensations with the muscular feelings of expanse and distance,

The sensations of Sound differ according to the character of the vibrations producing them, and these, again, according to the character of the sounding body, whose nature is thus discriminated by the sensations to which it gives birth. The vibrations may be strong or weak, rapid or slow (which is the chief distinction of musical sounds), regular or irregular, in a single or in many streams, and of a character varying with the substance producing them, which enables us to tell whether a sound proceeds from wood, stone, metal, &c. The liquid of the inner ear takes on a different move-traversing of an area in all directions gives the muscular ment and pressure from all these differences. Moreover, by means of the muscular part of the ear, we are made aware of the direction of the sound in a rough, and not very accurate way: the responsive action tends to stretch the drum in opposition to the source of the sound. The muscles are also affected by the greater or less strength of the sound, and by its variations of force, which require in them a variation of the adjust-we derive the feelings and notions of solid bodies. ment. Moreover, the volume or expanse of sound has an effect on the muscular sensations of the organ, by causing a kind of broad sweep to be given to the directing bones, to take in the entire compass of the action. This broad sweep is in hearing, as in sight, the cause of a very powerful sensation: the roaring of the sea, the reverberations of thunder, and the firing of artillery, are examples of the objects that bring it into action.

The sensations of Sound are as numerous as the character, forms, sizes, and circumstances of sounding bodies, and are the medium of a very large amount of our knowledge of external things. They are the source of a vast extent of pleasure when wrought into music; and in the art of speech they exercise a very wide and manifold influence on the intercourse of men, and on the operations of the human mind.

As in Touch, the sensations of Hearing are resolvable into distinguishable portions, or have form and shape. They are also the starting-points of innumerable other circles of mind-instinctive, habitual, voluntary, intellectual, and emotional.

7. Sight.

This is undoubtedly the highest, most refined, and most perfect of the senses. it, Light, is the subtlest and most exquisite power in The agent concerned in nature: it has no mechanical momentum, but it seems to have the power of operating a very delicate class of changes upon material bodies, which changes are known to us only through itself, as in the processes of copying objects by the solar ray. The precise action of light on the surface of sense in the eye, cannot in the present state of our knowledge be described.

Professor Wheatsone has shown that the impression of solid shapes results more particularly from the combined images of the two eyes, which, as it were, take a grasp of an object by two faces, and thereby become sensible of its cubical form.

and many of the fine arts have reference to them alone. The pleasures of Sight are numerous and intense, Its share in the intellectual functions, and in the guidsenses. Its impressions are more durable and more ance of human life, predominates over all the other easily revived after the object has disappeared than in the case of any other class of impressions, and hence their importance to the intellect, which deals largely in the shades or remnants of departed sensations.

Muscular Feelings.

circle of each of the proper senses, its peculiar feelings
Muscularity being not a sense, but a portion of the
must, as we have seen, enter into all sensations. We
shall now allude to these feelings apart from their
connections with the senses.
the essential instrument of all thought, emotion, and
The muscular system is
activity, and the great link of connection between any
one nervous circle and another.

continuously or interruptedly, rythmically or irregube tense or relaxed; they may move rapidly or slowly, The muscles are subject to many states. They may larly; and each state has its own separate feelings. They also yield great differences of feeling according to the degree of vigour or weariness that may belong to them. As they constitute a very large mass of the human system, their mere animal changes of nutrition, exercise, and exhaustion, give forth strong impressions to the have nearly as great an influence as alimentary states. general consciousness. In this respect muscular states and arrangements of life for the express object of meetThere is an extensive adaptation of the machinery

The surface of Sight is most probably the black screen in the back of the eye which we see shining through the hole of the pupil; on this black screen the nerve is spread out, to be affected by whatever changes lighting the wants and capacities of the muscular system-causes in the absorbent black surface.

The impressions are conveyed by a thick nervous cord to the optic lobes of the brain, and the immediate 326

&c. It is needless to add that it is our only means of
such as furniture, carriages, walks, sports, gymnastics,
acting mechanically on the external world.

The prominent feelings and notions derived from it are those of force, power, might, energy, or resistance : also the feeling of motion as a property of matter, of space as the field for motion, and of time as marked out by motion through space. All these feelings the muscular system contributes to our three higher senses -Touch, Hearing, and Sight.

When a sensation is followed up by an instinctive or other action, the muscular part of the sensation yields the impression that wakens up the action: or a muscular sensation is the link between one act and another everywhere throughout the system.

APPETITES.

These are peculiar and distinct states of mind allied to the Sensations, but involving in addition some of the other active circles. When a sensation is of that uneasy character that is not satisfied by the proper muscular response, but maintains in the general consciousness an irritable unresting state, so as not to allow the mind to go on calmly, unless something has first been done for the relief of the locality affected, the action is called an Appetite or craving. Such cravings generally imply that there is a want or deficiency in the part they arise from.

INSTINCTS.

These belong to the special means of action that each animal possesses for accomplishing its various works, and fulfilling the ends of its existence. They are the untaught activities and capacities of the animal nature. When we keep out of view the reflex actions, which have been commonly classed with instincts, the instincts in man are such as these:--

First, A large class are referable to the tendency of the system at large to accord or fall in with the state of any one part. A sudden stroke of pain produces first by a reflex movement, or rather by the natural course and completion of a sensational circle, a retractation of the injured part; and next a general commotion of the body at large, a cry of agony, and a general convulsion of limb and feature. This extension of the attitude of a part to the whole is to be called instinctive, and it is effected under a general law of the muscular and mental system, by which there is a constant tendency to unity of position and state over the whole. Rapid movements of the limbs produce like movements in the exclamations, looks, features, gestures, and even in the very thinking processes. By this principle it is that the body follows the lead of the eyes in walking or taking an aim.

The animal system works to a great extent on the principle of alternation of states. Each organ usually Walking may be reckoned an instinctive action, passes through successive conditions-such as nutrition, although it takes a little practice to be perfect in it. exercise, and repose and it manifests a craving for The motion that it involves-namely, an alternate each in their turn: if this craving is gratified imme-swing of the legs-is natural and spontaneous from the diately, appetite is swallowed up in satisfaction or earliest period of infant life. This exemplifies another contentment; if not, the general consciousness is dis- general property of the muscular and nervous system, agreeably acted on by the irritation of the neglected which is the principle of alternate motions. The memorgan, and the powers of body and mind are, as it bers that are in pairs tend to move by turns in conwere, importuned till the want is allayed. sequence of an express organisation suited to that effect. The eyes are an exception to this law. A third character of the muscular constitution is the power of vermicular motion, or the tendency, where there is a succession of members, for a movement to pass from one to another through the whole system. The progressive motion of worms, and the action of the alimentary canal, take place under this principle; but it also acts in the progression of quadrupeds, and in the climbing action of man and other animals.

Each class of sensations contains among its number sensations of appetite; indeed the whole of the so-called disagreeable sensations may be considered of this kind. The sensations of organic life become cravings when the system is not in good working order, or is refused its proper alternations of treatment. Thirst is perhaps one of the most intense of this class. The wants of digestion yield the well-known appetite of hunger: it and thirst being the most powerful cravings of the system. Taste and smell do not readily yield appetites But the most strongly-marked description of instincts that are the consequences of wants periodically growing are such as seem to proceed upon an innate knowledge up in the organs; but when they are roused by an of what is usually learnt by experience alone. This is agreeable contact, they put forth a craving for its con- exemplified in the action of the senses of taste and tinuance up to the point of satiety. There are many smell, when they enable us to decide upon what is other appetites that are only roused by a present good for the alimentary canal in the first place, and stimulus, it being with them out of sight out of for the organic system in the second place, as in the mind.' The appetite of sex originates within the body choice and rejection of food. A still more surprising like hunger, but its strength of craving depends very anticipation is in such a case as when an aquatic bird much on the presence of external stimuli; and hunger knows water by the sight before it has ever been in it. itself may be increased by such means, as in the pre- The migrations of birds show the same characteristic sence of an abundant and dainty meal. The appetites of preordained knowledge: a certain sensation tells of the muscular sense, which are alternately for exer- them which is the direction of the warm regions of the cise, rest, and nutrition, are next in strength to hunger. earth, just as men know it by the mid-day sun, or by a The appetite for sleep arises within the nervous and weathercock. Many animals are supposed to excel the muscular system. The higher senses have but moderate human species in their pre-established connection becravings, these being chiefly for the alternation of stimu-tween the sensations of smell and taste and the wholelus and rest: the eye, when fresh and strong, craves for light, and the ear desires sounds; when wearied, they seek to be withdrawn from such influences.

someness of the food of which they should partake.
The elaborate constructiveness of many animals-
such as the bee, the beaver, and the nest-building birds
is a still higher stretch of instinctive or preordained
power; although probably, when better studied, these
operations will come under simple laws, such as have

When a diseased state comes over any of the organs, the craving thence arising differs from ordinary appetites in not suggesting the means of relief. But this difference is only apparent, for the appetites do not gene-been alluded to above. rally of themselves point out what is required to satisfy A circle of Instinct is usually secondary, or in sucthem; either experience, instruction, or a special instinct cession to a circle of Sensation. The muscular feeling is needed for this purpose; the exceptions are such that terminates a sensation is the first step in an Incases as sleep, and the cravings for activity and repose. stinctive circle; and if there be several successive The Appetites are largely involved in human enjoy- movements, the feeling of the last muscular position ment, and are stimuli to human thought and activity. in one movement is made to stimulate the ganglion In proportion to their strength, the frequency of their which sets on the second. Thus, in walking, the feelrecurrence, and their capacity of being gratified, is ing coming from the muscles of the right leg, at its full their influence on the general stream of consciousness. forward position, is conveyed to the ganglion that sends The Desires (subsequently treated) differ from the Appe- out the stimulus to the progressive muscles of the left tites only in bringing the intellect more fully into play. | leg, which is moved forward accordingly.

There are certain of our judgments and beliefs that are usually considered as Instinctive; but these require to be taken up subsequently among a higher class of Activities. We here close the group of Sensations, and their allied Appetites and Instincts.

THE INTELLECT.

The products arising from the action of the powers of the Intellect upon the Sensations, Appetites, and Instincts, or upon the more simple circles of mind, are very numerous and varied, and might be exemplified by all the arts, sciences, and organisation of human life, and by what is meant by such terms as Understanding, Reason, Judgment, Abstraction, Memory, Imagination, Invention, and the like.

[lities, it is obvious that the stream of general consciousness, or of the waking mind, must be a highly-complicated train of movements. In this state of things the law of contiguity comes into play, and determines that the impressions, feelings, and movements that have run together for a certain length of time, or have been repeated sufficiently often, shall so cohere, that when one is roused by its outward or inward object, the others shall be manifested along with it, independently of their original stimulus. If we take, for example, a concurrence of two sensations, one of sound, and the other of sight, as the sound and the sight of rushing water-after a sufficient length of time the two impressions so grow together, and are so cemented by an operation going on within the mind, that the one may at any time recall the other: if we hear the noise while the object is concealed, the visible picture starts up nearly as if we were looking at the reality. The law of contiguity develops, as it were, within the mind a power of bringing before it the same impressions as are ordinarily given by the agents without. We may thus have visible pictures, and audible and tangible impressions, and their completed circles, without the presence of sights, sounds, or contacts; and these impressions may be the first link in raising into action subsequent circles of appetite, instinct, or other activity, thought, or emotion. We shall now briefly state a few of the general results of this law; to develop them fully would far exceed our limits:

The first property or law of mind upon which Intellect is based, is a property that seems to adhere to the inferior circles as such, and therefore we do not state it as one of the laws of Intellect proper. It is the law of the permanency, endurance, and coherence of sensational states. When a surface of sense is impressed by an object, and the influence transmitted to the central ganglion, from which the responsive action proceeds outward to the connected muscles, we find that the impression once made continues for some time more or less after the object is withdrawn; the sensitive surface, the nerves, the ganglia, and the muscles, all retain for a short period the state which they have once been made to assume; or the circulation of influence perseveres in the absence of what set it on. We find also that the effect of each stimulus is to leave behind it on the circle a certain bent or susceptibility to the same stimulus at another time. If the same sensation be repeated, the sensitive surface will take it on more readily, the nerve will convey it with more alacrity, and the responsive muscles will be found more vigorous and alert in the execution of their function. This is one of nature's laws of the growth and development of our capacities of sensation and instinctive action: it is the principle that enables us to acquire a com- Many impressions that we are apt to reckon as mand of our senses and instinctive movements; the single or simple sensations, have, in fact, been comefforts of attention by the eye or the ear, and the alter-pounded by this associating force. Thus our impresnate movement of the limbs, although provided for by the original organisation, are not perfect until they have been familiarised by practice and repetition with the operations that have to be gone through. The law in question is therefore one of nature's regulations for the growth and maturity of the system; and it continues through life, although most vigorous in its workings during early years. It might be called the Law of Sensational growth.

The laws of Intellect proper make a very decided advance beyond this. Instead of simply hardening or confirming the current of each sensation in its own circle, they bind separate sensations to each other, and build up complicated masses of sensation and activity, which may not merely be more easily revived by the repetition of the first impressions, but which may be revived without employing the original in any shape, so that we may live in a world of the most varied sensation while none of the objects of sensation act upon us at all, and may be affected by impressions recovered from the repositories of the mind more powerfully than by any action direct from nature without.

The First Law of Intellect, properly so called, has been termed by psychologists

THE LAW OF CONTIGUITY.

Two or more sensations, impressions, actions, or states of feeling, existing together or in close succession, tend to cohere, so that the future occurrence of any one of them is sufficient to restore or revive the others.

1. The impressions of natural objects (which generally excite several senses at once) are compacted into wholes. Thus many things in nature may affect sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, and, it may be, the alimentary and organic feelings in addition; and by repeatedly experiencing these conjoined impressions, we come to form a complex impression or aggregate notion of the entire object. Thus our mental impression, what we call our idea or knowledge, of an orange, is an aggregate impression of this sort cemented by the force of contiguous association.

sion of the round aspect of an orange is a complex impression of sight and muscularity; the visible picture being an aggregate of visible points, and the expanse and roundness being the result of the repeated sweep of the eyeballs over its area, which result is itself a complicated tracing of muscular sensations; and the combination of these with the visible aggregate makes the total impression of visible form.

Many natural objects, such as the human body, are permanently made up of a great many parts, each requiring separate acts of attention, and yielding separate sensations. The fixing of these altogether in one total impression is the effect of contiguity.

2. Besides the conjunction of parts in the same object, we also find that nature has in many cases coupled distinct objects together by some of those powers of distant influence which prevail in the world. Thus a warm latitude is coupled with rich vegetation, and a sea-coast with a moist and temperate character of climate. The tides coincide with the positions of the moon, and the migrations of birds with the changes of the seasons. These conjunctions are laws or ordinances of nature, and become impressed on the human mind by the association of contiguity.

3. The accidental juxtapositions that occur around us, or those conjunctions that may happen from any cause, and that continue in virtue of the inertness of matter, impress themselves in the same way. Thus it is that we carry about with us the picture and arrangement of our own homes, and of the localities where we As we have at least seven senses, and as each of have often been; we associate house with house, and these may be stimulated by a successive stream of dis- street with street, and have in our minds a connected tinct sensations, and as we have also appetites and view of each prospect, large or small, that has been instincts, besides higher emotions and activities, and frequently before us. In short, all the fixed arrangesince we are ever in the presence of a world that sheds ments around us, and the local and geographical aggreinnumerable influences upon these varied susceptibi- | gates with which we have become conversant, become

permanently fixed in our conceptions, exactly as they stand in nature.

| cised in the notion of roundness on some one individual case, we find it easy to fall into the impression in any 4. The whole class of regularly-recurring successions, other case: the old state is set on by the new contact. including cause and effect, as the most invariable of all So with any other form, as of a tree, or of a plan of a successions, are stamped in the mind by the same force. country, or with any other sensation whatsoever. No 5. The addition of names to objects for the conve- matter although the already-acquired sensation is acniences of intercommunication and reference, is ren-companied in the new instances with a different class dered permanent by the operation of contiguity. After of other sensations in the aggregate picture; it is the a certain number of repetitions of the word moon,' peculiarity of this intellectual force to break through while attention is fixed on the object, the two im- unlike accompaniments, and still make like flow to pressions come to cohere, and are thenceforth able like. The exercise of acquiring the sensation of roundmutually to recall each other. The acquisition both ness from an orange will serve us in acquiring the imof our mother tongue and of foreign languages is there- pression of an apple, or a plum, or a cannon-ball; and fore a consequence of this adhesive force. In like man- for each new case the labour of attention will be needed ner the fixing of connected series of words- that is, only for the new circumstances of colour, size, and of narrations, statements, assertions, and literary com- modifications of the round form. So in the case of positions or what is usually called 'a verbal memory,' hearing: when the ear has been repeatedly exercised in depends on the same law. a set of sounds, as in the words of a language or the notes of an instrument, it falls into or recognises them again under new combinations, as when repeated by a different voice or instrument.

6. All the steps of a connected procedure in the arts, professions, and occupations of life, are joined together after the proper degree of repetition, under this associating principle; and many other examples might be given. The time or the number of repetitions necessary for a full adhesion to take place, depends on the power of adhesiveness peculiar to each individual, and on the freshness and freedom from distraction of the mind at the time, as well as on the impressiveness of the objects. The force of contiguity is most energetic in early life, and seems identified with the vigour of growth of the system. It may be called the Law of Intellectual growth, since we have called the fixing of Sensations and Instincts the force of sensational growth.

LAW OF SIMILARITY.

Any present impression or state of mind tends to revive previous impressions that resemble it.

This law takes a very different sweep from the preceding. If the operation of contiguity has formed in the mind some great aggregate impression that has a distinct character and form, and if at any future time a new impression is made resembling it in one or more points, there is a tendency for the present to revive the past, and for both to flash together into one, so that the new image will receive all the particulars that the old can add to it, and will be saved the trouble of acquiring these afresh. If we suppose a person to see a ship for the first time, and to examine minutely all the peculiarities of its structure, within and without, and to dwell upon them so long that the aggregate picture of the ship clings together in his head, and can be revived entire when any part is brought before his view; and if after this he observe at a distance the outward form of a second ship, this by similarity will recall the already-formed picture of the first with all its details; and without having the means of fully examining the second, he can transfer to it at once the particulars of the other, and thus supply a knowledge of what is hidden from the eye. As nature has produced many repetitions of the same objects and forms, it is a vast economy of human labour to be able to know an entire class through a single individual thoroughly studied; and the application of what is known and conceived of one thing to all others like it, is effected through the power we are now considering. When objects are not perfectly identical, we have still the advantage of the similarity as far as it goes; and for each new individual, we need only to learn what is its difference from some one previously known, in order to possess a full acquaintance with it. We shall now adduce a few examples of this law:

2. The word identification expresses a large class of the operations of similarity. We identify a portrait with its original, the common features in a family, the sameness in character in the scenery of a country or in the aspect of a population, the institutions of different nations, the events of remote ages, the characters of different individuals-all by the force of this law. There are great inequalities in men's powers in this respect: in some, the differences in a few of the particulars serve completely to obstruct the perception of similarity, so that in many instances no recognition of the past in the present takes place, even though a real likeness obtains between them. An incapacity in tracing likenesses on this principle is the very essence of intellectual imbecility and weakness; and on the other hand, a high facility in recovering all past impressions that contain anything in common with some present impression, is the main foundation of all high intellectual power, capacity, originality, invention, and genius. The peculiar species of the capacity will depend on the other points of character; but the main absolute force of it resides in the perception of likenesses, and the revival of the past by the force of similarity. To the extent that we are unable to bring up past acquisitions of mind to serve present emergencies, we lose all the advantages of nature's repeating herself in many circumstances, and have to undergo fresh labour for every individual case.

The identification of the identical phenomena of nature often demands an intense power of similarity, owing to the repulsion of unlike circumstances. Thus the man that identified the attachment of the moon to the earth with the fall of a stone, will be reckoned through all time to have been a very extraordinary genius; ordinary minds would not have traced anything common in appearances which to the superficial eye are so utterly unlike. The identification of lightning with the spark of an electrical machine is another example of the same uncommon force of intellectual perception. Thus the inductions and generalisations of science are in the main the consequence of great stretches of the power of similarity.

3. In literary efforts there is abundant scope for tracing the operations of the same power. A great part of the formation and growth of language lies in applying old names and expressions to new objects, in consequence of a felt identity or likeness between the things. Thus the word 'head,' primarily applying to a part of the human frame, has come to be used in 1. The extension of old sensations to new objects. reference to innumerable other things quite different, We have seen that it is a work of time and growth to but having all some one feature in common with the acquire the engrained sensation or aggregate notion of human head; as the 'head of a house,' the 'head of a any one natural object-such as an orange, a tree, a mob,' the heads of a discourse.' The great class of house, a man. The mere round form of an orange re-expressions called 'metaphors' are struck out on the quires a considerable amount of muscular experience same principle, and are produced most abundantly by often repeated; but when this form has been completely the men that possess an intense power of bringing tomastered, it is then easy to acquire the notion of the gether like in the midst of unlike. round form of any other round object. Being once exer

4. The tracing out of unity, consistency, harmony,

S

and uniformity, in a mass of varied things and circum-
stances, is a direct effort of similarity.

5. The application of general laws and rules to indi-
vidual cases, and deductive reasoning, in general de-
mands the same effort: it is only in virtue of similarity
of subject that a law or rule can be transferred from
one case to another.

In every high operation of intellect and genius this power is requisite. Contiguity leads to routine, and to the arranging of things as they happen to be in nature by mere juxtaposition; similarity breaks through juxtaposition, and brings together like objects from all quarters. It is by far the grandest manifestation of the human mind; it enables us to rise to the unity, simplicity, and comprehensiveness of plan that regulates the complicacy of the world's arrangements and movements, and lessens to an unlimited degree the toil attendant on man's situation in the universe.

LAW OF COMPOUND ASSOCIATION.

Impressions, notions, or thoughts, may be recalled more easily by being associated with two or more impressions or objects present to the mind at the time, whether by contiguity or similarity.

The two forces of contiguity and similarity express all the powers that nature appears to employ in maintaining the operations of the human intellect; but there are certain peculiar cases of their working that deserve to be specified as separate, although dependent laws. One of these is the case now supposed. When there are present to our minds two impressions, ideas, or pictures, each associated, either by contiguity or similarity, with some third state that is past and out of mind at the time, the compound action is more effective than either action by itself; that is, the separate bonds might be too weak to revive the past object, but acting together they succeed.

transferred from its actual site to some other site, also
of the scene so composed. By a little exertion, we
could impress on our minds the picture of the sup-
clearly conceived, and to form the complex conception
posed combination exactly as if it had been a real scene
that we had long and familiarly known. The power
the imagined ingredients as well as of actual combina-
tions. Such instances of the mere addition or substi-
of contiguity would suffice to make a coalescence of
tution of a new ingredient in an aggregate found in
actual life, are among the simplest and easiest efforts
of the faculty in question.

plexity of the combination. Should we desire to realise
to ourselves a town on the site of London, with the
The difficulty of the process increases with the com-
streets planned on a different scheme, such as that
proposed by Sir Christopher Wren, and the houses all
built of red sandstone, and the inhabitants dressed in
the Oriental costume, we should find a prolonged and
ever succeed in realising the combination with the
energetic effort necessary; and very few people would
lived for some time in a place so made up. It is,
same clearness and steadiness as if they had actually
do so. By conceiving as vividly as one is able each of
the particulars in turn, and by going over the whole
nevertheless, within the power of the human mind to
again and again, they would at last aggregate them-
selves into a single whole, which might be retained
and repeated in the view till it held together as a
coherent picture. Such an exercise is perhaps one of
the rarest that is ever attempted by the mass of man-
kind, who have in general no adequate estimate of the
amount of undeveloped capacity lying in human nature.

law, is the case when some object in nature is represented by one of the imitative arts, and when we One of the commonest classes of cases under this A common example is furnished by such a case as our endeavouring to remember something said or done we endeavour from a dead statue to conceive a living resolve the representation into a reality by adding from on some past occasion, whose other circumstances are man, we must endeavour to bring together the concepour experience of realities what is deficient. Thus if distinctly before us. The bond of contiguity not having tion of the statue and the conception of true flesh, and been strong enough to connect the remembered circum- of the actual colour and aspect of life, and maintain stances with what is sought, we fail in the attempt; the two conceptions in our view till they fall into one, but should anything cross our minds having some slight and become to us the picture of a living human being resemblance to the matter in question (perhaps too having the shape and expression of the statue. This slight to have revived it of itself), the faint contiguity, would be reckoned an exceedingly difficult effort-the joined to the faint similarity, effects the revival of the difficulty arising partly from feebleness of faculty, and recollection that we were struggling for. So two con- partly from want of exercise and cultivation. Men of tiguities or two similarities will always be more power-superior minds, or who have made this a study, would ful than one. Names that we have both read and perform the operation with ease. heard, or that have been associated both with a book and a speaker, are most easily revived when both book and speaker are in our view. A complex scene may be revived effectually if there are present to us several representatives or resemblances to it in several aspects.

LAW OF CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION.

The mind has the power, by means of association, to form or construct aggregate impressions of things, exactly as if they were derived directly from the outer world acting through the senses.

We have hitherto referred to the revival of past impressions of objects, exactly as they were formed by the action of the originals on the senses and intellect; but this does not exhaust the range of the intellect's powers. It is possible to form a picture of what has never been experienced, to all intents and purposes the same as the pictures of actual experience; and the effecting of this is what we denominate constructive association. To take a simple example :

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Suppose we see a building formed of brick, and desire to judge the effect which it would have if composed of marble, we require to construct a new conception, where form and outline shall be derived from what is before us, and substance and colour from our notions of marble. the class we are now considering, and is within the The effort is one coming under power of an ordinary intellect. effort, however, would be to conceive a known building A still more easy

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effort of the same intrinsic character. We require to
keep in view some real scene in order to acquire the
To realise a person or scene from a painting is an
expanse and the colours of a reality, and to take along
with this the form and outline given in the picture, till
as if we stood before the reality.
the two are fused, if we may so speak, together, or till
the scene represented in the picture is the same to us

mind. It is the direct basis of Imagination, and is re-
This faculty enters into all the higher operations of
originality. It represents the highest range and con-
summation of the human intellect.
quisite in Reasoning, Abstraction, and in every kind of

THE EMOTIONS.

analogous to the Sensations, but differing from these
in being mixed up and associated with intellectual
The Emotions are a class of feelings in their nature
tellectualised Sensations.
operations. They might be not inaptly defined as In-

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the Emotions as among the Senses, nor can they be
classified solely by a reference to the structure of the
There is not the same anatomical distinction among
human frame. Several of then have a very specific
of the Ludicrous; but as respects any others, we must,
local apparatus, such as Tenderness, and the emotion
world that set them in action. Man is not fitted up so
in arranging them, refer to the objects of the outer

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