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FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. Being a Treatise

on Metaphysics. i2mo, J2.00.

PSYCHOLOGY. The Cognitive Powers. i2mo, $1.50.

PSYCHOLOGY. The Motive Powers, izmo, $1.30.

THE EMOTIONS, i vol. i2mo, $2.00.

REALISTIC PHILOSOPHY. Defended in a Philosophic
Series. 2 vols. :2mo. Vol. I., Expository, $1.50. Vol. II.,
Historical and Critical, jSi.so.

PSYCHOLOGY

THE COGNITIVE POWERS

JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D.

PKBSIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE, AUTHOR OF " INTUITIONS

OF THE MIND," " LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT,'*

"BMOTIONS," " PHILOSOPHIC SERIES," BTC.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1889

A"/

EDUC.
PSYCH.

msum

^^ ^6^'

The Riverside Prest, Cambridge :
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

PREFACE.

For the last thirty-four years I have been teaching
Psychology by written lectures to students in Ireland
and America. From year to year I have been improv-
ing my course, and I claim to have advanced with the
times. As Uncle Toby's stockings were so often darned
that he was not sure whether there remained a single
thread of the original fabric, so my prelections have been
so constantly mended that I do not know that a single
sentence remains of my early lectures.

I certainly wish this little work to be used as a text-
book, and would thus widen and prolong my teaching
power. But people say " dull as a text-book." In phys-
ical science and in literature they illuminate their books
(as in the old missals) by figures. We cannot do this in
mental science, as our thoughts have not forms nor col-
ors. I maintain, however, that they have livelier fea-
tures. I have sought to avoid dryness by illustrating
mental laws by examples taken from human nature. As
general laws are drawn from particular cases, so they are
best understood by concrete facts coming under our ex-
perience.

It will be shown in this work that the honest and care-

IV PREFACE.

ful study of the human mind in an inductive manner un-
dermines the prevailing philosophic errors of this age ;
saves us from Idealism on the one hand and Agnosticism
on the other ; and conducts us to Realism, which in a
rude state was the first philosophy, and when its ex-
crescences are pruned off will be the last.

Following the example set by several distinguished
writers, I have carried out my exposition of the faculties
by instructions as to tbeir improvement.

I hope to add to this little work another on the Motive
Powers of the Mind, including the Conscience, Emotions,
and Will. I have already so far anticipated this by my
work on the Emotions.

I have to express my obligations to my former pupils :
to Professor Macloskie for diagrams, and to Dr. Starr
and Mr. J. M. Baldwin foi the exposition of certain
points which they have studied carefully.

Pbikceton College, June, 1886.

eOI^TENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

SECTION

I. Definition of Psychology. Method of Investigation

II. Proof of the Existence of Mind ....

III. Cautions to be attended to in the Study of the Mind

IV. Ckxssification of the Faculties

V. Education of the Faculties

PA08
1

, 16

BOOK FIRST.
The Simple Cognitive cr Presentative Powers

CHAPTER L
Sense-Perception 20

I. Its Nature : Original, Intuitive, Positive .... 20

II. Theories of Sense-Perception : Ideal, Inferential, Phenome-
nal, and Relative : Natural Realism .....

III. Distinctions to be attended to in holding the Doctrine of Nat-

ural Realism : Extra-Mental and Extra-Organic Knowl-
edge ; Sensation and Perception ; Original and Acquired
Perceptions

IV. The Senses : General Remarks
V. Organic Affections .

VI. Taste . . • . .

VII. Smell

VIII. Hearing ....
IX. Touch Proper, or Feeling
X. The Muscular Sense .

XL Vision

XII. Our Acquired Perceptions

XIII. Apparent Deception of the Senses

XIV. Supplementary Notes
XV. Of the Education of the Senses

XVI. Knowledge given by the Senses
XVII. Qualities of Matter : Extension and Energy .
XVIII. Ideas given by the Senses ; Externality, Space, and Energy

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER II.

8ECTI0H PAGE

Self-Consciousness 70

I. It makes known Self as well as the Acts of Self ... 70

II. Sense-Perception and Self-Cousciousness combined . . .74

III. Substance 81

IV. Locke's Theory as to the Origin of our Ideas . . , .84
V. Training to Habits of Keflection ...... 85

BOOK SECOND.
The Reproductive or Representative Powbbs . . .87

CHAPTER I.
Retention 89

CHAPTER II.

The Recalling Power or Phantast 95

I. Its Nature 95

II. Chambers of Imagery 105

III. Ideas Singular and Concrete 107

CHAPTER m.

The Association op Ideas 109

I. Primary Laws . 112

II. Secondary Laws 135

III. Physiological Processes involved in Association . . . 145

IV. Discussion as to the Law of Association 147

V. The Rapidity of Thought 148

CHAPTER IV.

The Recognitive Power 153

I. Its Nature 153

IL The Faith Element 154

in. The Idea of Time 156

IV. Memory 158

V. Improvement of the Memory . . . . . . . 15;t

VI. Does the Memory deceive us ? \V>3

CHAPTER V.

The Power of Composition . .165

I. Its Nature 105

II. The Imagination 167

III. The Use of the Imagination . . . . . . . 175

CONTENTS. Vll

SECTION PABB

IV. The Idea of the Infinite 179

V. The Abuse of the Imagination 184

VI. Training of the Imagination ....... 190

CHAPTER VI.

The Symbolic Power , . 196

I. Its Nature 196

11. Kehition of Speech to the Brain 201

III. On the Teaciiing of Languages 203

IV. The Training of the Reproductive Powers ..... 205

BOOK THIRD.
The Comparative Powers 208

CHAPTER I.
Office of the Comparative Powers 208

CHAPTER II.

Classification of Relations 211

I. Relation of Identity and Difference 211

II. Relation of Whole and Parts 215

III. Rehition of Resemblance 216

IV. Relations of Space 218

V. The Relations of Time 219

VI. Relations of Quantity 220

VII. Relations of Active Power or Property 221

VIII. Relation of Cause and Effect 222

CHAPTER IIL
The Discdbsive Operations .....«•. 230

CHAPTER IV.
Intuition in the Discovery of Relations .... 233

CHAPTER V.
General Remarks on the Comparative Powers . . . 235

CONCLUSION.
Rise of odr Ideas 242

THE COGNITIVE POWERS.

INTRODUCTION.
SECTION I.

DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY. — METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.

Psychology is the science of the soul. The word is
from psyche^ soul, and logos^ speech or reason. By soul
is meant that self of which every one is conscious.
Science is systematized knowledge, and when we arrange
the knowledge which we can acquire of the soul, we have
the Science of Psychology.

In constructing it we proceed on the Method of IN-
DUCTION. This is distinguished from Deduction, in
which, as for example in mathematics, we proceed from
assumed or admitted principles to truths derived from
them. In Induction we gather in (induco') facts, but
always with a view of discovering an order among them
and arranging them. It is found that in all nature phys-
ical and mental facts proceed uniformly or regularly, that
is, according to laws. This is the case in physics : mat-
ter attracts matter inversely according to the square of
the distance. It is also so in psychology : like tends to
recall like. It thus comes to be the end of science to
discover laws. Psychology may be more fully defined as
that science which inquires into the operations of the
conscious self with the view of discovering: laws.

Induction begins with Observation. In botany we
collect plants and look at their forms and habits. Id

2 INTRODUCTION.

psychology we notice mind as it operates and mark its
various states. In Induction we also employ EXPERI-
MENT, which is a mode of observation in which we arti-
ficially place the agents of nature in new circumstances
that we may perceive their action more distinctly : thus,
in order to determine whether all bodies fall to the
ground at the same time, we put a guinea and a feather
in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, that we may
note the time they take to descend, independent of the
resistance of the air. In like manner, in studying the
human mind we place objects before it that we may find
how it is affected by them : thus, in order to determine
how the conscience acts, we direct it to a cruel or a
beneficent act ; and how the emotions are raised, we call
up objects fitted to gratify or disappoint our springs of
action.

Both in physical and in psychical science we begin
with and proceed throughout by Observation Proper and
Experiment. But there is a difference in the agent or in-
strument of observation in the two departments. In the
former we employ the senses, such as sight and touch,
aided by such instruments as the telescope, microscope,
and blow-pipe, and we weigh and measure the bodies. In
psychology we make our observations by Self-Conscious-
ness, which is the power by which we take cognizance of
self as acting, say as thinking or feeling, as remembering
the past or anticipating the future, as loving, fearing, re-
solving.

Self-Consciousness may give us information directly or
indirectly. (1.) We may notice the states of the soul as
they flow on, our judgments and our fancies, our joys and
our griefs. (2.) By a brief memory we may throw back
our mind on the past and recall what has been under the
consciousness in a given time ; say during the past hour,

METHOD OP INVESTIGATION. S

when we were earnestly thinking, or under deep sorrow,
or cherishing ardent hope. (3.) We may gather what
has passed through the minds of other people from their
words or their deeds : as we listen to them, as we read
their writings — say biographies or histories, poems or
novels ; or as we observe their conduct in ordinary or in
trying circumstances. We understand what these are be-
cause of our own conscious experience. Our field of view
is thus enlarged indefinitelj'^, and becomes as wide and
varied as our intercourse with mankind and our reading.

It is proper to add that light may be thrown on the
operations of the mind by the physiology of the brain
and nerves. We know objects external to the mind by
the senses, and it is important that we know how the
senses work. We are not to suppose that the brain and
nerves think ; but still the rise and even the nature of
i>ertain mental affections depend much on these, and
light may be thrown on the action of the conscious soul
by a careful study of the parts of the body most inti-
mately connected with the action of mind. Observa-
tion in psychology is to be conducted mainly by self-
consciousness, but may be aided by the physiology of the
cerebro-spinal mass.

Beginning with the observation of states or affections
of mind, we then note their resemblances, differences, and
other relations, and can thus coordinate them, place un-
der one head those that are like, and give them a name
by which we can speak of them. Thus we find that in
certain exercises we notice the external objects before us,
and we give to them the common name of sense percep-
tion ; that in others we recall the past, and this we call
memory ; or we picture unreal objects, such as a mer-
maid, and this we designate imagination ; or we infer
from what is given or allowed something else implied in

I INTRODUCTION.

it, and this is said to be reasoning ; or we distinguish be-
tween good and evil, and this we speak of as conscience ;
or we are affected with sadness, which is emotion ; or we
resolve to do a certain act, which is will.

According to this view Psychology should have as its
province the operations of the conscious self, leaving to
Physiology the structure of the organism. These two.
the soul and the organism, have mutual connections, and
the sciences which deal with them may throw light op
each other, but all the while they are to be carefully dis
tinguished.

All parts of the organism fall under the science o
physiology and not of psychology. But were it only t.>
enable us to distinguish between physical and psychical
action, it is necessary to look at certain actions of the
nervous system most intimately connected with mental
action. All along the spinal column there is automatic
action which is reflex. There is a cell called a ganglion,
into which one nerve enters and from which another
goes out. On the former being stimulated at the ex-
tremity, an action passes along to the centre, and then
motion proceeds along the latter. We have an example
in the frog's leg moving when it is pricked. Here
there is neither sensation nor volition. No sensation is
felt till the action goes up to the brain.

The central mass of the brain consists of " basal gang-
lia " (the optic thalami and corpora striata^ as in Fig.
2), from which commissures of white fibres radiate to the
gray cortical matter. The gray matter, which is at the
surface, is cellular, and is most intimately connected vdth
mental action ; the white matter is in the deeper parts,
and consists of masses of fibres running in different di-
rections, which are supposed to be mainly transmissive.
The communication from the spinal cord is up by the

DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY.

medulla oblongata (Fig. 1, Fig. 2 L.) and the crura cere-
bri to the corpora striata and optic thalami ; and in all the
higher animals there is a large transverse bridge called
corpus callosum, which connects both sides of the brain.

Fig. 1.

BBAOf, external view, showing urtbrum above, eertbellum and medutta oblongata b»-
low and behind ; front of brain to your left side. A, A', A", the frontal lobei ;
B, B', B'', the temporo-sphenoidal lobes; C, the angular gyrus (seat of Tlaion);
D, jy, D," the occipital lobes.

The nerves which carry the action to the brain are
called afferent, those which carry out the action from
the brain are efferent. The former are Sensor, the latter
Motor. The former are denoted by P S, the latter by

INTRODUCTION.

A M, as the former are posterior and the others an-
terior in the human frame. There is also a sensori-
motor system, of which sneezing is an exercise, in which
there is sensation and motion but no volition. The
action along the nerves occupies time which has been

Fio. 2.

Cn B&uir, median Tertieal section: front of brain to yonr r^tliand. A, A, i

eaUosum; B, B, corpora jlna/a( laterally from median plane); C, C, thalami optiett
D, pineal gland (deemed by Descartes the seat of the soul) ; £, E, corpora gMod-
rigemina; F, the crura cerebri; Q, the pituitary body; H, the commissni* of
the optic nerves; I, the olfactory lobe; E, temporal lobe; L, mtduila oblongata;
M, cerebellum, with (N) its axial part, and the arbor vitse,

measured with approximate accuracy. Thus, the action
to the brain travels at the rate of 140 or 150 feet in the
second. The action from the brain travels about 100
feet in the second. The rate is slowest in sight, next
•lowest in hearing, and quickest in toach.

PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF RIIND. 7

SECTION II.

PROOF OK THE KXtSTENCE OP MIND.

But, it is asked, wliat evidence have we of the existence
of the soul? Tlie answer is that we know its existence
intuitively, by looking in upon it as it is acting. Weave
conscious of it as perceiving, imagining, thinking, resolv-
ing, hoping, fearing, loving. We have thus evidence
primary and not merely secondary, oi'iginal and not de-
rived ; as certain as we have for matter.

But, then, it is asserted that mind is not different from
matter, that it is a mere modification of matter. It
can be shown in opposition, first, that we know the two
by different organs. We know matter by sense-percep-
tion ; we know mind by self-consciousness. We cannot
by the senses observe any pui-e psychical act. We can
touch our own body or our neighbor's, but we cannot
touch our own soul or his. We can see a colored surface,
but we cannot see a thought. We can taste food, but not
an affection of love or of fear. We can hear a sound, but
not a reproach of conscience. We can smell a rose, but
not a feeling of beauty.

Secondly, we know mind and matter as possessing dif-
ferent properties. We know matter as extended, that is,
as occupying space and being contained in space. We
further know body as resisting our energy and acting on
other bodies. We know mind, on the other hand, as ap-
prehending, judging, reasoning, distinguishing between
right and wrong, as under emotion, as wishing and resolv-
ing. It is acknowledged that we know things only by
their properties, and we know mind and matter to be
different by their manifesting different properties. It ia
a favorite position of some in the present day, that th«>

8 INTRODUCTION.

two are correlates of one another, that they are two sides
or aspects of one and the same thing. But can we attach
any meaning to what we say when we describe thought
as a side or aspect of a stone or of an acid or a piece of
timber ? Just as little can we understand or conceive
that our musings, our fancies, our resolutions should
have solidity, durability, elasticity, hardness, softness,
porosity, pressure, gravity. We thus know them as dif-
ferent things and should so investigate them, and seek to
determine the properties of each. We may afterwards
inquire into their points of connection.

SECTION III.

CAUTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN THE STUDY OF THE MIND.

(1.) Certain ideas must he left behind. — We must not
take materialistic conceptions with us into psychology.
In the natural history of the mind things without us are
noticed before the things within us. We are in con-
sequence exposed to a temptation in beginning in youth
or mature age the discussion of psychical questions: we
apply ideas got from matter to mind. We need to
guard against this. Thus we are not to allow ourselves
to look on mind itself or any of its operations as occupy-
ing space, as extended, or as having figure, as having
weight or levity, height or depth, elevation or depression,
attraction or repulsion, solidity or elasticity, motion or
rest, light or darkness, warmth or frigidity. We have
come to an entirely new country, and we must learn to
accommodate ourselves to the people, to their laws and
customs, and in particular we have to learn their lan-
guage.

(2.) We have to beware of the misleading influence oj
language derived from material objects. — As the individ

CAUTIONS IN THE STUDY OF THE MIND. 9

aal looks without before he pays special regard to the
mind, so in the natural history of society there is an
acquaintance with physical nature before there is a study
of our mental nature ; and our first language is sensible
rather than spiritual. So when philosophers begin to
study the human mind they have either to coin and
employ a new language, which is very irksome, or they
have to adopt the old phrases expressive of external and
extended objects. But the old idea is apt to come in cov-
ertly with the old phrase as we use it. Thus the orig-
inal meaning of " idea," signifying image (first turned to
a philosophic purpose by Plato), is apt to come into our
minds (as it does in Locke's philosophy) with the phrase
as applied even to a mental concept or notion. The terras
employed in various languages to denote the mind —
psyche in Greek, anima^ spiritus, in Latin, ruah in He-
brew, and dtman in Sanskrit, originally signified breath
or wind. " Feeling," at first signifying an affection of
touch, now signifies an emotion such as hope and fear.
" Emotion " is literally a moving out. " Impression," a
fatal word introduced formally into philosophy by Hume,
denotes a mark left on a soft substance by a hard. " Un-
derstanding," now denoting the intellect, refers to some-
thing standing under. "Apprehension" and "concep-
tion," applied to mental acts in which we lay hold of or
bring things together, meant at first a seizing by the
hand. We cannot afford, even at the present advanced
stage of inquiry, to lay aside such phrases ; but when
we use them we must strip them of their materialistic
associations.

10 INTRODUCTION.

SECTION IV.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES.

As there are some wlio doubt whether the mind can
be represented as having Faculties, or at least separate
faculties, it will be necessary to lay down some expla-
nations and limitations.

I. The mind evidently possesses power.

Matter itself possesses power. It is acknowledged to
have properties, and what are properties but powers ? It
has, for example, a gravitating, a chemical, an electric
power. Physical science is seeking to determine the
precise law, rule, and expression of the powers of bodj'.
If matter has power, much more has mind. Tiie powers
of mind are different from those of matter. If the one has
attractive and magnetic powers, the other has powers of
understanding and emotion. The mind has powers, but
not all possible or conceivable powers. Its powers are
bounded. Thus we cannot tell what is doing at this
moment in the planet Venus or the constellation Orion.
Just as physics would determine the precise rule and limit
of gravitation or chemical affinity, so psychology should
try to ascertain and express the precise laws of such
powers as the memory, the imagination, the conscience.

II. TJiat there are different powers in the mind is evident
from the differences in the mental states and affectiont
of different persons.

This conclusion might be drawn from the very differ-
ences between man and brute. The lower animals pos-
sess powers common to them and human beings ; but
there are others, such as the discernment of moral obliga^

CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. 11

tion, which are peculiar to man. But the inference can
be drawn more directly from the circumstance that one
man is distinguished for powers which are either not pos-
sessed by other men or possessed only in an inferior de-
gree. Thus one man has a great tendency to observe
causes, another resemblances ; one has keen emotional
sensibility ever ready to flow out, another a resolute will.
It has further to be noticed, as decisive of the whole
question, that these capacities and inclinations may be-
come hereditary and go down from father or mother to
son or daughter.

■ III. This is further evident from the circumstance that
we are not always ■ exercising every faculty or the same
faculties.

In every given state of mind there seem to be more
than one power in exercise. But all the mental powers
are not in action, or at least in intense action, every in-
stant. At this moment I may be looking at the paper
before me, and at the same time collecting my thoughts
to write this paragraph. Immediately after, I may be
looking at the same paper, but my mind may have wan-
dered off to some imaginary scene in which I and my
friends are figuring. From such a case we see that
memory is different from imagination, for I was remem-
bering when I was not exercising imagination, and imag-
ining when I was not remembering. It is evident, too,
that both memory and imagination are different from
sense ; for we had the senses in the one case without
memory and in the other without imagination.

Some would say that what are spoken of in these ar-
ticles are not different fav^ulties, but different modes of
consciousness. I am not sure that this is an improved
statement or the correct statement. Our perceptions.

12 INTRODUCTION.

recollections, judgments, are not modes of consciousness
the accurate account is that self-consciousness observes
them, and they must exist in order to their being noticed.
But even though they were modes of consciousness, the
question would immediately arise, What are these differ-
ent modes ? And in answering we would be brought
back to different powers leading to the diverse manifes-
tations of consciousness.

IV. The faculties are powers of one indivisible mind.

They do not differ from each other, as the hand does
from the foot, or the lungs from the heart. They are
powers of one existence possessing a variety of attri-
butes.

V. The faculties are not to he regarded as necessarily
operating one after another in regular order or at dif-
ferent times.

The properties of matter often act simultaneously. At
the same time that the iron is chemically combining with
oxygen to form rust, it is attracted to the earth by gravi-
tation, and yet we regard the gravitating and chemical
powers as different. On a like principle we are con-
strained to regard the capacity of sense-perception, when
the object is present, as different from the memoi'y, when
it is absent. It seems clear that several of the mental
powers may be blended in one act. Thus at the same time
that I am judging or deciding, I may be under the influ
ence of hope or fear, of benevolence or prejudice. How
many diverse powers may be exercised at one and the
same time in that blade of grass, or in our finger : the
gravitating, chemical, electric, vital; no one can tell how
many. There may be a like number and diversity of
powers at work in certain of the exercises of the mind, m

CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES. 13

jvhen men are solving perplexing problems, speculative
or practical, or rising to the higher flights of genius.

VI. It is difficult to form a classification of the faculties

which deserves to be regarded as complete.

This arises from a variety of causes. It may proceed
from human incapacity, from the difficulty of penetrat-
ing phenomena which are so fugitive — that is, so briefly
under the view — and so complicated, and from the cir-
cumstance that the faculties very much run into each
other. This is a hindrance not peculiar to psychology.
How difficult do botanists find it to draw out an arrange-
ment of the vegetable kingdom which may include all
and exclude none, which may combine the like and sep-
arate the unlike. Yet they do contrive to draw out such
a classification as is fitted to bring into view the same-
ness and difference of plants. We may in like manner
so distribute the operations of the mind as to unfold their
characteristics and their distinctions.

VII. There may he a classification of the faculties em-
bodying much truth and of eminent practical utility^
though not professing to beperfect.

It is true that the mind is one, but it manifests it-
self in a variety of ways, and its characteristic operations
must be carefully noted and their peculiarities unfolded.
It is only when the acts are marked, distinguished, classi-
fied, and named that we can be said to have any adequate
idea of the nature of the mind. For practical ends, for
the purposes of the orator, the poet, the advocate at the
bar, and the preacher in the pulpit, even for ordinarj
letter- writing and conversation, there must be distinc-
tions of some kind drawn as between the head and the
heart, between the imagination and the judgment, be-

14 INTRODUCTION.

tween the understanding and the will. It is the business
of the psychologist to seize upon real distinctions and
unfold them as accurately as possible, and in this he can-
not err to any extent, provided he follow a careful obser-
vation and be ready to confess that while he exhibits the
truth, it is not the whole truth, and that however much
we know there is always more to man unknown.

VIII. In proceeding to distribute the powers it is first of
all desirable to have some such division as that which we
have of the physical world into the mineral^ the vege-
table^ and the animal kingdoms.

The Eleatic School (500 B. c.) had a loose division
of what are now called the intellectual powers into Sense-
Perceptiou, probable Opinion (So^a), and Reason (A.oyo9).
Plato had a like threefold division, and had a further
division of what is now called the Motive Powers intr
Sensual Feelings, Impulse, and Love. Aristotle gave a
better division into the Gnoetic or Gnostic, translated
Cognitive, and the Orective, translated Appetent or
Motive. This twofold division reappears in the distinc-
tion between the Understanding and the Will, the Intel-
lectual and Active Powers, and popularly the Head and
the Heart. Of a later date some have felt it necessary
to draw distinctions of an important kind between the
various powers embraced in the Will or Heart, and this
led to a threefold division, the Cognitive, the Feelings,
and the Will, a classification adopted by Kant and Ham-
ilton. In this division the Senses must be included
under either the Cognitive or the Feelings, or divided
between them. To avoid this awkwardness there is a
fourfold distribution, the Senses, the Intellect, the Feel-
ings, and the Will. Jt should be observed that in this
iistribution, the Conscience or Moral Faculty hjis nc

CLASSIFICATION OF THE FACULTIES.

place; and those who have carefully noted its operations
will acknowledge how difficult it is to bring it, with its
peculiar ideas of right, wrong, and duty, under any of
the heads named. To avoid these and other difficulties
the following, embracing all the others, is submitted as
a good pi'ovisional division, fitted to expose to view the
leading attributes of the mind.

N. B. It should be noticed: (1.) The Conscience,
which is both a Cognitive and a Motive Power, has the
attributes of both the two heads. (^2.) The Compositive
Power or Imagination can be called a Cognitive Power
only with the explanation that it is cognitive not as it
knows existing objects, but inasmuch as its ideas are re-
productions of cognitions.

FIKST GROUP, THE COGNI-
TIVE.

I. The Simple Cognitive or

Presentative.

1. Sense-Perception.

2. Self- Consciousness.

II. The Reproductive or

Representative.

1. Retention.

2. Recalling Power or Phan-
lasy.

3. Associative.

4. Recognitive.

5. Compositive.

6. Sj'iubolic.

III. The Comparative, dis-

COVKRING REi^AllONa

1. Of Identity.

2. Comprehension.

3. Resemblance.

4. Space.

5. Time.

6. Quantity.

7. Active Propei'ty.

8. Causation,

SECOND GROUP, THE MO-
TIVE.

IV. The Conscience a Cog-
nitive AND Motive Power.

V. The Emotions, with
Motive Principles.

VI. The Will.

1. Wish.

2. Attention.

3. Volition.

16 INTRODUCTION.

' SECTION V.

EDUCATION OP THE FACULTIES

It is often said that education should proceed philosoph-
ically. But there is no agreement among those who
hold this view as to what philosophy is, some preferring
the Scottish, others the Hegelian, and a number in the
present day the Sensational or Materialistic philosophy.
It is more correct and definite to say that education
should proceed psychologically, and when it does so it
proceeds philosophically. But what does this mean ?
It may mean two things somewhat different and yet con-
nected, and both important. It may mean that we edu-
cate the faculties. This should be one of the aims, one
of the main ;iims, of education. Our faculties are in the
first instance mere capacities with a tendency to act.
They are in infants in the form of a seed, or germ, or
norm, and need to be cherished in order to grow and to
be useful. They are all capable of being trained and
should be trained, and education, private and public,
should undertake the work. But the statement that edu-
cation should proceed psychologically may mean some-
thing more. It may signify that education should pro-
ceed according to the genesis and natural growth of
the powers. It implies that we begin with the lower
and go on to the higher powers. Our psychology, if prop-
erly constructed, may greatly aid the science of educa-
tion. It shows us what the faculties are, what their laws
and modes of operation, and it is by knowing these that
we are able to train them. It should show us what
powers first appear, and how one power grows out of an
other; and thus lead us to discover what branches should
be taught and in what order, what should be taught to

EDUCATION OF THE FACULTIES. 17

children and what to tliose farther advanced. For
special purposes, scientific, professional, or practical,
greater pains may be taken with some of these powers
than with others, but at the same time all should be so
far cultivated as to keep the mind properly balanced,
and to prevent it from being one-sided, exclusive, partial,
and prejudiced. Now, these topics may legitimately be
taken up in a work on psychology, at least in an inci-
dental way, as we proceed.
•

BOOK FIRST.

FIRST GROUP: THE SIMPLE COGNITIVE OR PRESENTA-
TIVE FACULTIES.

They are so called because they give us knowledge in
its simplest form — that is, as will be explained, in the
singular and in the concrete ; and because the objects are
now present and presented. Other faculties are also
cognitive, but they proceed on the knowledge acquired
by these primary powers, and they form composite, ab-
stract, and general notions. The other faculties also
look at objects, but these, as in memory, for instance,
are not present ; they have been in the mind before, and
are not presented, but represented. Let us try to dis-
cover what must be the first exercise of the conscious
mind. It must, I apprehend, be knowledge.

Knowledge the First Mental Exercise. — By this is not
meant scientific, that is, arranged knowledge, but knowl-
edge of an object as it presents itself single and with its
qualities. We may suppose that it is a knowledge of our
bodil}' frame, saj' of the tongue or nostrils, or foot or fin-
ger. Not that we as yet know that it is the tongue or
toe, or a member of our complex bodily frame which in
its entirety may as yet be unknown ; yet it may be
knowledge, forming the basis of all higher knowledge,
abstract and general.

(1.) Our knowledge must begin with things appre-
hended as singular. Out of the single things we form
general notions by observing points of resemblance: a?

THE SIMPLE COGNITIVE OR PRESENTATIVE FACULTIES. 19

aaving seen a number of flowers of a particular type we
form the class " rose." This knowledge is also concrete,
that is, of things with qualities. This rose is known as
having a certain form and color. Out of the concrete we
form abstract notions, such as redness.

(2.) If the mind did not begin with knowledge, it could
never reach it by any process of thought. " How can
we reason but from what we know ?" and if we have not
knowledge in the premises, we are not entitled to put it
into the conclusion. David Hume started with " impres-
sions," as of colors, and " ideas," mere reproductions of
these, such as remembered colors, and thus introduced
the most formidable skepticism ever propounded. We
meet the skepticism at its entrance, by holding that our
first conscious experience does not consist of impressions,
but is a knowledge of things.

This generic group comprises two special powers : (1)
Sense-Perception, or knowledge by the senses; (2) Self-
Consciousness, or a knowledge of self in its present state.

CHAPTER I.

SENSE-PERCEPTION.
SECTION I.

ITS NATURE : ORIGINAL, INTUITIVE, POSITIVK.

By this power we get a knowledge of things affecting
us, external to ourselves and extended. The things thu8
known we designate " matter," or " body," correspond-
ing to which we have convenient adjectives, "material"
and "bodily."

In perception, the mind takes cognizance of something
external to the perceiving mind. The ego comes, as met-
aphysicians say, to know the non-ego, or, as I prefer say-
ing, the self knows the not-self. It is not a sensation
merely that is given us, or a feeling ; it is not an idea or
an apprehension, or a notion or a conception ; nor is it a
belief or faith. It is more than a sensation or a feeling,
which may accompany the perception. The experiences
denoted by the other phrases come afterwards, and imply
a previous knowledge. It is not the exact or full truth
to say that I feel an external object, or that I have an
idea of it (which I may have when it is not present), or
that I apprehend it, or have a notion of it, or believe in
it ; the correct expression is, that I have a knowledge of
it, or that I cognize it, a phrase which gives us a corre-
sponding adjective and noun, cognitive and cognition. It
has to be added that the object is known as affecting us
The primary knowledge is thus both objective and sub

UiNi VJKRBITY

ITS NATURE : ORIGINAL, INTUITIVE, POS

jective: that is, of an object, but this as perceived by the
subjective mind. The two are together in the act of cog-
nition, but they are after all separate, and are separated
by every intelligent mind which does not mistake the
aot-self for the self, and never confounds the perception
with the object perceived. The confounding of them is
tlie work of bad reflective or metaphysical philosophy,
and not of spontaneous thought. Let us determine some
points as to our knowledge by the senses.

I. We have sense-perceptions which are ORlQiNAIi and
not derived. Were they not given us by an original en-
dowment they could never be obtained by experience, by
inference, or any other process. Experience, properly
speaking, is only a repetition and collection of what we
have passed through, and if there be not knowledge in
the original experiences, it cannot be had by accumulating
them. As little can it be had by reasoning, except from
premises which contain knowledge of material objects ;
without this there would be an evident illicit process, that
is, we have more in the conclusion than we have in the
premises.

II. Sense-Perception is Intuitive, that is, we look
directly on a material object. I do not inquire at pres-
ent what is the precise object perceived, whether it be
in the bodily frame or beyond it ; how far in, if it be in
the bodily frame, how far out, if it be beyond it. Expla-
nations will require to be given and distinctions drawn
before we can determine what is the precise object. But
whether in the body or without the body, there is an ob-
ject perceived directly as extended and affecting us. This
is the simplest hypothesis, and is accompanied with no
difficulties. Every other supposition lands us in inextri-
cable perplexities. It is certain our consciousness so tes-
tifying, that we do know material objects; but nothing

22 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

coming between us and the object could impart the cog-
nition.

III. Sense-Perception is Positive, and not merely Phe-
nomenal or Relative : that is, it is of things as they ap-
pear, and not of appearances without things, of things
known, and not of the relations of things themselves un-
known.

This proposition is laid down in opposition to two
views commonly entertained in the present day. The
one is the Phenomenal theory of knowledge, which holds
that all we can know originally are appearances, and that
we cannot know what things are except by some further
process, or that we cannot know whether there are things
or no. We meet this unsatisfactory doctrine by main-
taining that we cannot kiiow appeai'ances except as the
appearances of a thing appearing. We do not know all
about this thing, we may not know much about it, but
we are sure that it exists when it appears to us, and
that it is known to us under a certain aspect or as do-
ing something. Even an echo, coming from a hollow in
which nothing is seen, has a reality in vibrations of the
air reaching the tympanum of our ear.

Closely allied to this theory is that of Relativity, ac-
cording to which we do not know things, but merely the
i-elation of one thing to another, to ourselves, or to some
other things. Now this is to reverse the proper order of
nature. We must so far know things before we can dis-
cover their relations. In the discovery of relations we so
far know the things ; we know them as having the quali-
ties which bring them into relation. These positions are
laid down in opposition to three theories which have
been widely entertained, and which it may be useful tc
look at and examine.

THEORIES OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 23

SECTION II.

tHEORIES OF SEXSE-rERCEPTIOX : IDEAL, INFERENTIAL, PHI'
NOMENAL AND RELATIVE : NATURAL REALISM.

The Ideal Theory. According to it the mind does
not perceive the material object, but some idea or repre-
sentation of it, some medium or tertium quid coming be-
tween the object and the perceiving mind. This explains
nothing, and brings in perplexities in addition to those
which belong to the subject itself.

It was introduced to solve the difficulty supposed to
arise from matter being thought to act on mind and mind
on matter. The principle was laid down as early as the
ihiys of Einpedocles, that like could act only on like. So
it was necessary to bring in something to interpose be-
tween the object perceived and the perceiving mind.
According to Democritus, the expounder of the atomic
theoi-y of matter, images (€iS.uA.u) composed of the finest
atoms floated from the object to the mind. Lucretius
has expressed the theory in " De Rerum Natura," lib*
iv. 48-53 : —

" Dico igitur rerum efBgias tenuiaqne figuras
Mittiei- ab rebus summo de corpore rerum,
Quoi quasi membranse vel cortex nominitandast,
Quod speciem ac fonnam similem gerit ejus imago
Ciijuscumque cluet de corpore fusa vagari."

It has appeared in one form or other ever since. It
takes a grosser and a more refined shape. Some look on
the idea perceived as a sort of material figure, like the
image in a mirror or that formed on the retina of the eye
when an object is before it. This removes no difficulty ;
for if this be a material figure, how can so different a sub-
Btance as mind perceive it? With most modern metaphy-
sicians the theory has taken a more spiritual form. Soma

24 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

make the idea an affection of the brain. Most of its sup-
porters do not know what to make of it. With the mora
eensihle the idea is merely the mind apprehending the
object ; but in this case the idea is not the object looked
at, but the mind looking at it. Locke speaks every-
where of the mind perceiving the idea rather than the
thing, and has thus confused his realistic philosophy
and made knowledge consist in the discovery of the con-
formity of our ideas to one another, and not their con-
formity to things. And so the question was raised and
lias been much discussed by Thomas Reid, Sir William
Hamilton, and the Scottish School of Philosophy, as to
whether it is necessary to suppose that there is anything
coming between the perceiving mind and the thing per-
ceived. To allege that there is such a middle agent is
at best a hj^pothesis of which there can be no positive
proof. As a hypothesis it explains nothing, but rather
perplexes everything by bringing in agents, of the exist-
ence of which we have no proof, and which, if they did
exist, would demand new explanations. For we have now
to account, not for the action of body on mind, but for the
action first of body on this idea, and then the action of
this idea on the mind. The simplest, the most satisfac-
tory account is that body acts on mind, and that we per-
ceive the very thing.

The Inferential Theory. — According to it the
knowledge of objects external and extended is got by in-
ference from something else ; from a sensation or from
an undefinable thing called an impression. Some regard
the argument as legitimate, and believe in the existence
of body. Some look upon it as illegitimate, and so hold
that there is no proof of the existence of inatter.

Certain metaphysicians of the French Sensational
School, such as Destutt de Tracy and Dr. Thomai

THEORIES OF SENSE-PERCEPTION. 25

Brown of Edinburgh, held that from a sensation in
the mind we argue the existence of an external world,
and justified the inference. According to this theory
there is first a sensation and then an inference that there
is an external object, the cause of it. For example, the
child notices what it afterwards learns to characterize as
the face of its mother. It finds that it cannot reproduce
this at pleasure, and that there is nothing within itself
to produce it, and it concludes that there must be some-
thing external acting as its cause. It is supposed that
an accumulation of such experiences gives us the idea
which we have of matter. Now, there are manifestly
many assumptions in this supposed process. First, it is
assumed that everything beginning to be must have a
cause. Brown regarded this principle as intuitive, and
so was entitled to use the principle. It might be dif-
ficult, however, to prove that if a child were shut up
within its own self it could at an early date, or at all,
arrive at a belief in invariable causation merely from ex-
perience^ for its experience would habitually be of events
without a known cause. But granting that it could, the
iifl&culty arises, How could the mind think or imagine
anything external of which it has no experience, till, as is
supposed, it has drawn the inference ? But a more for-
midable, I believe an insuperable, objection remains. It
is certain that in our natural idea of, or belief in, an ex-
ternal world, we regard it as extended. But how have we
got this idea? From the experience of a sensation which
is without extension, we are not entitled to argue the ex-
istence of an extended object, as we would have something
in the conclusion, namely, extension, not in the premises.
The reasoning being thus illegitimate, we are driven to
one or other of two conclusions • one, by far the most
reasonable, that we perceive extended objects at onc6

26 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

and intuitively. The other is that matter is and must be
forever unknown to us, — the conclusion drawn from
Brown's view by J. S. Mill and his school, which sets
aside our intuitive convictions.

The Phenomenal and Relative Theories. —
Reference has already been made to these. The former
is a Kantian modification of Hume's doctrine that all
tlie mind perceives through the (supposed) senses are
impressions. Kant saw at once that these impressions
were not knowledge, and could not give knowledge.
Not wishing to assume anything not allowed him by the
skeptic, he took the position, Let us assume that there is
nothing but appearances, and agree to call the things
thus primarily before us presentations, without assert-
ing what they are ; and then he proceeded by a series of
subjective forms to fashion them into a grand intellect-
ual system. But as he had not objective reality in what
he started from, he never could reach it by any formal
process of thought. So his philosophy commenced with
appearances and culminated with subjective forms. I
meet this theory from the beginning by insisting that
appearances must be appearances of something, are in
fact things appearing ; and that in our first mental oper-
ations we know things presenting themselves. Accord-
ing to the other and allied theory we know merely rela-
tions. True, we are able to discover relations, but they
Are relations between things so far known. Our knowl-
edge of relations is of things real or imaginary as related.
We have as clear evidence that we know things as that
ive know the relations of things.

j Natural Realism, or Immediate Perception.—
According to it we perceive the external object directly.
That object may be in our frame, or in a body affecting
our frame. Upon our primitive knowledge "we may

DISTINCTIONS OF NATURAL REALISM. 27)

build other knowledge by further experience, and by legit- 1
imate inferences. But all our experiences throw us back?
on an immediate knowledge of matter. All our reason-'
ings about body imply a primitive cognition on which
they proceed.

It must be left an unsettled question, in regard to
which we may have to seek and obtain further and fur-
ther light, what is the precise object we perceive by the
senses generally, and by each of the senses. Before the
time of Berkeley it was generally believed that we at
once know distance by the eye. Since his time it has
commonly been acknowledged that in this knowledge
there are gathered observations and reasoning involved.
But these acquired perceptions imply primary ones on
which they proceed. It is by such facts, which we know
at once, as the size and brightness of the object and the
intervening objects all seen, that we determine distance
by the eye. Later physiological and psychological re-
search seem to be showing that in the exercise of the
senses there are organic processes and mental processes
deeper down than those which appear on the surface.
But whatever intermediary steps there be, there must
be beyond and beneath them, and this to start with, a
knowledge of body occupying space. Yet in order to
uphold this doctrine certain distinctions must be drawn.

SECTION III.

DISTINCTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN HOLDING THE DOCTRINE
OF NATURAL REALISM : EXTRA-MENTAL AND EXTRA-OR-
GANIC KNOWLEDGE ; SENSATION AND PERCEPTION ; ORIGINAL
AND ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS.

Extra-Mental and Extra-Organic. — All knowl-
edge obtained through the senses is discerned as extra-
mental, that is, as out of and beyond the perceiving

28 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

mind. Our perception of the organs of the body, say
the tongue or the eye, is of something not in the self
cognizing it. But we come to know objects outside our
perceived organs and affecting them. It is thus that on
stretching out our hand or foot we find something, a stone
or board, resisting ; this knowledge may be called extra-
organic. All our cognitions through the senses are extra-
mental ; those through some of the senses, such as the
sight and the muscular sense, are also extra-organic, that
is, they look at objects beyond our bodily frame.

Sensation and Perception. — It may be noticed
that in all our knowledge through the senses there is an-
other element, and that is feeling of some kind. When we
know our hand we may know it in a pleasant or unpleasant
state. We may and we ought to distinguish between the
two. We call the one Perception and the other Sensa-
tion. These always go together. There is never a sen
sation without a perception, say, a perception of our
organism or of an object affecting it. On the other hand,
there is never a perception without a sensation of some
kind, strong or faint, pleasant, painful, or indifferent.
The sensation seems to be a mental affection or feeling
of an organic state.

These two, the perception and sensation, have by no
means the same intensity. It very often happens that
when the perception is strong the sensation is weak, and
vice versa, when the sensation is powerful the pei'ception
may all but disappear. Thus in listening to an instruc-
tive speaker, our attention may be fixed on his words,
of which we wish to ascertain the meaning ; whereas in
listening to music our soul may be exclusively occupied
with the rich sounds. There is a sense in which the
two are in the inverse order, the one of the other. li
the feeling is very strong the object may be very mucV

DISTINCTIONS OF NATURAL REALISM. 29

lost sight of. On the other hand, we may be so absorbed
with the contemplation as scarcely to notice the asso-
ciated sensation. The soldier eagerly engaged in the
fight vvitli the enemy in front of him does not for a time
feel the wound with which he is pierced. In gazing at
a historical painting, we hiay be so interested in the in-
cident as not to notice the coloring ; whereas, in looking
at a flower painting we so enjoy the rich hues as never
to notice the disposition of the flowers. This fact is an
illustration of a more general law of our nature, that
when we fix our attention on one part of a concrete or
complex phenomenon presented, the other parts become
dim, and may in the end very much vanish from the
view.

Original and Acquired Perceptions. — We
have seen that man must have original perceptions.
Such are those of savors by the taste, of odors by the
nostrils, of sounds b}'^ the ear, of a colored surface by
the eye, and of resistance by the muscular sense. Unless
we get these by an original inlet we can never acquire
them by any derivative process. A man born blind can-
not form any understanding or idea of color ; it is Locke
who tells us of the blind man who, on being asked what
idea he had of the color of scai'let, replied that he
thought it to be like the sound of a trumpet. But then
by combining our experiences and by reasoning from
them we can add indefinitely to our knowledge. Thus it
is believed that originally human beings cannot estimate
distance by sight, and yet it is mainly by this sense that
the mature man is able to tell the distance of objects
from one another and from himself. He has acquired a
knowledge of nearness or remoteness by the muscular
Bense, say by the hand pressing along a surface ; but now
he is able by the eye discerning the shade of color or the

30 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

apparent size to determine the distance of an object. In
this acquired knowledge there is first an accumulation of
experiences, and then an argument founded on them.
We shall show that it is by drawing the distinction be-
tween our original and acquired perceptions that we are
able to account for the apparent deception of the senses.
Our original perceptions never deceive us, but, in the
haste of observation and the rapidity of reasoning, we
may pronounce erroneous judgments on our acquired
perceptions.

SECTION IV.

THE senses; general remarks.

I begin my exposition of these by one or two remarks
bearing on them all.

The sensation and the perception of the sensation have
their seat not in the organs of sense, so called, or in the
nerves attached to them, but in the brain. The palate,
the nostrils, the ear, the touch, the eye might all be af-
fected in a regular manner, but there would be no taste,
Bmell, hearing, feeling, nor seeing, unless the action went
up into the cerebrum. Attempts have been made to give
a separate place to each of the senses in the brain. 1
deem it proper, without committing myself, to give the
views on this subject of Professor Ferrier of London, who
has localized the senses. It would appear that rays of
light might reach the eye, pass through the coats and
humors on to the retina and the optic nerve, and yet no
object be seen if the movement did not go on to the local
centre of sight. Seeing is not in the eye but in the brain.

Each sense gives its own sensation and perception.
If the optic nerve is struck, light may be emitted ; if the
auditory, a sound is heard. But one sense cannot be made
jo give the impression produced by another.

THE SENSES; ORGANIC AFFECTIONS. 31

Great aid is imparted to all the senses by motion. This
was dwelt upon by Aristotle, and has smce been noticed
by nearly all physiologists. Were the eyeballs motionless
our knowledge of objects would be attained much more
slowly and would be much more confined. We get a
great increase of information by moving our sense or-
gans, our eyes, our nostrils, or ears, so as catch different
impressions. We would have a very vague idea both
of space and time without locomotion.

SECTION V.

ORGANIC AFFECTIONS.

Those of the nerves of the internal organs of the body,
such as the stomach, the alimentary canal, and the viscera,
also of the physiological acts of respiration, digestion,
breathing, and circulation, and specially of tempera-
ture, which though intimately allied to feeling is yet
separate, may first be considered.

Each of these furnishes a peculiar sensation. The
feelings from the whole are very numerous and very
vai'ied, and may constitute a considerable portion of hu-
man pleasure or human suffering. Such is the comfort
produced by our bodily wants being supplied by air and
water and food, and the stimulating cheerfulness arising
from perfect bodily health. Such are the nervous affec-
lions, painful or pleasant, exciting or dull, irritating or
soothing, depressing or elevating ; and the uneasiness or
pain coming from a diseased bodily frame. In all such
affections the main element is sensation, but mingled with
it, though often very faint, is a perception of the part af-
fected. This is not of any object, extra-organic. We
may, however, by experience and reasoning come to know
that this pain proceeds from a wound produced by a blow

32 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

or from an unhealthy atmosphere. But the original per-
ception is only of an aft'ection of our body of which we
know the direction and in a loose way the locality. But
upon these simple original perceptions we may rear a
bod}'^ of acquired ones. We may come to know, for ex-
ample, what kinds of food and air derange our systems
and what kinds stimulate or strengthen us. The affec-
tions of which I have been speaking constitute a sort of
general sense, which seems to be strong in some of the
lower animals.

The visceral affections are localized by Ferrier in the occipital
lobes of the brain (Fig. 1, D, D', D"). When this part of the brain
is injured the animal will have no relish for its food and will not seek
for it. This sense becomes differentiated into special senses.

SECTION VI.

Its seat is in the upper surface of the tongue, which is
covered with papillae of different kinds, and is supplied
with two nerves, the glosso-pliaryngeal and the gustatory, a
branch of the fifth pair. The matter affecting the tongue
must be in a liquid state in order to its being felt. Taste
is affected by mechanical means, as hj irritating the root
of the tongue. Many seeming tastes may be regarded as
emells ; e. g., an onion and an apple, if the nose be closed,
eannot be distinguished from each other by taste.

The sensations furnished are considerably diversified,
and cannot be classified very accurately or properly des-
ignated as they run into each other. Some are keen and
some insipid, some sweet and some bitter, some luscious
?,nd some acrid. In this sense the sensation is far more
powerful than the perception. Still the perception is al-
ways present. We have a vague knowledge of the tast^

TASTE.

being in our mouth and in a certain relative direction.
Acting on the principle of causation we seek for a cause
of the sensation, and by observation we may find it to bo
some kind of meat or drink, and by a gathered experi-
ence determine what kind of food it is. Some have ac-

fanti'iform paoiUa

DlAoa&ll OF THE TONO0E, showing the eircumvallate papilla, enlarged, with their nerrei
(n, n, n), and taste-bnds, also the fungiform papilla and fha JUiform papilla, and
nerves (n, n) entering them. The nerves to the papillaa are branches of the glosso-
pharyngeal nerve. It has been recently fonnd that the so-called taate-buds occur
on parts of the mouth which have no sense of taste.

quired a great delicacy in distinguishing the qualities of
such articles as wine and tea. But there is no evidence
that by this sense we know originally and intuitively any-
thing beyond our frame. The knowledge is of objects
extra-mental but not extra-organic.

SENSE-PEBGEPTION.

SECTION vn.

SMELL.

Its organ is the nose, and the sensibility is in the mu-
cous membrane lining the upper part of the interior and
the cavities which branch from it. It has a special pair

DiAGBAH or Nose. A, showing olfactory lobe (o//'. /.) from brain, with its ol&ctorr
neryes (o. n.) ; 6 is a branch of the fifth or trigeminal nerre; it sends branches to ttie
lower region of the nose, and also to the palate ; p., palate; p. n., posterior nares
(where the nose opens Into the mouth). B shows the fine olfactive cells (o.c),
ending in soft processes on the epithelium of the nostrils. They alternate with
columnar epithelial cells (c. «.)

of nerves, or rather processes of the brain — the olfac-
tory. An olfactory lobe of the brain proceeds to the
region above each nostril and sends down olfactory nerves
into the upper part of the nostril. These nerves supply
rod-shaped epithelial cells, some wide, some narrow. The
lower part of the nostrils is supplied by nerves of com-
mon sensation from a branch of the fifth or great tri-
geminal nerve.

HEARING. 35

The matter affecting the nostrils must always be in a
gaseous state, and is called odor. Odors are so varied
that we have not specific names for them ; we speak of
them as sweet, fresh, ethereal, stimulating; and of mal-
odors as acrid, nauseous, disgusting. Smell is closely
connected with taste. Both seem to be combined in fla-
vor. Often, by combining the two, we have to determine
the nature and state, whether sound or corrupt, of the
food presented to us. Smell always contains perception,
a perception of our nostrils as affected, but the sensations
are always more predominant. All that we know imme-
diately by this sense seems to be our affected organism.
If the odor is one unknown, we have no idea of the ob-
ject from which it comes. The senses of taste and smell
are the most animal of the senses. Yet smell is capable
of imparting a considerable amount of information, es-
pecially of direction. Some of the lower animals seem
to be guided in their movements by this sense. By it
the dog will follow the track of game or of its master, or
that which it has gone over itself previously, with won-
derful accuracy. As we ascend the scale of animals,
this sense seems to lose its importance and its acuteness.
But by it our acquired perceptions carry us a consider-
able distance beyond our bodily frame, and open to us a
wider world than taste does. Smell and taste are sup-
posed to have their centres not easily distinijuishable in
the Subiculum Cornu Ammonis. (Fig. 2, K., p. 6.)

SECTION vm.

HEARING.

In this sense we have both sensation and perception in
about the same proportion, though sometimes the sensa
tion is the stronger, as in music, and some';iraes the per

ob SENSE-PERCEPTION.

ception, as when we are listening to tbe words of a
speaker. It gives, primarily, a knowledge of our ears as
affected, but by a combined experience we perceive ob-
jects at a distance, and know that this sound proceeds
from the human voice, this other from a drum, or from
the wind agitating the trees, or from a running stream.
The organ of hearing is the ear collecting the sound,

Fig. 5. Hearing.

DuSKAM OF Left Ear. A, general arrangement of parts. B, inner lab/rinth (enlarged)
a., anvil ; amp., ampuUra ; au. n., auditory nerve ; a. «. c, anterior Tertical canal ;
CH., concha, or outer ear ; coch., cochlea ; Eus. c, Eustachian canal ; ex. m., external
meatus ; /. ov., foramen oTale ; /. ro., foramen rotundum ; A., hammer ; A. e., hori-
tontal canal ; p. v. c, posterior Tertical canal ; »t., stirrup.

the middle ear or tympanum with its bones or muscles?
and the internal ear or labyrinth, presenting a spiral shell
called the cochlea, and the semicircular canals, and con-
taining a clear liquid. The matter affecting the organ-
ism is in a state of vibration. Going in by the external
ear, the vibrations strike a membrane, the tympanum,
and aie transmitted to a chain of bones. The stirrup bone

HEARING.

communicates beats to the opening of the labyrinth, and
compresses the liquid, and this affects the auditory
nerve, which carries on the action to the brain. Each
bag of the labyrinth is filled with fluid, and floats in fluid.
It contains mobile ear-stones, that beat like pebbles on
the ciliated epithelium, which is richly supplied with
nerves. The semicircular canals are engaged in main-
taining our equilibrium. Through them rapid rotation
of the body causes vertigo.

Auditory sensations are more delicate and agreeable
than those furnished by any of the other senses, and differ

n
Fio. 7.

Hairs supplied with nerrei
(n) in ampulleo of ear.
The Tibrations of tlie
fliiid move the hairs.

Fig. 6. Heabino.

DiAOBAM OP Fibres op Corti : A c, hair cell ; if, Inner fibre;

n, nerves ; of, outer fibre.

in intensity, in quantity, and in tone.
The melodies and harmonies of mu-
sic stir up emotion, and by their con-
tinuance trains of emotional thought.
The ear can appreciate very nice
differences of sound, and the intel-
lect is roused to interpret the articulate sounds of the
human voice. The fibres of Corti are situated in the
cochlea. They are said to have 6,000 inner, and 4,500
Duter rods, and there are adjoining hair cells well sup-
plied with nerves. They are usually supposed to be or-
gans of music, and every tone affects a proper key of
Corti's fibres. It seems certain that they somehow give
the appreciation of sounds. They enable us to distin-
2uish intensitv of sounds and differences in time.

38 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

Hearing has its centre in the Superior Temporo-sphenoidal Con-
volution (Fig. 1, B). When this is destroyed there is no response
to the usual forms of auditory stimuli, such as calling, whistling, and
knocking.

According to a report by M. Elie de Cyon on the Semicircular
Canals and the Sense of Space (see " Mind," October, 1878): (1.)
Through the semicircular canals we obtain a series of unconscious
sensations bearing on the position of the head in space. (2.) Each
canal has a strictly determinate relation to one of the dimensions of
space. (3.) The loss of movement observed upon section of the canals
is due to the disturbance of the normal sensations of which they
are the organs." It is said we possess in the semicircular canals an
organ " fitted to form a notion of a space in three dimensions." The
semicircular canals are the peripheral organs of the sense of space ;
that is to say, the sensations created through the nerve endings in
the ampullae of the canals serve to form our notions of the three di-
mensions of space, the sensations of each canal corresponding with
one of the dimensions. By means of these sensations, there is
formed in our brain the representation of an ideal space, to which
are referred all the perceptions of objects around us, and the posi-
tion of our body among these objects. The nature of the ideas
given by this apparatus needs to be carefully sifted.

SECTION IX.

TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING.

In it we have sensation and perception more intimately
connected than in any other sense. The sensation arises
from the sensor nerves, proceeding from every part
of the periphery of the body to the sensorlum in the
brain. The organ is the skin, and touch is often called
the skin-sense by the Germans. The skin consists of two
layers, the outer or cuticle, which is meant for protection
and is insensible, and the true skin, with its sensitive
points called papillas lying under. Remove the epithe-
lium and the sense of touch and that of temperature are
lost. The most sensitive parts of the body are the tips
f>f the tongue, of the fingers and the lips ; this is probabl»

TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING.

because of the nei'ves generated at these jtoints by use.
The sensibility may be created from witliin, but is com-
monly awakened by pressure from without, which affects
the papillai and associated nerves.

We are leil naturally (the
nature may have been acquired
by heredity) to refer the action
to the point at which the sensor
nerve terminates. If we prick
a nerve which reaches the raid-
finger, the pain is felt there.
If we stretch or pinch the ulnar
nerve by pushing it from side
to side or compressing with the
fingers, the shock is felt in the
part to which its ultimate
branchlets are distributed,
namely, in the palm and back
of the hand and in the fourth Fig. s.

and fifth fingers
the pressure is varied the prick
ing sensation is felt by turns in the fourth finger, in the
fifth, in the palm of the hand or back of the hand ; and
both on the palm and on the back of the hand the situa-
tion of the pricking sensation is different according as the
pressure on the nerve is varied ; that is to say, according
as different fibres or fasciculi of fibi-es are more pressed
upon than others. The same will be found to be the case
in irritating the nerve in the upper arm " (Miiller's "Phys-
iology " by Baley, p. 740). So strong is this tendency
to localize the sensation at the extremity of the nerves,
that when an arm or leg is amputated the person has
still the feeling of the lost limb. MUller has collected a
.number of such cases. " A student named Schmitz had

According as T)iaQRAm of tactile Corposcle op I'm
CER, with nerres (n) entering it.

40 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

his arm amputated above the elbow thirteen years ago ;
he has never ceased to have sensations as if in the fingers.
I applied pressure to the nerves in the stump, and M.
Sohmitz immediately felt the whole arm, even the fingers,
as if asleep." " A toll-keeper in the neighborhood of
Halle, whose right arm had been shattered by a cannon-
ball in battle, above the elbow, twenty years ago, and
afterwards amputated, has still, in 1833, at the time of
changes of the weather, distinct rheumatic pains which
seem to him to exist in the whole arm, and though re-
moved long ago the lost part is at those times felt
as if sensible to draughts of air. This man also com-
pletely confirmed our statement that the sense of the
integrity of the limb was never lost." When there is a
change made artificially in the peripheral extremities of
nerves, the sensations are felt as if in the original spots,
" When in the restoration of a nose a flap of skin is turned
down from the forehead and made to unite with the
stump of the nose, the new nose thus formed has, as long
as the isthmus of skin by which it maintains its original
nerve-supply remains undivided, the same sensations as
if it were still on the forehead ; in other words, when the
nose is touched the patient feels the impression in the
forehead. This is a fact well known to surgeons, and
was first observed by Lisfranc."

Whatever it may have been originally, all this is now
natural, very probably handed down by heredity. " Pro-
fessor Valentin (' Repert f iir Anat. und Phys.' 1836, p.
330) has observed that individuals who are the subjects
of congenital imperfection or absence of the extremities
have, nevertheless, the internal sensations of such limbs
in their perfect state. A girl, aged nineteen years, in
whom the metacarpal bones of the left hand were very
short and all the bones of the phalanges absent, a row o*

TOUCH PROPER, OR FEELING. 41

imperfectly organized, wart-like projections representing
the fingers, assured M. Valentin that she had constantly
the internal sensation of a palm of the hand and five
fingers on the left side as perfect as on the right. When
a ligature was placed round the stump she had the sen-
sation of formication in the hand and fingers, and press-
ure on the ulnar nerve gave rise to the ordinary feeling
of the third, fourth, and fifth fingers being asleep, al-
though these fingers did not exist. The examination of
three other individuals gave the same results." (lb.
p. 747.)

By the simultaneous sensations we have a perception of
a plurality of points, and we feel our bodily frame, as it
were, round about us, Miiller maintains that in this
way we get a knowledge of the greater number of the
parts of the body and in all the dimensions of space, and
that when our body comes into collision with another
body, if the shock be suflBciently strong, the sensation of
our body to a certain depth is awakened, and there arises
a sensation of the contusion in the whole dimensions of
the cube. If this be true, then this sense gives us a
knowledge of our body as extended in three dimensions.

The primitive knowledge given by this sense seems, as
in the case of taste, smell, and hearing, to be intra-organic,
though of course extra-mental. But by experience we
come to know that there are extra-organic bodies affect-
ing us and the cause of the sensations, and may thus
come with the aid of the muscular sense to be cogni-
zant of the hardness and softness, roughness and smooth-
ness of the bodies touching us. It seems now to be
ascertained that temperature is an affection of the tactile
nerves. It is felt as a sensation of our bodily organs.
The extra-organic cause is determined by experience and
reasoning upon it.

42 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

Touch has its centre in the Hippocampal region. (Fig. 2, K, p. 6,)
" Desti'uctive lesions of this region aboUsh tactile sensation on the
opposite side of the body."

SECTION X.

THE MUSCULAR SENSE.

This is intimately connected with Touch Proper, but
differs from it essentially. The organic apparatus consists
first of a motor nerve, proceeding from the lower part
of the brain to a muscle. We will to move an organ,
say the arm, and the motor nerve carries the action to
the muscle. This part of the process has been called the
Locomotive Energy. We know that the muscle has
been moved and resistance offered, by a sensor nerve
attached and carrying the intimation to the brain. In
this sense as in every other there is sensation, but per-
ception is vastly predominant. By the senses which
have come before us hitherto, we seem merely to know
our frame with its parts out of each other. By this
sense we know objects out of and beyond our body and
as resisting our energy. The senses already noticed have
given us linear direction, probably also surface, plane or
perhaps curved ; they have certainly given us points of
space as separated ; this gives us bodies in three dimen:
sions. We press on a solid body and along its surface,
and along its sides and around it, and thus get the idea
of solidity or impenetrability. The muscular sense, in-
cluding in it the volition and the resistance, first gives us
the idea of Power, Potency, Energy, or Force, out of
which proceeds our idea and conviction as to Causation.

While Feeling and the Muscular Sense are different,
Ibe one being intra-organic and the other extra-organio
yet they commonly act at the same time and together.
They unite to give us the sense of pressure which arises

VISION. 48

from the force with which a body presses on our nerves
of feeling and is resisted by muscular action. A body
is laid on our skin and we estimate its weight by the
amount of force which we use in order to lift it. By
practice people may become very expert in weighing
objects. Those who have to mix materials in definite
proportions can often do so without the use of a machine,
and the officers in a post-office can tell the weight of a
letter by simply placing it on their hand.

SECTION XI.

This is in many i-espects the highest and most intel-
lectual of all the senses. It is also the most complicated.
I am not sure that all its mysteries have yet been cleared
up. Much, however, is known. We have to contemplate
it simply as giving us a perception.

The ball of tlie eye is a globe moving freely in a cham-
ber, the orbit. It has a firm, tough, spheroidal case, the
greater part of which is white and opaque, called the
sclerotic. In front is what is called the cornea, which is
transparent. Light enters by the cornea, and thence
passes into the aqueous humor, consisting mainly of wa-
ter. It then passes through the gateway of the iris into
the denser crystalline lens, where it is refracted ac-
jording to the shape and consistency of the lens. It
now passes through the vitreous humor, which is a sort
■)f jelly, to the retina, where it forms an inverted image
of the object from which it has come. On the retina
it impacts on rods and cones which are connected with
the optic nerve. The estimated number of cones in
the human eye is 3,360,000; the number of rods is
act known. The rods have a pigment which is bleached

SENSE-PERCEPTION.

by liglit and restored in darkness. We do not know tho
full functions of these rods and cones ; they seem, how-
ever, to be connected with the formation of the figure,

Fig. 9. Vision.

DUdKAH or Etes. a, left eye-ball, ehowlng the maseles ; B, right eye in seetlon ; 0|

section of retina, magnified, showing rods and cones, aq. A., aqueous humor ; U. t,,
blind spot ; eo., cornea ; cr. I., crystalline lens ; )>., iris ; I. g., lachrymal gland ; op
com.., optio commissure (the arrows mark the course of the optic tracts to the
brain) ; op. n., optio nerve ; o.s., superior oblique muscle; r.«., rectus externus mus-
cle ; r. I., rectus interuus ; r. m., retinal margin ; r. .t., rectus superior muscle j ret.,
retina ; scl., sclerotic ; ss. lig., suspensory ligament of lens ; (. sh., tendinous sheath
of nerve ; vit. h., vitreous humor ; y. s., yellow spot (where vision is most distinct)
The points of the rods and cones at C are directed baelnoard in the retina.

certainly of the color. There is no vision at the point
where the light falls on the optic nerve, and it is called
the blind spot, which has no cones or rods. Vision is
most acute at a yellow spot which is full of clo.se-8et

VISION 4a

3ones. Distinctness of vision requires that objects shall
be so far apart that their images on the retina sliall reach
more than one cone. The luminous action remains not
only during the time the light is shining, but an appre-
ciable time after. The retina in some persons seems to
be affected in the same way by various colors. This
gives rise to color-blindness, so that the person cannot
distinguish between the green leaves of a tree and it?
red fruit.

There are large muscles, straight and oblique, which
keep the eye in its place and direct its axis, so that we
can carefully gaze on and inspect the object. Were the
eye-ball fixed, our knowledge by the eye would be very
imperfect. INIotion in this sense greatly helps us in our
perception of objects.

Intuitively we perceive by the eye a colored surface,
iind I believe nothing more. This surface is felt as af-
fecting us. But by a gathered experience and reasoning
upon it, we can extend our knowledge indefinitely. It
had been surmised by several persons before, as by Locke,
but was established by Bishop Berkeley, the Irish meta-
physician, in " New Theory of Vision " (1709), that orig-
inally we have no knowledge of linear distance by the
eyes. On looking forward we have simply a perception
,)f a colored surface affecting us, at what distance we can-
not tell. This theory has since been confirmed by the ob-
servation of the cases of persons born blind, but whose
eyes were subsequently couched so that they could se^'.
I shall mention three of these cases.

Cheselden Case. — The boy was between thirteen and
fourteen years of age when his eye was couched by Dr.
Cheselden (see " Trans, of Royal Society," 1727). When
he first saw, he was so far from making any judgmen,*
about distances, that he thought all objects whatevei

46 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

touched bis eyes (as he expressed it), as what lie felt did
his skin, and thought no objects so agreeable as those
which were smooth and regular, though he could form no
judgment of their shape or guess what it was in any ob-
ject that was pleasing to him. He knew not the shape
of anything, nor any one thing from another, however
different in shape or magnitude, but being told, what
things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he
would carefully observe that he might know them again ;
but having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot
many of them, and (as he said) at first learned to know
and again forget a thousand things in a day. One par-
ticular only, though it may appear trifling, I will relate.
Having often forgot which was the cat and which the
dog, he was ashamed to ask, but catching the cat, which
he knew by feeling, he was observed to look at her stead-
fastly, and then putting her down said, " Puss, so I shall
know you another time." We thought he soon knew
what pictures represented which were shown him ; but
we found afterwards we were mistaken, for about two
months after he was couched he discovered at once they
represented solid bodies, when to that time he considered
them only as party-colored planes or surfaces, diversified
with variety of paiuts ; but even then he was no less sur-
prised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things
they represented, and was amazed when he found those
parts which by their light and shadow appeared now
round, and even felt flat like the rest ; and asked which
was the lying sense, feeling or seeing."

Franz Case (" Phil. : Trans, of Royal Society," 1841).
The youth had been born blind and was seventeen years
of age when his eye was couched by Dr. Franz, of Leip-
sic. When the eye was sufliciently restored to bear the
light, " a sheet of paper on which two strong black line?

VISION. 47

nad been drawn, the one hoi'izontal, the other vertical,
was placed before hiin at the distance of about three feet.
He was now allowed to open the eye, and after attentive
examination be called the lines by their right denomina-
tions." " The outline in black of a square, six inches in
diameter, within which a circle had been drawn, and
within the latter a triangle, was, after careful examina-
tion, recognized and correctly described by him." " At
the distance of three feet, and on a level with the eye, a
solid cube and a sphere, each of four inches diameter, were
placed before him." " After attentively examining these
bodies, he said he saw a quadrangular and a circular fig-
ure, and after some consideration he pronounced the one
a sqvare and the other a disc. His eye being then closed,
the cube was taken away and a disc of equal size substi-
tuted and placed next to the sphere. On again opening
his eye he observed no difference in these objects, but
regarded them both as discs. The solid cube was now
placed in a somewhat oblique position before the eye,
and close beside it a figure cut out of pasteboard, repre-
senting a plane outline prospect of the cube when in this
position. Both objects he took to be something like flat
quadrates. A p^n-aniid placed before him with one of
its sides towards his eye lie saw as a plain triangle. This
object was now turned a little so as to present two of its
sides to view, but rather more of one side than of the
other : after considering and examining it for a long
time, he said that this was a very extraordinary figure ;
it was neither a triangle, nor a quadrangle, nor a circle ;
he had no idea of it, and could not describe it ; 'In fact,'
said he, ' I must give it up.' On the conclusion of these
experiments, I asked him to describe the sensations the
objects had produced ; whereupon he said that imme-
diately on opening his eye he had discovered a differenca

18 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

in the two objects, the cube and the sphere, placed be-
fore him, and perceived that they were not drawings ;
but that he had not been able to form from them the
idea of a square and a disc until he perceived a sensation
of what he saw in the points of his fingers, as if he really
touched the objects. When I gave the three bodies (the
sphere, cube, and pyramid) into his hand, he was much
surprised that he had not recognized them as such by
sight, as he was well acquainted with mathematical fig-
ui-es by his touch." " When the patient first acquired
the faculty of sight, all objects appeared to him so near
that he was sometimes afraid of coming in contact with
them, though they were in reality at a great distance from
him. All objects appeared to him perfectly flat ; thus,
although he very well knew by his touch that his nose
was prominent and the eyes sunk deeper in the head, he
Baw the human face only as a plane."

These observations show that the eye takes in surface
and superficial figurie at once, but cannot discern solidity.
If the persons have the use of both eyes, they will ob-
serve the difference between a disc and a solid, but they
would not be able to say till they feel it that the latter
is a solid. It requires to be added, that those who have
their sight thus given them require observation and
thought to reconcile the information they had got from
touch with that which they are now receiving from sight ;
just as people who have learned two languages, say Ger-
man and French, require practice in order to enable them
readily to translate the one into the other.

Another portion of this report is worthy of being re-
corded, as showing how the memory and the fancy depend
»n the senses. " Though he possessed an excellent mem-
ory, this faculty was at first quite deficient as regarded
riaible objects ; he was not able, for example, to recog-

VISION. 49

aize visitors, unless he beard them speak, till he had seen
them very frequently. Even when he had seen the ob-
ject repeatedly, he could form no idea of visible qualities
in his imagination without having the real object before
him. Heretofoi'e, when he dreamed of any persons, of
his parents, for instance, he felt them and heard their
voices, but never saw them ; but now, after having seen
them frequently, he saw them also in his dreams."

Trinchinetti Case. — Mr. Abbot (in " Sight and
Touch ") gives an account of the observations of Trin-
chinetti : " He operated at the same time on two patients
(brother and sister), eleven and ten years old respectively.
The same day, having caused the boy to examine an orange,
he placed it about one metre from him and bade him try
to take it. The boy brought his hand close to his eye, and
closing his fist found it empty, to his great surprise. He
then tried again a few inches from his eye, and at last.
in this tentative way, succeeded in taking the orange,
When tlie same experiment was tried with the girl, she
also at first attempted to grasp the orange with her hand
very near the eye, then, perceiving her error, stretched
out her forefinger and pushed it in a straight line slowly
until she reached her object." Trinchinetti "regards
these observations as indicating that visible objects were
in actual contact with the eye." Other patients have
been observed (by Janin and Duval) to move tlieir hands
in search of objects in straight lines from the eye.

But while the perception of distance is not an original
endowment of sight, it can be acquired. It should be
noticed that in this acquisition we are much aided by
*he circumstance that while we do not by the eye per
aeive distance from us, we see a flat surface with a dig*
tance between the sides.

Means hy which we are able to estimate Distance by the

50 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

8en»e of Sight. — For near objects there are three special
aids provided in the organism itself, and there are others
for more distant objects,

(1.) When we look at near objects the pupil slightly
contracts, and the anterior surface of the crystalline lens
becomes more convex. The process by which this is done
is a somewhat complex one, in which there is probably
both reflex and voluntary action. As it takes place
there is a strain in the action of the eye, and intimation
is given of this by the attached nerves. When this strain
is felt we know by experience that the object is near.

(2.) There is a difference of the parallelism of the rays
of light according as the objects are near or remote.
When objects are at a distance the rays that come from
them are virtually parallel, and the eye keeps its normal
shape in receiving them. But when objects are near the
rays are not parallel even approximately, and the eyes
are strained in taking them in. Announcement of this is
given to the mind, not by the eye-balls directly, but by
the attached muscles. We come to argue that the ob-
ject is near when the muscles are strained.

(3.) There is a difference, according as the object is
remote or neai-, of the image produced on the retina by
each of the two eyes. When the object is at a distance
the figure given by the two eyes does not differ much from
that produced by one. But when it is near there is a
sensible difference. Place the back of a closed book be-
fore the eyes, twenty feet away, and there will be little
difference between the form as given by two eyes and
by one. Place it a foot away, and we see much more of
the two sides by the two eyes than by one. There are
Other means which apply to objects at all distances.

(4.) There is the difference of relative size of the felt
impression on the retina, as the objects are near or dis-

VISION. 51

fcant. A penny placed close to the eye may occupy the
whole field of vision, may, according to the proverb, hide
the sun from the view. Place it at some distance and
it will occupy a comparatively small space in the figure
painted on the retina.

(5.) When an object, say a watch, is at a distance, the
rays of light that come from it produce a much feebler
impression on our organism than when it is near. We
argue that an object is far off when its color is faint and
its outline hazy. We infer that it is near when its color
is bright and its figure distinct.

(6.) In our reasonings about the distance of objects we
are much guided by the number of intermediate objects
on which the eye can rest. When these objects are
numerous we conclude that the object must be at some
distance, and when they are few we are apt to argue
that it must be near. This rule often enables us to guess
very rapidly at the distance of objects. On the other
hand, as we shall immediately see, it may often lead ua
into error by being illegitimately applied.

(7.) We are often guided in our estimate of the dis-
tance of an object by its known size. The object, let me
suppose, is evidently a human being, a man or woman,
and occupies a certain place in the retinal affection. The
image is very small and we conclude that the object, man
or woman, must be at a distance. Or, it is large, and
we infer that the object is close to us.^

When both eyes are in healthy exercise there is a
double image on the retina. But the object is seen

i"I shall say nothing," says Sidney Smith, "of the moral
method of measuring distances ; *he distance from home to school in
?he days of our youth being generally double the distance from
ichool to home, and so with all other passages which quicken or r^
terd the feeling of I'me."

52 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

though there be only one image. The object Is perceived
as single when the images are thrown on the proper parts
of the retina. When they are not so, the object may be
double or misplaced.

The image on the retina is inverted. The arrow with
the point up has the point down in the retinal image ;
yet the object is seen upright. This circumstance has
puzzled many. The puzzle arises from the circumstance
that people imagine that there must be an inner eye of
some kind looking at the retinal image ; whereas that
image is not seen by any but the physiologist pursuing
his researches. It is, in fact, a mere mechanism, or
means to let us know the shape and direction of the
object; and it is governed by the law of visible direc-
tion, which is, when the rays strike the retina we trace
them back along the line by which they have come.
The rays at the base of the retinal figure have come from
the top of the object, say an arrow, and we place them
at the top, while those at the top have come from the
foot, thus giving the object its real position.

We are now in the heart of a subject which deserves a
brief separate consideration.

SECTION XII.

OUR ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS.

They are acquired by a gathered observation and by
reasoning from this. In Taste our original perception is
of the palate as affected, but Ave infer from repeated
eases that this taste is caused by water and this by bread
or by beef, and the perception by practice may become
very acute. In Smell, we know at first only an affection
of the nostrils, but we come to know by reasoning upon
experience that this odor proceeds from a rose and this

OUR ACQUIRED PERCEPTIONS. 53

Dther from a lily, at this side or that side of us, according
as it affects more strongly the right or the ]ef t nostril, and
that the known smell must come from a near or remote
object according to its intensity. In Feeling we seem to
perceive intuitively only the peripherj' of our bodies, but
we conclude that this agreeable sensation comes from a
wholesome atmosphere, and this painful one from a blow
or from excessive heat or cold. In Hearing we know
directly our ear as affected, but we gather that the sound
comes from the right when it is stronger in the right ear
and from the left when it is more intense in the left ear ;
and that this sound is issued by a human voice, and this
other by the wind or by a drum. By the muscular
sense we may come to know very accurately the pressure
implied in a blow, or the weight of au object lying on
our hand or any other part of the body. Attention has
been already called to the way in which we are able to
estimate distance by sight. There are other acquired
ocular perceptions which should be noticed.

We judge of the size of objects by comparison of them
with other objects whose size we know. I see a plant
unknown to me alongside a figure which I know to be
that of a cow, and I determine the height of the plant be-
cause I am acquainted with the height of the cow. Pro-
ceeding on this principle, a painter, when he wishes us to
appreciate the height of a building, or of a pi-ecipice,
places a man or woman in front of it. If he wishes us
to know that this animal is a foal, he places beside it a
full-grown horse.

We can come to know the solidity of objects by means
of binocular vision. Primarily, we become acquainted
witli the three dimensions of bodies by means of the mus-
cular sense, by which we feel round them and grasp
them. The eye, we have seen, perceives intuitively only

54 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

a colored surface, and a solid is noticed as a plane sur-
face. No doubt it might see a sphere and a cube to be
different, but it would not discei'n the cube to be a cube.
But when a solid object is not remote, each eye gives a
different aspect of it. By combining the two perspec-
tives, we come to know the object as having three dimen-
sions. Those who have but one eye make up for their
want by moving the head from side to side, so as to obtain
the same views as are to be had by the two eyes.

"Mr. Saunderson, the blind matliomatician, could distinguish by his
hand, in a series of Roman medals, the true from the counterfeit,
with a more unerring discrimination than the eye of a professed vir-
tuoso, and wlien he was present at the astronomical observations in
the garden of the college, he was accustomed to perceive every cloud
which passed over the sun. Tliis remarkable power, which has some-
times been referred to an increased intensity of particular senses, in
many cases evidently resolves itself into an increased habit of atten-
tion to the indications of all those senses which the individual retains.
Two instances have been related to uie of blind men who were much
esteemed as judges of horses. One of these, in giving his opinion
of a liorse, ileclared him to be blind, though this had escaped the ob-
servation of several persons who Iiad tlie use of their eyes, and who
were with some difficulty convinced of it. Being asked to give an
account of the principle on whicli he had decided, he said it was by
the sound of the horse's step in walking, which implied a peculiar
and unusual caution in his manner of putting down his feet. The
other individual, in similar circumstances, pronounced a horse to be
blind of one eye, though this also had escaped the observation of
those concerned. When he was asked to exi)lain the f.act on which
he formed his judgment, he said he felt the one eye to be colder than
the other. It is related of Dr. Moyse, the well-known blind philos-
pher, that he could distinguish a black dress on his friends by its
smell, and there seems to be good evidence that blind persons have
acquired the power of distinguishing colors by the touch. In a case of
this kind mentioned by Mr. Boyle, the individual stated that black im-
parted to his sense of touch the greatest asperity, and blue the least.
Dr. Rush relates of two blind men, brothers, of the city of Philadel-
phia, that they knew when they approached a post in walking across a

APPARENT DECEPTION OF THE SENSES. 55

street, by a peculiar sound which the ground under their feet emit-
ted in the neighborhood of the post ; and that they could tell the
names of a number of tame pigeons with which they amused them-
selves in a little garden, by only hearing thera fly over their heads.
I have known several instances of persons affected with that extreme
degree of deafness which occurs in the deaf and dumb, who had a
peculiar susceptibility to particular kinds of sounds, depending appar-
ently upon an impression communicated to their organs of touch or
simple sensation. They could tell, for instance, the approach of a
carriage in the street without seeing it, before it was taken notice of
by persons who had the use of all their senses. An analogous fact is
observed in the habit acquired by the deaf and dumb of understand-
ing what is said to them by watching the motion of the lips of the
speaker." (Abercrombie's '* Intellectual Powers.") " An American
Indian has such acute sight that he can discover the prints of his
enemies' feet, can ascertain their number with the greatest exact-
ness, and the length of time which has elapsed since their passage;
he can discover the fires and hear the noises of his enemies when no
sign of the contiguity of any human being can be discovered by the
most vigilant European." (Smith's " Moral Philosophy.")

SECTION XIII.

APPARENT DECEPTION OF THE SENSES.

The Greek philosophers, down to the time of Aristotle
(who corrected the mistake), represented the senses aa
deceiving us. The distinctions we have drawn, especially
that between our original and acquired perceptions, ena-
ble us to stand up for the trustworthiness of our sense-
perceptions. Our original perceptions are all true to
facts ; but there may be mistakes in the steps we take in
forming our derivative perceptions. Our observations
may be limited, and we may argue from them as if they
were unlimited. The taste in the mouth, as a mere or-
ganic affection, is always what we may feel it to be ; but
we may draw a wrong inference as to the object in the
mouth, as to whether it is beef or mutton, aa to wbethei

66 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

it is sherry or madeira wine ; and when our palate or
stomach is deranged, we may regard sound meat as un-
sound. We cannot be mistaken in regard to the smell
as a sensation, but we may err in our conclusion that it
is produced by a certain object in a certain direction at
a certain distance. For our convenience we lay down
rules for our guidance as to the objects falling under the
senses, which are coi*rect enough for ordinary purposes,
but fail and mislead us in exceptional circumstances.
Sounds come to our ears in straight lines, but the sound
coming from a bell may be diverted by a building in the
way, and we trace the sound to the direction from which
it has last come. A man with an amputated limb places
the pain in it, because it is precisely what he would have
felt if the limb had been entire.

The supposed illusions are most numerous in the use
of the sense of sight, and this because there are so many
observations and ratiocinations implied in our judg-
ments in regard to the position and distance of objects
by that sense. We are accustomed to estimate distances
of an object by the number of visible objects coming be-
tween us and it ; and we are apt when we are looking
across a lake or an arm of the sea, a level plain or a
waste of sand, to regard them as much nearer than they
are. We are apt to draw a wrong inference when things
are seen across a surface of snow. " We had frequent
occasion," says Captain Parry, " in our walks on shore to
remai'k the deception which takes place in estimating the
distance and magnitude of objects when viewed over an
unvaried surface of snow. It was not uncommon for us
to direct our steps towards what we took to be a large
mass of stone at the distance of half a mile from us, but
which we were able to take up in our hands after one
minute's walk. This was more particularly the case

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 57

vrhen ascending the brow of a hill." In all these rea-
sonings we start from an assumed position and may pro-
ceed illegitimately. When he feels himself to be at rest
on the deck of a ship which may in the meanwhile be
starting from the shore, the countryman starts up in
alarm, for he believes, momentarily, that the shore is
moving. When we are looking out of a railway car-
riage on a train starting, we may feel as if we are mov-
ing, because the carriage we are looking at seems sta-
tionary, and we are not assured of the contrary till we
see it passing an object which we know to be stationary,
when, be it observed, we at once accommodate ourselves
to the actual position. " I remember," says Abercrom-
bie, " having occasion to pass along Ludgate Hill, when
the great door of St. Paul's was open and several per-
sons were standing in it. They appeared to be very lit-
tle children, but on coming up to them they were found
full-grown persons. In the mental process the door had
been taken as of a certain magnitude (much less than it
actually was) and the other objects were judged by it."
In a mist the boy seems a man and the man a giant,
because in our common experience the objects seen so
dimly are at a distance, and this boy or man being at
such a distance must be very large to fill such a space
in our eye.

SECTION XIV.

SUPPLEMENT AKT NOTES.

NOTE I.

AS TO WHAT WE PRIMARILT PERCEIVE,

Physiologists are seeking to find out the organic processes involved
in the exercises of the Senses. Pvschology should seek to deter-
mine what is the primary exercise of the conscious mind in Sense-
Perception.

58 SENSE-PERCEPTIOiN.

Certain German savans have been making diligent inquiry into
the nature of the organic processes. Weber made some curious ex-
periments as to the relative sensibility of different parts of the body,
showing how much more sensitive the tip of the tongue is than the
back. Lotze has been experimenting and speculating as to the
origin of our notion of space, and discovers in each of the senses
local signs which indicate the difference of an impression from
others. According to my view all these local signs are in the or-
ganism, and are acknowledged to be movements there, and are at the
best the mere prompters of the notion of space, and do not contain
in themselves the notion of space or any other idea whatsoever.
Fechner, in his "Psychophysic," has sought to determine the relation
of the exciting cause to the sensation, and thinks he has proven that
the sensation is not directly as the excitation, but the sensation in-
creases as the logarithm of the excitation. Delboeuf and Hering
dispute the conformity of this law to facts. It is certain, I think,
that the law is a physiological and not a psychological one, is a law
of the organism and not of the conscious mind. Wundt regards ex-
ternal impressions as mere signs to be interpreted; and maintains
that they are interpreted by unconscious reasoning, which is the
primary element of all thought. This view places reasoning prior to
the notion and the judgment, which is contrary to the almost universal
opinions of philosophers, and is supported by no evidence except that
of a hypothesis of unconscious mental operations of which we have
no proof. Helmholtz, who is a physicist rather than a metaphysician,
divides the theories as to the origin of our ideas of space into nativist
and empiricist. He opposes the nativist theory in the shape it takes
in the philosophy of Kant, according to whom space is an a priori
form in the mind imposed on objects. I do not believe in any
Buch forms. According to the view expounded in this chapter the
conscious mind has a native capacity of perceiving matter as pre-
sented to it. All these German theories may be modified if not set
aside, if it be true, as Ferrier maintains, that each sense has an organ
in the cerebrum, and that there is no perception unless the organic
affecliun reaches the brain. Ferrier tells us that " on destruction of
the angular gyrus the loss of vision is complete and permanent."
(For the German theories see "La Psychologic Allemande Con-
teniporaine," par Th. Ribot, translated by J. M. Baldwin.)

The microscope has not yet been invented which is fitted to show
us the working of perception or any intelligent act of the mind. In
oi'dcr to get iuformatioa we have now to employ, not the senses, but

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 69

ihe consciousness. And there is a difficulty in determining what i«
the first conscious act. We cannot look into the soul of the infant
when it is in the womb, nor for a considerable time after. It can-
not express any of its affections except pleasure or paiu, — say by a
Bmile or a cry, — and we do not remember our early experience. In
mature life it is found that the various physical and psychical acts
are so mixed that it is difficult to separate them. Still, we can bj
self-consciousness look at our mental acts and observe what they are,
We notice that in all of them there is a perception of an extended
object within the organism or beyond it. Consciousness further tes-
tifies that in mature life we know matter as resisting our energy, cer-
tainly by the muscular sense, probably by all the senses. But neither
of these can be had by reasoning or by development from a premise
which does not contain them. They must therefore be given and
not derived, intuitive and not acquired, premises and not a conclu-
sion.

Let physiology penetrate as far as it can into the secrets of the
organism, say in sight, into the structure of the eye, of the optic
nerve, and it may be of the angular gyrus in the brain. But let it
modestly stop when it comes to something which cannot be seen or
touched, which cannot be weighed or measured. At that point let
psychology take up the investigation and inquire what is the nature
of perception, memory, reasoning, and other conscious acts. Physi-
ology seems to declare that all that passes through the organism,
through the nerves and brain, are vibrations. If it be asked, as haa
•Uready been asked by Lotze, How can vibrations produce percep-
tions? I answer that the question of how (the Sidn of Aristotle) is
often difficult to answer. That there are vibrations is certain, that
there are conscious perceptions is also certain. To determine their
precise relation is acknowledged by all to be a perplexing question.
The answer to it is not made easier by bringing in a tertium quid of
any kind. If this medium is of the nature of matter, the question
follows, How it can influence mind? If it is of the nature of the
mind. How can it act on matter? If it is of the nature of neither,
the unanswerable question is put, How can it operate both on mind
and matter? While we cannot answer such questions, we can say
that the conscious mind perceives matter as extended and solid. We
may regard this as a native capacity of the cognitive mind until it it
resolved into something simpler.

The most satisfactory position is that the mind perceives matter,

hat by all the senses it perceives the organism, and that by two of

60 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

the senses, sight and the muscular sense, it perceives objects affect*
Ing the organism. Let us assume that perception is one of the ca-
pacities of mind, and probably we are as near the truth as we can
possibly be. In the mature mind perception is a property of mind,
just as certainly as gravity is a property of matter or assimilation of
life. As it cannot be derived from anything else, from material
action or vital action, we must regard it as original and primary.
We may assume that in it we perceive things as they are. We per-
ceive objects within or beyond our frame as extended and as affected.
True, we do not perceive the vibrations, which we know only by the
aid of science, but we perceive the affections produced by the vibra-
tions. These affections are in space, and the mind perceives them
as in space. Thus a muscular action, say the movement of the arm,
is in space. The affections of the palate, the nostrils, the ear, are
all perceived as in a certain direction and extended. They are per-
ceived as affections, as affected, as resisting. We thus get at the
first perception, and in all subsequent perceptions of body, extension
and resisting power, which we may regard as the primary and uni-
versal properties of bodies.

NOTE n.

THE FOUNDATION LAID IN PHYSICAL NATUKE FOR CONTINUED
ACTION, FOR DEVELOPMENT AND YET FOR PERMANENCE.

Every bodily substance contains a certain capacity of energy; this
is quite as certain as that it contains a certain amount of particles.
This constitutes the basis of the conservation of energy, a doctrine
which follows from the nature of body when properly apprehended.
This energy is shown in one body acting on another by its proper-
ties. The force operates when the conditions implied in its nature
are supplied. A stone must fall to the ground if unsupported. Hence
the perpetual changes in nature so fondly dwelt on by Heraclitus and
the ^iK6ao(poi Peovres.

The forces in the agents which act as the causes are not lost. In
all physical causation there are two or more agents in the cause.
\n the action there is a change in each of the agents; for example,
both in the oxygen and hydrogen which combine to form water; but
ihe substances, the oxygen and hydrogen, abide with their capacities.
This is the rh 6y of the Eleatics, which never changes. There is thus
»n the one hand, a " persistence of force," as Herbert Spencer calls it,
and at the same time a succession of actions. This continaance witk

ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES. 61

mutation is evidently under a Divine order which takes the form of
law. There is a sense in which all action is development, or evolu-
tion : the force comes out of the original energy in bodies. By their
mutually adapted action, the forces often run in lines or races
which are so arranged as to be periodical, they return according to
. their circuits, as for example, the seasons do, spring, summer, au-
tumn, and winter, and the plant is after its kind.

SECTION XV.

ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.

The senses are all capable of being educated. Our
tastes may be made more delicate, and may keep us from
using deleterious food. The sense of smell may be culti-
vated, and add to our enjoyments ; and odors, especially
by means of flowers, may be provided to gratify it. Hear-
ing may be improved and made more sensitive and accu-
^ rate. Music is a source of pleasure, which may be en-
} hanced till it becomes elysian. Feeling may be made
very delicate in its perceptions, and capable of distin-
guishing very nice differences of object. The senses of
pressure and of weight may be so trained as to give ua
very accurate measurements. But the eye is the most
intellectual of all our sense-organs, enabling us at a glance
to take in the vast and the minute, the near and the dis-
tant.

All these should be cultivated by training in the fam-
ily and at school. Children should be taught from their
earliest years to use their senses intelligently and habit-
ually. They should be encouraged to observe care-
fully the objects around them, and taught to describe
and report them correctly. It has been said that there
are more false facts than false theories, and this arises
from pei'sons not being trained to notice facts accurately,
neither adding to them nor taking from them, nor gilding
them by the fancy, nor detracting from them to serve an

62 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

and. Pictures and models are used very extensivel3' in
modern education, and serve a good purpose, as they call
in the senses to minister to the intellect. But the things
themselves are vastly more instructive than any represen-
tations can be. So children should be taught to use
their senses, especially their ears and their eyes, in ob-
serving the objects around them, and the events that
occur, and storing them up for future reflection. Plants
and animals and stars, men and women and children, fall
under our eyes at all times, and their nature, shapes, and
actings should be diligently scanned for practical use and
for scientific attainment. Not, indeed, that every fact
can be noted ; for this would lay a burden on the mind
which it cannot bear. Pains should be taken not to dis-
tract the mind by too great an accumulation of details,
BO as to prevent the rise and action of the reflective fac-
ulties. But the habit of careful observation should be
acquired in early life, and facts stored up in all depart-
ments which we mean to study or to use in our future
lives.

SECTION XVI.

KNOWLEDGE GIVEN BY THE SENSES.

Having looked at the senses individually, let us now
weigh the results they yield when they are combined in
their action.

The Knoivledge of Our Bodily Frame. — This acts, I
believe, as the starting-point of all our knowledge of
extra-organic objects, and furnishes a standard and a.
measure. Let us try to ascertain, in a general way, what
this combined organic knowledge amounts to. By each
of the senses we have a knowledge of parts of our frame
as affected. Already, then, we have a knowledge con-
Crete of things as in space. The part affected odorouslv

KNOWLEDGE GIVEN BY THE SENSES. 63

18 in one direction ; the part affected by bearing in an-
other direction ; that affected by color in a third ; and so
with the other senses ; each sense locahzes an organ, pal-
ate, nostrils, ear, eye, while touch proper gives a knowl-
edge of the direction and locality of affections in every
part of the body, and the muscular sense makes known
the spot at which the energy is exerted. By combining
this knowledge, we come to have a considerable and a
familiar acquaintance with our bodily frame, with the
parts, and affections thereof. It is, after all, however,
very loose and imperfect, till we are able to perceive the
body, as it were, ab extra, till we touch and handle it,
and see the outside form of it. We know the shape of
our bodies all the more distinctly from observing the fig-
ures of men and women around us. The peasant girl
gains a large amount of interesting information when she
sees her face and figure reflected in the water, or more
perfectly in the mirror. When affected with the tooth-
ache, we know the general direction of the pain, but may
not be able to tell in what tooth it is, as the same is
known by the tongue or hand ; it is certain that we can-
not in this way know the form of the tooth. But, when
we have toothache, we try to find out, by touch or sight,
the tooth in which the pain is. This may illustrate the
way in which we combine the intimations given by the
different senses. As the result of all the steps, intui-
tive, experiential, and inferential, we carry with us al-
ways, and wherever we go, a sense of our circumambient
body and of its several parts, of its capable acts and sus-
ceptible affections, and round this, as a nucleus, we gather
information, and all our knowledge of objects beyond our
^rame is referred to this as the centre of our world.

Our Combined Extra-organic Knowledge. — At the
Vttry same time that we know our bodily frame we have

S4 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

a certain amount of knowledge of objects beyond it ; we
seem to take in a colored surface by the eye, and by the
muscular sense we know objects as resisting our energy.
Upon this foundation laid by nature we may rear an im-
mense superstructure. Acquainted with the structure of
the sensory organs, the boy is able to fix the direction
of objects affecting them, of objects seen and touched ; of
that face which he sees, of that yoice which he hears, of
that arm that holds him, and he is soon able to trace them
all to one person, his nurse or his mother. Thus do we fix
the qualities discerned by different senses in one object.
We smell an apple, we see its color and outline, we take
it into our hands and feel its shape, we press it and as-
certain its hardness, and we hear the sound the crushing
makes. Henceforth the very smell or sight brings these
qualities, or a number of them, before us, is associated
with these qualities, and is conceived by us as possess-
ing them. We expect everything that smells so, even
when we do not see or touch it, to have a certain shape
and consistency, and a certain taste in the mouth. We
thus come to be surrounded by objects, with qualities at-
tached to them, in our apprehension. We distribute ob-
jects in the room, doors, tables, chairs, desks, books, pic-
tures. We know the place, and, so far, the properties of
every object under our view in nature, of the trees, the
fields, the meadows, the rivers, the clouds, the sun, moon,
and stars. We learn by degrees the purposes served by
the things before us. That object is a chair, with a piece
of dress lying on it ; that other is a table, with food on
it ; that other a horse, on which we may ride. As oui
observation and experience widen, our world enlarges i
the known things in it become more numerous, and we
know them more fully and accurately. In particular, we
become acquainted with innumerable beings with lik?

QUALITIES OF MATTER. 65

thoughts and sentiments as ourselves. We have at last
not just a universe, but a cosmos with earth and air,
plant and animal, with sun, moon, and stars, some of
them at incalculable distances, and with innumerable
living beings possessed of immortality. It should be no-
ticed that all this knowledge radiates from our sensitive
and conscious self. We place all these objects around us,
in a certain direction from ourselves, and we compi-ehend
them from the way in which they would affect us.

SECTION XVII.

QUALITIES OF MATTER: EXTENSION AND ENERGY.

Primary Qualities. — In all our sense-perceptions, even
those simply of our bodies, there are qualities known.
Some of these are called Primary. They are found in
body, as Locke expresses it, in whatever state it be.
They are so called also, because, as Reid says, our senses
give us a direct knowledge of them. I doubt much
whether we are able to determine with clearness and cer-
tainty what these are. Physical science will not pretend
to fix on them absolutely. Metaphysics has no right to
settle such a question. But it may be safely said that
there are two such qualities : one of these is Extension
and the other is Energy.

Extension is certainly an essential quality. Every
form of matter possesses it. The intelligent mind directly
perceives body as extended. By an easy process of ab-
straction we can separate the extension from the body as
possessing other qualities and have the idea of extension
or space. Hamilton evolves it from two catholic condi-
tions of matter : " The occupying of space and being
contained in space. Of these the former affords (A)
trinal extension explicated again into (1) divisibility ;
(2) size containing under it density of gravity ; (3) fig-

36 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

are ; and (B) ultimate imcompressibility ; while the latter
gives (A) mobility, and (B) situation."

Energy under certain forms is also an essential qual-
ity. Matter is known as affecting us and as resisting our
action. True, it is only by a gathered experience that we
know what forms physical energy takes, and find the
nature, extent, and limits of the action, as, for instauce,
of gravitation and chemical affinity. But we seem in
all our cognitions of body to know it as acting on us
even as we know ourselves as acting on it. There is no
form or state of body, solid, liquid, or gaseous, which
does not possess this power which is exercised in our per-
ception of it. It should always be acknowledged that
matter may possess other essential attributes, as these
may be known to other intelligences who penetrate into
the nature of things. But these seem to be the only
essential qualities known to us.

Organic Affections, called not very happily the Sec-
ondary Qualities of Matter. In regard to what second-
ary qualities are, such as smells, tastes, sounds, colors,
there has been much controversy gendered of confusion,
and many wrong inferences have been drawn. It is
asked whether there is color in the rose, sound in the
drum, odor in the violet, taste in the mutton. If we
answer that there is, then it is shown conclusively that
colors consist of vibrations, as do also sounds, and that
tastes and smells are mere liquids and vapors affecting
our palate and nostrils. But when we are driven to
allow that there is no reality in these secondary qual-
ities, it is argued that there may just be as little m the
primary qualities, such as extension and resistance, which
may be mere sensations of the organism or creations of
jhe mind. The logicval conclusion is idealism such aa
that of Berkeley.

QUALITIES OF MATTER. 67

The secondary qualities have an existence simply in
our animated and sentient frame. Their office is to make
known the state of our bodies. They do not reveal di-
rectly the properties of bodies beyond our organism ; but
they prompt us to inquire into the cause of the affections
when we find them to consist of the mechanical or chem-
ical properties of objects. It is thus that the sensation
of heat or cold leads us to inquire into the state of the
temperature, and that certain odors may send us out in
search of malaria.

There is an ambiguity in the phrases, sounds, tastes,
colors, heat, and the like. They may mean simply affec-
tions of the sense, nerves, or the bodilj'' qualities which
produce the affection. Thus " heat " may mean the
frame under a certain sensation or a mode of motion. It
is of importance that when we are using these phrases
we understand and explain what we mean by them.
When we speak of feeling heat we do not mean a mode
of motion, which is in fact the cause of our feeling.

It will be found that in all our organic affections (as
indeed in all physical action) there is a dual or plural
cause ; there is an organic susceptibility and an extra-
organic agent ; there are tastes, smells, and colors, but
these are called into action by sapid bodies, by odors, or
vibrations. These two, the organic and extra-organic,
are so mixed in our apprehensions that we are apt to
identify them. That smell we know is produced by a
rose, and we regard the smell as in the rose. We can
thus so far understand that peculiar combined sensation
and perception as to color which has so puzzled meta-
physicians. By the eye we perceive a surface, but there
is always associated with it a retinal color in the rods
and cones. It is only by a process of abstraction that
we can think of (we cannot image) the color apart from
the shape.

58 SENSE-PERCEPTION.

For philosophic purposes the all-important distinction
is between the qualities perceived immediately in all
bodies — these are the primary qualities; and the organic
affections implying by inference an extra-organic cause —
these are called the secondary qualities. It is to be dis-
tinctly understood that there is a reality in both. The
reality in the secondary qualities is merely in the af-
fected organism, and we are justified in maintaining that
there is such a thing. The reality in the other is in
body, and we hold that this really exists.

SECTION XVIII.

IDEAS GIVEN BT THE SENSES: EXTERNALITY, SPACE, AND
ENERGY.

We shall discover as we advance that every one of the
original mental powers gives us a special cognition or
idea. We may notice here that Sense-Perception gives
us I. Externality. We perceive all material objects
as out of, and independent of, the perceiving mind. This
is associated with II. Extension. We perceive things as
extended by all the senses, not only as Locke thought
by sight and touch, but by smell, taste, and hearing;
by all these we know our affected organism as in a cer-
tain direction and so in space ; by taste and smell we
know the palate and nostrils as affected, and by hearing,
our ear as affected. III. We perceive body exercising
Energy. We do so especially by the muscular sense;
we find body resisting our locomotive energy. Perhaps
we have some vague sense of energy by all the senses :
the objects perceived seem to affect us. But the sense
of power is specially given by our energy and the resist-
ance to our energy. And then we soon learn by experi-
ence that our organic sensations are produced by extra-
organic causes, that our sensations of light and heat ar«

IDEAS GIVEN BY THE SENSES. 69

produced by vibrations. We are tbus made to feel tbat
every body is possessed of power in exercise or ready
to be exercised.

These three primitive cognitions are the root of all our
ideas regarding matter. As Kant would say, but in a
different connection, " They render experience possible."
It is of importance thus to note and to specify what is
the precise knowledge given by the senses that we may
see clearly and ever keep it before us, that they do not
and cannot yield us all our ideas ; and that there are
other and higher ideas as of self, of thinking, and moral
good which must come from higher sources.

CHAPTER II.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

By this power we know self in its present state aa
acting and being acted on.

SECTION I.

IT MAKES KNOWN SELF AS WELL AS THE ACTS OF SELF.

At the same time that we perceive by the senses we
are conscious of ourselves as perceiving. These two
exercises are, in many respects, like each other. In both
we perceive an object. By the senses we perceive an
object external and extended, this table or tliat chair.
But in consciousness we also perceive an object: we
perceive self in a certain state, as thinking or as feeling,
as in joy or in grief. By the one we know the various
properties of matter as they come under our notice ; by
the other we know the various states of self.

It is of importance to notice that in self-consciousness
we come to have a knowledge of self in a particular
state. According to D. Stewart and the Scottish school,
we know only the qualities of things, and not the things
themselves. The correct statement is that we know the
thing as exercising a quality. According to Kant and
his school, we know simply phenomena — that is, ap-
pearances, and not things. But there never can be an
appearance without a thing appearing. In self-con-
sciousness we know the thing, the ver^' thing, as appear-
ing or as presenting itself to us. We have as clear and
sertain proof of our knowing the object — that is, the

MAKES KNOWN SELF. 71

thinking self — as we have that there is before us an
appearance.

Consciousness accompanies all Mental Exer-
cises. — In this respect consciousness differs in its mode
of exercise from the other powers of the mind. I am
not every instant remembering, or judging, or willing,
bat at every waking moment of my existence I am con-
scious. When I perceive a material object, when I
recollect an occurrence, when I draw an inference, when
I am sorrowing or rejoicing, when I am wishing or
willing, I am conscious that I do so. In short, conscious-
ness seems inseparable from the exercise of all our facul-
ties and to accompany every operation of the mind.

It was an opinion entertained by Leibnitz, and has
been held by many since his time, that we are uncon-
Bcious of many of our mental operations. They point to
acts of mind which have left effects behind them, but of
which we have not the dimmest recollection. We are
sure that we must have issued a great many volitions in
passing from one place to another, but after they are
over we cannot recollect one of them. The question
arises. How are we to account for such a phenomenon ?
I believe it can all be explained by the ordinary laws of
mind, without our calling in such an anomalous principle
as unconscious mental action. I hold that we were con-
scious of the acts at the time, but that they were not
retained, as there was nothing to fix them in the
memory.

The exercise of the mind when thus engaged is not
unlike that of a man in a boat, looking over its edge into
the lake below, thus described by Wordsworth: —

" Aa one who hangs down, bending from the side
Of a slow-moving boat upon the breast
Of a still water, solacing himself
With such discpreries as bis ejea can make

T2 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,

Sees many beauteous sights, — weeds, fishes, flowers,

Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, — and fancies more ;

Yet often is perplexed, and cannot part

The shadow from the substance — rocks and sky.

Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth

Of the clear flood — from things which there abide

In their own dwelling; now is crossed by gleam

Of his own image, by a sunbeam now,

And waving motion sent, he knows not whence,

Impediments tliat make bia task more sweet."

Every -word of this description might analogically be
applied to the reflex process of the human mind, as it
observes its own thoughts and reasonings, its sentiments
and emotions. At times there is a dimness in the view
which we obtain of them, at times our vision is crossed
by a gleam of our own image — that is, our observation
of the act so far disturbs the act ; the party observing is
discomposed by the knowledge of an eye fixed upon him ;
or, to vary our image, the thought, when inspected, is so
far modified by the inspection, as the very thought that
a man is sitting for his portrait will so far affect the
expression of his countenance. Still, as we thus inspect
this deep, we shall see far more beauteous sights than
weeds, fishes, flowers, grots, pebbles, roots of trees ; we
shall see the workings of those thoughts which give to
man all his greatness, of those sentiments which give to
man all his excellence.

Consciousness and Personal Identity. — Con-
sci'^usness cannot be said to furnish our idea of, or belief
in, our personal identity, for consciousness looks solely to
the present, whereas in personal identity there is a com-
parison between the past and the present. But con-
sciousness I'eveals self as present. When we remember
the past, there is involved a memory of self as remem-
bering. We are thus in a position to compare the two

PERSONAL IDENTITY. 73

— the present self known, and the past self remembered,

— and we declare the self to be identical. Consciousness
thus supplies the two main facts on which our judgment
as to personal identity is pronounced. The self at
present may be depressed and sad, the self remembered
may have been buoyant and joyous, but we declare the
two to be the same, and cannot be made to pronounce
any other judgment.

It is not consciousness, as it has been sometimes as-
serted, that constitutes our personal identity. Con-
sciousness merely makes it known, or rather makes
known the facts on which our judgment rests. We are
persons, and we have an identity of person whether we
notice it or no. We are persons, and have an identity of
person not because we are conscious of it, but we observe
it because it exists.

Bishop Berkeley drove the doctrine that in sense-per-
ception the mind does not perceive the external object,
but an idea in the mind, to its legitimate consequences.
He argued that if we do not perceive an extended world
we have no reason to believe that there is any such
thing. There has been a like error held in regard to
consciousness, by which it is said we know merely phe-
nomena in the sense of appearances (so Kant held),
merely appearing thoughts and appearing feelings.
Fichte did for this theory of Kant what Berkeley
did for the theory of Locke. He followed it to con-
lusions from whicb the founder of the German school
shrank. " The sum total is this : there is absolutely
nothing permanent either without me or within me,
but only an unceasing change. I know absolutely noth-
ing of any existence, not even mine own. I myself
know nothing, and am nothing. Images there are ;
they constitute all that apparently exists, and what

74 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

they know of themselves is after the manner of images
— images that pass and vanish without there being
aught to witness their transition ; that consist, in fact, of
the image of images without significance and without an
aim. I myself am one of these images. All reality is
converted into a marvellous dream without a life to
dream of and without a mind to dream, into a dream
made up only of a dream of itself. Perception is a
dream ; thought, the source of all the existence and of
all the reality which I imagine to myself, of my power,
my destination, is the dream of that dream." I meet
the ideal skepticism, or rather agnosticism, so far as ifc
relates to the external world, by maintaining that, by
the senses, not only do we perceive phenomena, we per-
ceive appearances ; we perceive things appearing, not
merely qualities, but qualities of self, of self in such or
such a state. The conclusion to which we have come is
that as by sense-perception we have a positive, though of
course limited, knowledge of material objects, so by self-
jonsciousness we have a like knowledge of self in its
present action.

SECTION n.

SENSK-PERCEPXrON AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS COMBINED.

We have been looking at these two faculties separately.
Let us now look at them together. By the former we
obtain a knowledge first of our own bodily frame. This
we do by all the senses. We know our body as out of
the thinking mind, and the organs as out of one another,
and in a certain direction in reference to one another.
We also know certain affections which we call tastes,
adors, sounds, and colors. We know all matter as ex-
tended and as offering resistance first to our body, an</

PERCEPTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 76

then to other bodies. But at the same time that we are
thus perceiving, or indeed exercising any other power,
we know self, and this successively in its various moods
or modes. It is the business of psychology to unfold
these. These two do not constitute all our faculties, or
even our highest or chief faculties, but they are the first
exercised of all our powers, and furnish materials to all
the others, which are therefore dependent on them.

Sense-Perception and Self-Consciousness give
us Knowledge. — This proposition is laid down in
opposition to the very common statement that the mind
begins with impressions, or ideas, or presentations, or
phenomena. The mind commences its intelligent act
with the knowledge of things : by the senses of body, our
own frame or things beyond ; by the inner sense, of the
conscious mind in its piesent state and exercise. These
powers may, on this account, be called the simple cog-
nitive, because they give knowledge in its simplest
form.

Some would not allow that what is given us by these
powers is knowledge. And no doubt it is not scientific
or systematized knowledge. But still it is knowledge
— a knowledge of existing things — not eVio-T^/iTj, but
ri/wo-is ; not Wissenschaft, but Kennen. The arranged
knowledge requires a previous knowledge, which it ar-
ranges. The systems or theories of philosophy which do
not begin with knowledge can never get it by any sub-
sequent or subsidiary process, and so are landed, whether
their defenders allow it or no, whether they wish it or
no, in Nescience, which declares that man can know
nothing ; or in Nihilism, which affirms that there is
nothing to be known ; or in what is now called Agnos-
ticism.

This PuiivnTivE Knowledge is Singulak. — It

r6 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

may consist of what is afterwards discovered to be a
number of objects, but it is regarded at the time as one
thing. The eye may have before it a widespread scene,
with divers objects of different colors and shapes, and
some of them farther removed than others, but it con-
templates them as one surface. It is by a subsequent
process and by higher faculties than the senses that we
distinguish one part of the scene from another, this tree
from this hill, the animal from the ground on which it
walks. The same may be said of our knowledge by self-
consciousness. We are not conscious of a thought as dis-
tinguished from a sensation ; we are conscious simply of
mind as thinking or as sentient, as one or other, or both,
without designating them or distinguishing them. This
knowledge is said to be "singular," as opposed to
"universal." It is of one object as it presents itself,
without or within us ; this wall, or this feeling. It is
by a subsequent and a discursive process that out of the
singular we form the general. But the formation of the
universal always implies individual things, out of wbich
it is fashioned.

This Pkimitive Knowledge is Concrete — that
is, it consists of objects as they present themselves, of
objects with their qualities, not of objects apart from
qualities, or of qualities apart from objects, but of objects
as exercising qualities. We may, by a subsequent process,
separate the things thus known, the substance from the
quality, or the quality from the substance, or one quality
from another. Having seen a house, we can think of its
walls, or its windows, or its door, or its roof. But this is
by a process of abstraction, and not by mere sense-per-
ception. But in order to an abstract notion, there must
be a concrete apprehension. All the apprehensions givea
6y the senses and self-consciousness are concrete — that

KNOWLEDGE SINGULAR AND CONCRETE. 77

18, of things grown together (from eoneresco^, or of
things seen together (from concerno').

The principles laid down in this and the preceding
sections undermine that transcendental philosophy which
supposes that the mind starts with such general or ab-
stract ideas as space and time, infinity and eternity,
supposed to be innate, on which ideas it would raise a
huge but unstable system of speculative philosophy. It
can be shown that all these ideas appear first in a singu-
lar and concrete form. It is sufficient, in the mean time,
to remark that in sense-perception we have not space in
the abstract, but body contained in space and occupying
space.

Sense-Perception and Self-Consciousness make
KNOWN Things as having Being. — In evei-y exercise
of the senses, we know things, this organ of our body,
or this ball in contact with it, as existing. It is the
same in every operation of self-consciousness ; we know
self as planning, or purposing, or in some other exercise.
Seldom, indeed, do we take the trouble of affirming that
we ourselves exist, or that the objects before us exist.
We assume it as a thing which we know, and which will
be granted us. We are inclined to affirm only what may
be denied, and this will not be denied, and it is superflu-
ous, and might seem affected in us, to make any formal
statement on the subject. It is imjolied in the exercise
of our two primary capacities that the things they look
at have Being.

" But what can be said of Being? Verily, little can
be said of it. The mistake of metaphysicians lies in say-
ing too much. They have made assertions which have,
and can have, no meaning, and landed themselves in
self-created mysteries or in contradictions. So little can
t)e affirmed of Being, not because of the complexity of

78 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

the idea, but because of its simplicity ; we can find noth-
ing simpler into which to resolve it. We have come to
ultimate truth, and there is really no deeper foundation
on which to rest it. There is no light behind in which
to show it in vivid outline.

" In the concrete every one has the cognition of Being,
just as every man has a skeleton in his frame. But the
common mind is apt to turn away from the abstract idea,
as it does from an anatomical preparation ; or rather, it
feels as if such attenuated notions belong to the regions
of ghosts, where

" ' Entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.'

" All that the metaphysician can do is to appeal to the
perception which all men form, to separate this from the
others with which it is joined, and make it stand out
singly and simply, that it may shine and be seen in its
own light, and with this the mind will be satisfied : —

" * Who thinks of asking if the sun is light,
Observing that it lightens 1 '

Those who attempt anything more, and to peer into the
object, will find that the light — like that of the sun —
darkens as they gaze upon it. ' When I burned in de-
sire to question them further, they made themselves —
air, into which they vanished.' "

The Eleatics, who flourished five and six hundred
jears before Christ, made much of Being to oi^, and were
followed by the Greek philosophers generally. I do not
believe that they attached too much importance to this
idea. That there are existing things is the fundamental
position in metaphysics. It is a fact to be assumed, and
uo attempt should be made to prove it. Any professed
proof will turn out to be delusive, as we cannot find

BEING POWER AND INDEPENDENCE. 79

anything simpler or more certain by which to establish
it. The fault of the Greek philosophers, and especially
of the Eleatics, consisted in making affirmations about
Being which have no meaning. All that we can say of
Being is that it is Being.

They make known Thikgs as exercising Po-
tency. — It might be maintained that through all the
senses we know bodily objects as exercising power over
us. We know tastes and smells, and colors and sounds,
as influencing us, and producing a change in us. We
certainly know objects as resisting our muscular energy.
It is equally certain, some would represent it as more
certain, that we know the will an(i other mental faculties
as exercising power over the body and over states of the
mind. Potency is thus an element in all primary cog-
nitions. Everj'thing we know we know as exercising
power on us or on some other object.

(1.) It is clear that if we do not know power intui-
tively we can never know it by any derivative or dis-
cursive process. But consciousness being our witness,
we have an idea of power quite as certainly as we have
of extension or of thinking.

(2.) While we obtain in this way our knowledge of
things within and without us as exercising power, it is
only by the gathered experience that we are able to de-
termine what is the precise nature of that power, what
its laws and its bounds. All that we know directly of the
power of matter by the senses is very limited. We know
»dors, and tastes, and colors as producing a sensitive
i^ffection in us. What these are, and what their proper-
ties in other respects, we have to learn by a process of
observation ; and we discover that odors affect us only
vvhen in a state of vapov, tastes only when the bodies are
liquid und that sounds and colors are made known by

80 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

andiilations. By the muscular sense we know bodies
Bimply as resisting our energy, and we have to go tc
physical science to determine what are the laws of energy
generally. It is the same with the power exercised by
any of our mental capacities. We know that there is
power to produce an effect in every operation of the
mind, but it is the office of psychological science to de-
termine the rules and limits of the faculties.

They make known Things as having Independ-
ence; THAT IS, AS Existing Independent op the
Contemplative Mind. — The thing does not exist
merely because the mind contemplates it. The mind
contemplates it because it exists. It does not begin to
exist when I begin to notice it. Nor does it cease to
exist because we have ceased to observe it. We have all
this involved in the knowledge conveyed both by the
outward and inward senses. This does not imply that
the thing has any absolute independence, that it is inde-
pendent of God. All that is meant is that it exists in-
dependent of the mind taking notice of it.

By laying down this position we are delivered from a
position taken up by many in the present day, and which
lands them first in confusion, and in the end in skepti-
cism. Taking advantage of the ambiguity in the use of
the phrases object and subject, they tell us that object
always involves subject, and subject object, and that in
fact our knowledge, if knowledge it can be called, is
made up of two factors which cannot be separated. The
result is that we cannot tell what any one external object
is, for it is mixed up with the subject mind, which gives
it in a certain form and a color. On the other hand,
we can scarcely ascertain what the subject mind is, it ia
BO dependent on the objects which call it into exercise
The result of the whole is a growing feeling of doubt a*

SUBSTANCE. 81

to the reality of things. Even when they are acknowl-
sdged to be real, it is supposed to be impossible to de-
termine the precise nature of the things supposed to be
real. Now, this subtle metaphysical error is to be met by
affirming that the thing is contemplated as it is, and that
the subject mind is so constituted as to be able to cog-
nize it. If asked for proof of all this, the reply is that
we have the same evidence of the mind contemplating
the thing as it is that we have of its contemplating the
thing. It should be the business of metaphysics not to
confound the subject and object, but to point out clearly
tiie distinction between them.

SECTION III.

SUBSTANCE.

We have seen that both body and mind are known
by us through the senses as possessing Being, Independ-
ence, and Potency. Whatever possesses these may be re-
garded as a substance. Some would have us say, fourth-
ly, having independent existence, or independent of any
creature. But the difficulty is to determine what con-
stitutes independent existence. All things are depend-
ent on God, and seem more or less dependent on other
things. Still there is vague truth in the statement.
These mai'ks give a definite meaning to the phrase.
We see that there are two substances known to us —
mind and body.

Hamilton says that substance may be regarded as de-
rived from one or other of two words : from substo, to
stand under ; or from subsistc^ to subsist of itself. Des-
v^artes defined substance as that which subsists of itself.
Spinoza gave a more complex definition : " By sub-

itance I understand that which is m itself and conceived
a

62 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

by itself ; that is to say, that of which the concept can
be formed without needing the concept of any other
thing." Locke understood substance as something that
stands under. It is evident that substance, thus under-
stood, must come in very awkwardly under a system
which derives all our ideas from sensation and reflection,
as it cannot be derived from either of these sources. He
does not deny the existence of substance, but he repre-
sents it as something unknown and unknowable. Most
of his followers contrived some way or other to get rid
of this unknown thing as being something superfluous,
and of the existence of which we have no proof. In the
text, substance is represented as a thing known and in-
volved in our intuitive knowledge both of body and
mind.

Body is a Substance. — It is so, according to our
definition. We know it as existing, as existing inde-
pendent of our cognition of it, and as exercising power.

Locke, we have seen, represented substance as an un-
known support of things. Berkeley showed that there
was no evidence of body having any such support. He
did not deny the existence of matter, but he denied that
it was a substance. We meet Berkeley not by standing
up for a support or substratum unknown and unknow-
able, but by maintaining that we actually know body
\s having an abiding existence.

Mind is a Substance. — We make this affirmation
on the same ground as we maintain that body is a sub-
stance. In every act of consciousness we know it as
exerting and exercising power, and this independent of
our taking any observation of it.

As Berkeley denied that body is a substance, so Hume
ienied on much the same grounds that mind is a sub-
tance. He represented it as a mere series of percep

MIND AND BODY ARE SUBSTANCES. 83

•

fcions, with a unity given to it by the imagination. Now
we meet this by showing that in every act of conscious-
ness we know self as existing and exercising potency of
Bome kind.

Mind and Body are Different Substances. —
In this respect they are both alike: that they are sub-
stances. As such, they have the three points of affinity
so often mentioned, and they may have many others.
There may be correlations of an important kind between
their various properties, bat they are known to us as
different. In particular, first they are known to us by
different organs : the one by the senses, the other by
self-consciousness. Then, secondly, they are known to
us as possessing very different attributes : the one is
known as extended and resisting, the other as thinking,
musing, resolving. These differences entitle us to re-
gard them as different substances.

Descartes separated mind and matter so entirely that
the one could hold no communication with the other
except, as Malebranche brought out more fully, through
an interposed divine action acting as an occasional cause.
Proceeding on the same principle that mind and matter
could not act on each other, Leibnitz brought in his
doctrine of Preestablished Harmony, according to which
they act in unison, not by reciprocal action, but by an
order established in each, whereby, like two clocks, they
correspond the one to the other. But there is no need
•ii resorting to any such far-fetched hypotheses. We may
suppose that the two act and react on each other, accord-
ing to laws not yet determined. An action goes along a
sensor nerve to the sensorium, and is thence transmitted
to the periphery of the brain and to the cells there,
where it calls forth a mental power, with which it co-
operates, and becomes a perception of an external object,

84 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

say a rose. The rose may, according to purely mental
laws, give rise, by an association to an entirely different
idea, say to a lily, and we may then compare the rose
and the lily. The law of the conservation of physical
force must regulate all the action as far as the cells in
the circumference of the brain. When the action be-
xsomes purely mental, as in all recollections, judgments,
imaginations, moral sentiments, and volitions, there is
no reason to believe that the doctrine of the conservation
of energy has any direct place. Still it is conceivable
that even in purely mental acts there may be a laid-up
physical energy, which goes out in brain action. All
this may be admitted without giving any countenance to
materialism. It has all along been allowed that, as man
is constituted, mind and body have a very intimate con-
nection, and this may be the way in which this connec-
tion is kept up. But we need a great many careful ob-
servations and experiments before we can determine the
precise relation of physical and mental potency.

SECTION IV.
Locke's theory as to the origin of our ideas.

Locke gets the materials of all our ideas from Sensa-
tion and Reflection. By sensation, he means the same
as the Greeks did by ata^T/ats, and as we do by sense-
perception ; and by reflecticm, much the same as we do
by self-consciousness. Upon the materials so supplied
certain faculties work, such as Perception, Retention,
and thus fashion all our ideas. This theory will re-
quire to be criticised as we advance, and it will be shown
that there are ideas such as that of moral good and evil,
which cannot thus be obtained. But, meantime, let it
be remarked that by these two inlets we get a great

TRAINING TO HABITS OF REFLECTION. 85

many of our ideas ; by the senses of bodies as external
to us, as extended and resisting our energy and resisting
one another, and by self-consciousness of the mind in its
various states, say perceiving, remembering, imagining,
judging, discerning between good and evil, under emo-
tion, or as resolving.

The word reflection might now be applied to the more
special notice which the mind takes of itself and ita
operations. In this there is an exercise of will joining
on to self-consciousness ; it is a voluntary consciousness.
It is mainly b}'' this power that the science of Psychology
is constructed. We observe the operations of the mind
as they pass, and thus are enabled to analyze, to classify,
and arrange them.

SECTION V.

TRAINING TO HABITS OP REFLECTION.

Man is naturally inclined to look out of himself before
he looks within. There is a propriety in this. The mind
must have materials of thought before it thinks. But it
is of importance that we be trained to bend back our at-
tention to and notice what is passing in our minds, and
thus know ourselves. We shall be led into great mistakes
if we do not from time to time look into our inward state
and search our motives. This, I admit, may be carried
too far. There may be too much of self-consciousness ;
no, not too much, but a misdirected self -inspection. In-
stead of allowing the plant to grow under the air and
sunshine provided for it, we may be injuring it by ever
searching into its roots to find whether it is growing.
Still, reflection, which always includes inspection, is one
of the peculiar properties of humanity, distinguishing
man from the brutes, and should be called forth in the

86 SELF CONSCIOUSNESS.

opening years of manhood and womanhood, and con-
tinued through life. Spontaneous thought comes forth
first, constituting what is called " first thoughts ; " but
reflective thought should come after to detect error, to
cast off the mistakes associated with the truth, and secure
certainty. We should not be satisfied with things as they
appear nor with first impressions or first thoughts, nor
with the opinions we have formed in the past; we must
acquire and train a habit of self-examiuation, and make
them all pass in review before us.

BOOK SECOND.

THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

They are so called because they produce and present
once more, and it may be again and again, what has
been previously before the mind. Some of them are
farther representative, inasmuch as the ideas raised up
by them stand for absent objects ; thus the memory
brings up an object or event once before the mind, but
not now present. This can scarcely be said of them all,
as for instance the imagination, in v^hich there is no
other object than the image itself.

I have seen Mont Blanc. Having done so, I retain it
in such a way as to be able to recall it. It comes up
from time to time in the shape of an image according
to the laws of association. It is recognized as having
been before my mind in time past. I can put it into
new forms and dispositions. I can think and speak of it
by means of the name which has been given it. In such
an exercise we have the mind exercising six different
capacities ; these we call

I. The Retentive. IV. The Recognitive.

II. The Recalling or V. The Compositivk

Phantasy. VI. The Symbolic.
III. The Associative.

It has been shown (Introd., Sect. IV.) that the mind or
self possesses power, or rather powers. I am now seek-

88 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

ing to unfold the various faculties. But it is to be un-
derstood that these faculties are not separate personali-
ties or things. They are simply modes or activities of
the one self. Thus Sense-Perception is the mind per-
ceiving external objects, and Self-Consciousness is the
mind perceiving self. The same remark may be made
as to the other powers. Thus the Memory is merely the
mind remembering past experiences ; the Conscience,
the mind discerning good and evil ; the Will, the mind
choosing. This general truth holds true of all the facul-
ties ; it should be remembered, but need not be repeated
under each head. It is also to be kept in mind that the
powers do not act independently of, but rather with, each
other. The Phantasy and Association proceed on the
Retentive power. We shall see that in the Memory and
in the Imagination there are several powers involved,
and that the one supplies materials to the other. By
taking these views we avoid the objections of Herbart
and the metaphysicians of the school of Leipsic, who
complain of the way in which the mind is mangled and
the parts are separated by psychologists.

CHAPTER I.

EETENTION.

Theke is a difference between the state of our minds
before we have observed an occurrence and after we
have observed it. There is a difference between one
who has noticed an event, or passed through an ex-
perience, and one who has not. Having been at the
London exhibition of 1851, I have something continu-
ing with me which I could not have had unless I had
been there. Having once passed through a period of
severe illness, having passed through the disruption of
the Church of Scotland in 1843, I have a series of im-
pressions and lessons not possessed by those who have
not had such an experience. Whatever has passed under
consciousness may be retained ; it always produces some
effect which may remain. It is so retained that it can
be recalled according to certain laws of association.

We cannot say much more about the conservative
power, as Hamilton calls it. In what state is an idea,
say of London or Paris, when it is not immediately under
the consciousness ? Is it dead, or simply dormant ? It
is certainly not altogether defunct, for it can be wakened.
We have something analogous (though not identical) in
the energy potential as distinguished from the energy
real or kinetic in physical operation. The energy which
came from the sun in the geological age of the coal
measures is laid up in the coal, and comes out in certain

90 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

circumstances in heat to warm our bodies or drive our
steam engines. Having passed through a conscious expe-
rience, the mind has the acquired capacity of calling it
up. It is actually recalled when there is in the mind
an idea associated with it. The retention depends

Firsts On the state of the brain, more especially on cells
in the gray matter on the periphery of the brain. Every
one has felt that in certain states of the brain we have
difficulty in remembering anything. The ardent student,
the anxious business man, may so exhaust his cerebral
force that nothing will be retained in his mind. In such
cases perfect rest, particularly " balmy sleep, is nature's
sweet restorer." From probably much the same causes,
we find that when we are engrossed with any one care
or distracted by several things we are apt to forget the
extraneous things which have passed before us momen-
tarily ; a piece of news in which we are not particularly
interested, given us at a time when wo were absorbed
with other things, may never come up again.

We have come into a border country where there is a
constant warfare raging, and it is difficult to determine
the exact bounding line between mind and body. This
admission does not go to establish materialism. Every-
body grants that mind and body are intimately con-
nected, and we have simply come upon one of the points
of connection. No intellectual faculty of the mind is so
dependent on the brain as the memory, and retention is
one of the conditions, or rather one of the concurring
agencies, in memory. There are some positions which
can be defended. Every idea, every feeling, is thought
to tend to produce an effect on the periphery of the
brain, and probably to give a particular disposition or
set to the cells in that region. "It may be maintained
that the concurrent action of the part of the brain

RETENTION. 91

affected seems to be necessary to our recollection of an
occurrence. When the idea or feeling produces little or
no effect on the brain there may be no recollection, or
only a very dim one. When there is a lesion or a dis-
ease in the brain, or in certain parts of it, we are apt to
lose our memories, or have them deranged.

Secondly^ Retention depends on the mental force in
the original feeling or idea. This second condition may
be connected with the first. The strong or lively thought
produces a deeper impression on the brain, which aids
the remembrance of it. But the two essentially differ.
The profundity of the thought or the power of the senti-
ment is not caused by the organism, say the discoveries of
science, or the affection of a mother. We must all have
noticed that events which have not interested us, or to
which we have given no attention, are apt to pass away
speedily from the memory, whereas others, which have
exercised our understanding, or called forth emotion, are
remembered for years or our whole lives. It is no mat-
ter what the sort of mental power directed towards an
event be — whether it be the intellect, the affections, or
the will — it tends to keep it ready to be called up. On
the other hand, when no special mental power is exerted
the occurrence may never come up again. This is a
subject worthy of being prosecuted and illustrated, and
opens to us many interesting and instructive views of
the operations of the mind. But it may be expediently
deferred till we come to speak of the secondary laws of
association — those that modify the primary and make
them take a particular direction.

The laws now announced, and to be afterwards more
fully expounded, may help to explain what are called un-
conscious mental operations ; that is, operations which
have passed in the mind, but of which we are not coii-

92 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

scious. There are, undoubtedly, mental exercises wliieli
are not recalled in ordinary circumstances. There are
acts of the will implied, and I believe also of the under-
standing, in every step which a man takes in walking
towards a particular place. The foot will not move
without a volition of the mind, and there is thought
implied in its carrying him towards an intended place.
Yet at the end of his walk he may not remember one of
the acts of his will or judgment. It is not just correct
to call these unconscious acts. He may have been con-
scious of each of them at the time, and if there was any-
thing to call his attention to them — say his taking a
false step — he would have felt that he had been con-
scious of them and he would have remembei-ed them.
But there was nothing in the ordinary steps taken to
make him notice them, and so they passed away. There
was a momentary consciousness, but there is no memory
of them. I do not agree with the theory of those who
ascribe the creations of genius — say Shakespeare's Ham-
let, or Milton's Satan, or Goethe's Faust — to unconscious
mental action. True, these men might not be able or
care to analyze like a metaphysician the processes that
passed in their minds ; but there was a cognizance of
them at the moment in their concrete state, and there
may have been a joy in them. There may not have
been a consciousness of them in the sense of rolling
them as a sweet morsel under the tongue. They passed
through the minds as the fresh wind passed, by breath-
ing, through the bodies ; but they were not detained
to cherish a feeling of self-complacency, and the poets
passed on to some new thought or emotion.

The question has often been started. Do we remember
everything and forget nothing ? I am not sure that we
can certainly decide this question. On the one hand,

RETENTION. 93

there have been thoughts and feelings in our minds
which never have returned. On the other hand, there
are experiences which start up like ghosts from the grave
where we imagined we had buried them. We have all
of us had memories coming up unexpectedly of friends,
of incidents, that had not been thought of for long years,
and that now appear to give us joy or reproach us. But
I cannot believe that every one of the hundreds of sen-
sations, of fancies, of opinions, of fears and hopes, which
pass through our minds in a few minutes, is capable of
being reproduced. It is a happy thing when thus our
trivial thoughts pass into oblivion ; otherwise our minds
would be filled with innumerable details and become as
trifling as these are. Those that come up unexpectedly
do so because they have left a deep impression at tho
first, and they awake because stirred up by some corre-
lated present thought.

We have curious instances recorded of persons who
have lost certain recollections, certain kinds of recollec-
tions, while they retain others, their minds all the while
being otherwise entire. It has occurred to me that we
may be able so far to account for these phenomena. It
is allowed on all hands that many of the operations of
the mind are dependent on cerebral cooperation, with-
out which they would cease, or be carried on with dif-
ficulty. There are physiologists who allot a special
locality to each of the senses in the brain. It appears to
me that the concurrent action of the sense centres, or at
least of the brain, may often or always be necessary to
the recalling of the scenes perceived. When there is an
imperfection or a lesion in any of the sense centres, it
may be difficult or impossible to produce a phantasm of
the object, or it may be faint or disfigured. I have
heard of persons who had not lost their eyesight, but

94 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

owing apparently to a disease in the brain had lost the
power of recalling the visible scenes they had witnessed.
It is well known that the remembrance of forms and
colors by persons who have become blind is apt in time
to become dim. The same may be true of the other
senses. When the organs of taste and smell, supposed
by Ferrier to be in the back of the head, are diseased or
out of order, the reproduction of the corresponding sen-
sations may be indistinct. Tunes cannot be recalled, it
may be presumed, when the organs of Corti are not in
healthy working order.

It is generally believed that the foro part of the brain
is more specially connected with intellectual action ; and
disease there will be apt to affect our recollection of all
operations requiring thought, such as scientific truths.
Perhaps the cerebral lobes in the fore parts are more par-
ticularly the centres of motion and our ideas of motion ;
and when there is a lesion in certain parts we may find
difl&culty, as some do, in imaging movements.

It is now acknowledged by almost all that M. Broca
has established that there is some connection between
the third convolution of the left side of the brain and
the power of using language. When there is disorgani-
zation in that part there is experienced a difficulty in
recalling words, especially names, or in making an ap-
propriate use of them.

CHAPTER n.

THE EECALLING POWER OR PHANTASY.
SECTION I.

ITS NATURE.

As long as an object is merely retained it is not beforo
the consciousness, and in fact may ne^er be so. But it
may come into consciousness according to laws of asso-
ciation to be unfolded in the next chapter.

Every man, woman, and child has a chamber where
he or she has laid up a store of images or photographs
of the objects which have been perceived. It may be
interesting to take a look into it and inspect its contents,
which will be found to be very curious. Every man has
his own chamber of imagery with its separate furniture,
grave or gay. It is the place of figures and fancies.

I call the power which reproduces in old or in new
forms our past experiences the Phantasy, a phrase em-
ploj'ed by Aristotle to denote one of the faculties of the
mind, and which was used in the English tongue down
to the beginning of the last century, when it was abbre-
viated into Fancy, with a more confined meaning. The
product may be called the Phantasm — always to be dis-
tinguished from the phantom, in which the object is
imaginary. Phantasy is a good phrase to designate the
remembrance or imaging of a single object, say a lily, as
distinguished from a general idea, such as the class lily.
The faculty may also be called the Imaging or Pictorial
power, only there is no image or picture except when
the reproduction is of an object perceived by the sense

96 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

of siglit — the other senses, however, being also capable
of reviving what has passed before us. It is the mind's
eye of Shakespeare : " In my mind's eye, Horatio."

All these phrases are figurative, always implying and
pointing to a reality. We talk of an image, a likeness,
a representation, an idea. In what sense ? So far as
the sense of sight is concerned, there is an image on the
retina of the eye. But this is so situated that it is not
seen naturally ; in fact, it has been discovered by science.
The object is perceived upright, but it is inverted in the
eye. Then, so far as the other senses are concerned,
there is no image, properly speaking. There is merely
an affection of the organ — of the ear, the touch, the
palate, the nostrils. Speaking rigidly, there is no image
of a taste or a sound. Even so far as vision is concerned,
the image on the retina cannot be said to be perceived
by the mind. It is merely an affection of the organism,
of such a kind that it becomes the fitting means by
which the exact form and color of the object are known ;
just — and not otherwise — as an ear makes known the
sounds emitted. In respect of an image, there can be no
such thing in the brain in regard to any of the senses.
In all the senses there is an affection not only of the
physical part of the senses proper, but of the brain ; but
this does not take the shape of a form of any kind. If
there is no figure in the brain, still less can there be in
the mind. A figure is an extended material thing. The
figure of a tree is no more in the mind than the tree is.
In all the senses the perception is simply a knowledge of
an object under a certain aspect, say as having a form or
odor. In this sense only is an idea the representation of
an object. There is really no likeness between gold as
out of the mind and the idea of gold in the mind. There
is a correspondence between the two, but no identity.

THE RECALLING POWER OR PHANTASY. 97

In fact, this imaging power is merely one of the fac-
tors in the memory. In memory there is a recognition
of an object or event as having been before us in time
past. But in the mere imaging there is no such recog-
nition and no reference to time. We may have a phan-
tasm of a flower without any belief as to where or when
we saw it, or indeed as to whether we ever saw it. But
in ail proper memory there is an image or phantasm,
dull or vivid, representing the object or event recognized.

It has to be added that the mind has the power of
forming imaginary figures. These are compositions con-
structed by the mind out of realities experienced. We
have now, not memory, but imagination. Our imagina-
tions, as every one knows, are often more lively than
our recollections. The mind delights to form such pic-
tures, and it is the office of the poet and novelist to raise
them up by the presentations they furnish.

First, We can thus reproduce the material got ly any
of the senses. We remember tastes of salt, of sugar, of
jelly, of apples, of oranges, and hundreds of other things
that are sour or sweet, or do otherwise powerfully affect
our palate pleasantly or unpleasantly. These recollec-
tions are not especially inspiring or poetical, but are
cherished by gourmands, who feel as it were the taste in
their mouth of the food they relish. We can recall the
sensation produced b}^ odors, say from roses, lilies, and
violets, or from assafoetida, swamps, and malarial pools.
Some of these are of an ethereal nature, and have a
place allowed them in poetry. We can call up a thou-
sand kinds of sounds, as the voices of our friends, the
sighings of the breeze or stream, the barking of the dog,
the mewing of the cat, the bellowing of the bull, the
lowing of cattle, the chirp or the song of birds — say of
the thrush or nightingale, the screech of the eagle, the
7

98 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

rasping of the file, the mower whetting his scythe, the
roar of the storm, the lashing of the wave on the shore,
the rolling of the thunder, the crash of the avalanche.
People endowed with a musical ear can recall tunes, and
are prompted to repeat them, and some are constantly
hearing musical airs.

" Music, when soft voices die,
Vibiates in the memory ;
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live withiu the sense they quicken."

There are touches which we easily remember — of
softness or smoothness, say of satin or of a smooth skin,
or of the prickliness of a brier or thorn. The child re-
tains forever the memory of a mother's kiss. But we
get our most vivid and varied memories from the sense
of sight. We delight to remember colors, say of a
flower or a piece of dress, of the morning and evening
sky. We image certain forms, as of the persons and
faces of our friends, of noble trees, of well-proportioned
buildings, of mountains. All that is picturesque, that is
picture-like, that is with a well-defined shape, as stee-
ples, cliffs, precipices, leave a photograph of themselves
on our souls. The artist uses many of these in his paint-
ings, in his portraits, and in his landscapes. The poet
turns them to all sorts of uses in pleasing, in exciting
and elevating the mind.

This imaging power helps greatly to enliven our exists
ence. We call up an incident of our childhood. We
remember the day on which we were first sent to school,
and how we set out from our parents' roof with strangely
mingled feelings of confidence and timidity. As we
bring back the scene, mark how everything appears
with a pictorial power. We have a vivid picture, it may
be, of the road we travelled ; we see, as it were, the

THE BECALLING POWER OR PHANTASY. 99

school-house, within and without ; we hear the master
addressing us, and the remarks which the children
passed upon us. Or, more pleasant still, we remember
a holiday trip in the company of genial companions or
kind relatives to a place interesting in itself or by its
associations ; or the visit we paid to the house of a good
friend, who had a thousand contrivances to please and
entertain us. How vivid at this moment the picture be-
fore us of the incidents of the journey ; of the little mis-
fortunes that befell us ; of the amusements provided for
us ; of the persons, the countenances, the smiles, the
voices and words, of those who joined us in our mirth or
ministered to our gratification. We not only recollect
the events : we, as it were, perceive them before us ;
the imaging is an essential element of our remembrance.
Wordsworth is painting from the life when he speaks of

" Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things ; those lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back our life.
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene on which the sun is shining.

Or' possibly there may be scenes which have imprinted
themselves more deeply upon our minds, — which have,
as it were, burned their image into our souls. Let us
throw back our mind upon the time when death first
intruded into our dwelling. We remember ourselves
standing by the dying bed of a father, and then we re-
call how a few days after we saw the corpse put into the
cufiin and then borne away to the grave. How terribly
distinct and startling do these scenes stand before us at
this instant! We see that pallid countenance looking
forth from the couch upon us ; we hear that voice be-
coming feebler and stili feebler ; and then we feel as if
we were looking at that fixed form which the counte-

100 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

nance took when the spirit had fled ; wo follow tlie long
funeral as it winds away to the place of the dead, and
we hear the earth falling on the coffin as the dust is
committed to its kindred dust.

Secondly^ It should be specially noticed that not only
are we able to represent these sensible scenes : we are
further able to picture the thoughts and feelings which
'passed through our minds as we mingled in them. Not
only do we remember the road along which we travelled
and the building which we entered : we can bring up the
feelings with which we set out from our parents' house,
and those with which we passed into the school. Not
only do we recollect the amusements which so interested
us, but the feelings of interest with which we engaged
in them. Not only do we picture the chamber in which
a father breathed his last : we can call up the mingled
emotions of anxiety, of hope or fear, with which we
watched by his dying bed, and the grief which over-
whelmed us as we realized the loss we had suffered. We
bring up the feelings which chased each other as we sat
by his corpse, or when we returned to our home and felt
all to be so blank and melancholy.

We can thus live our mental experiences over again :
the efforts we made to acquire a branch of knowledge, a
new language, or a new science, and how we found the
process to be irksome or stimulating ; what we felt in
our failures or our successes, in our fights and in our
triumphs, in our friendships and in our enmities, in our
temptations yielded to and our temptations resisted. As
we survey the past, we can remember the gratitude we
felt on kindness shown us, the sorrow that overwhelmed
us on the death of a friend, the bitterness of the disap
pointment when our best hopes were frustrated, when one
we trusted betrayed us, and the pang that shot through

THE RECALLING POWER OR PHANTASY. 101

US when we foimd that we had committed an unworthy
deed. We are obliged to use metaphorical language in
describing these recollections. We speak of our being
able to image or picture to ourselves the outward inci-
dents and the inward feelings, and we thus set forth an
important truth.

True, we cannot give these mental states a sensible
figure. Tlie reason is obvious. They had no visible or
tangible form when we first experienced them, and the
memor3% in reproducing them, will represent them as
they first presented themselves. This circumstance, I
may add in passing, furnishes an argument of some little
force in favor of the immateriality of the soul. In our
primary knowledge and in our subsequent i-ecollection of
bodies we have a sensible image. But in our conscious-
ness of our mental states and in our recalling them, we
do not, and indeed cannot, so represent them. We give
a bodily shape to the school at which we learned our
tasks, to the persons and countenances of our early asso-
ciates, but we cannot give a form or local habitation to
our remembered cogitations and sentiments, which live
in a higher sphere.

It is conceivable that the memory might have been as
correct as it is of matters of fact without having any
pictorial power. In fact, the majority of our memories
must be of this character. It is well it should be so, for
otherwise excitement would waste our life, and keep us
from the performance of many commonplace but impor-
tant duties. But that is a most benignant endowment
whereby we can image absent objects and past events,
lay them up in " chambers of imagery," and make them
pass as in a panorama before us. We can thus have a
series of paintings of all the scenes in which we have
mingled, a set of portraits of the friends with whom we

102 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

had sweet intercourse, and we can view them as Cowper
did his mother's portrait : —

"rairhful remembrancer of one so dear;
And while that face renews my filial grief
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,
Shall steep me in Elysiau reverie.
A momentary dream that thou art she,
By contemplation's help not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again —
To have renewed the joys that once were mine.
Without the sin of violating thine.
And while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee.
Time has but half succeeded in his theft —
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left."

This imaging power, as it enlivens the mind, also tends
to give vividness to its productions in words and writ-
ings. He is an interesting companion who, having laid
up a store of pictures, is ever bringing them out in his
conversation. Travellers and biographers instruct us
best when they are able to give us a word-painting of
the scene and of the man or woman. History is vastly
more attractive when it gives the event with its concom-
itants — say the battle with the field on which it was
fought. Our pictorial writers are generally the most
popular. In the medieeval ages they illuminated the
manuscripts to attract and delight the eye. In our day,
books in almost every department of literature are illus-
trated. This power has a still more important function.
Nothing tends more to degrade the mind and sink it in
the mire than low and sensual images. On the other
hand, images of duty, of self-sacrifice, of courage, of
honor, of beauty, of love, elevate and ennoble the soul.

Some of the phantasms are much more vivid than
others. They differ also in the case of different indi-
viduals, and of the same individual at different times or

THE RECALLING POWER OR PHANTASY. 103

in different states of bis body. It is a curious question
what can be the cause of this difference. Without pro-
fessing to exhaust the subject we may specify some cii*
cumstauces which undoubtedly have an influence on the
vividness of the picture.

1. There is the original vividness of the sensation, de-
pending primarily on the sensitiveness of the organ, but
under this also upon the nature of the object perceived.
The senses evidently differ in this respect. The most
lively is the sense of sight. The forms and colors origi-
nally made known by it may come up almost with the
distinctness of the realities. The mental representation
(we can scarcely call it picture) of sounds is often very
intense, especially in the case of those who have a musi-
cal ear, but also when the impression on the ear is sti'ong
or vehement, — made, for instance, by the bursting of a
cannon. Tastes and odors may also be recalled with
less impressiveness, as also touches and feelings in our
nerves. There are times when our sensations of shapes,
colors, and sounds are very intense, and in these cases
they are apt to be reproduced with greater vividness.
There are scenes of gorgeous coloring, there are pictur-
esque figures, such as horrid precipices ; there are sounds
such as those of a falling rock, of thunder, or of an ava-
lanche, which we can never forget. Some persons are
evidently more susceptible of intense impressions than
others, and in these cases the images are apt to be more
vivid, and these may be embodied in paintings, in stat-
ues, or in word-painting in prose or poetry.

2. The formation of the image is dependent on the
state of the brain. It is believed that even in our sense-
perceptions there is brain action. It seems to be estab-
lished that the third convolution of the left side of the
cerebrum is the organ of the symbolic power, or of Ian-

104 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

guage. Some eminent men, such as Hitzig and Fritsch
and Ferrier, maintain that each sense has a separate
location in the brain ; others deny this. Without enter-
ing into this discussion, it is allowed that brain action is
necessary to sense action. The whole eye might be
perfect, and yet there is no vision if there be a lesion in
certain parts of the brain. Not only so, but brain action
is required in order to the reproduction of our sense-
perceptions. Now it is highly probable that the same
part of the brain acting in the perception is necessary in
order to its reproduction. When there is a lesion of a
certain part of the brain it may not be possible to form
an image of the object. In all cases the vividness of the
image may depend on the health and susceptibility of the
brain matter.

It is well known that persons may lose certain of their
recollections while they retain others. The defect seems
to arise from a lesion of the brain. We have the record
of persons losing the power of picturing forms, while
their memory was good in all other respects. We have
more frequent instances of people losing their power of
using languages or particular languages. This is the
disease of aphasia, arising from a derangement in the
organ of language. There are cases of persons losing a
portion of their knowledge for a time and then recover-
ing it ; perhaps losing it suddenly, and recovering it as
suddenly. In all such cases it looks as if, in acquiring
the original knowledge, there is a certain state of the
brain produced, say by a certain disposition of the mole-
cules, probably in the gray matter in the periphery of
the brain. Where there is an efface ment or derange-
ment of this matter in the brain the knowledge cannot
be recalled. Sometimes the disorganization is only for
a time, and when it is cured the mental power is ready
to act.

CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 105

3. There is the mental force particularly of the atten-
tion directed to the scenes as they first passed before us.
Wo were interested iu them, we turned tliem round and
round, we viewed them under various aspects, and hav-
ing been so encouraged and fondled, they are apt to visit
us again and again, and put on their best expression.
The painter has to study the features of landscapes and
the countenances and attitudes of men and women to give
us correct figures on his canvas. Under this view, the
capacity of bringing up images is more within our power
than we might at first imagine.

SECTION II.

CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY.

Following the plan of Professor Galton in his ** Questions upon
the Visualizing and Allied Faculties," Professor Osborne and my-
self issued certain queries to the students of Princeton and Vassar
(Female) Colleges. The answers are very curious, and I may de-
tail some of them.

The Phantasy is exercised most vividly in regard to the sense of
sight. The following are the answers of various persons : —

(1) I can recall the features of some exceedingly well-known per-
sons, as of my own family ; (2) It is hard for me to image faces
with great distinctness of detail ; (3) I can recall comparative
strangers with more ease than near relatives ; (4) I can recall the
features of many persons, of almost any one, better than of my
friends and relatives ; (5) I can recall the features of all whom I
have ever known intimately, except my mother ; (6) I frequently
recall faces with vividness, hut not at ivill ; (7) I can recall the fea-
tures of males better than of females ; (8) I can only recall the fea-
tures of those who have been lately seen ; (9) There are a few per-
sons very well known to me whose features I absolutely cannot
recall, and it is very annoying ; (10) I can recall readily persons,
friends, and relations ; (11) I can recall all quite distinctly, but
those with whom I am associating every day with more distinctness
than others, as my classmates at college better than my friends at
home.

106 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

The images formed in childhood are with most persons clearer,
brighter, and more numerous than those of later years. Among
twenty-eight students three believe that their powers of imagery
have improved, thirteen say that they have not varied, twelve say
that they have diminished. This is due in many cases to disuse,
for there can be no doubt that the elaborate imagery of some older
minds is far more wonderful than anything found among children.
Children's images, apart from the natural strength of their phantasy,
are vivid because they see form, color, and outline dissociated from
any distracting ideas which would enter the mind of an adult. A
child looks at a pony, engrossed with its external characters, rough
coat, long mane, and so on, without thought of price, age, or disposi-
tion. This concentration and simplicity of the mental concept affects
the memory as sharp focussing affects a sensitive jtlate. The ear-
liest images recalled from childhood are amusingly trifling ; they are
often of objects which touched the childish vanity, such as the first
long trousers or new blue dress, the first day at school.

The following experience of a young man, now a physician (Dr.
Loyd), is full of instruction: —

" A year or two ago I was suffering from near-sightedness and
seeing everything double. I had an operation performed by Dr. Ag-
new, which, with the use of glasses, restored my eyesight and cor-
rected the imperfect coordination. If I attempt to recall scenes that
I saw while my eyes were out of order, I invariably see them as they
appeared during that time, although I may have seen them many
times since the operation. For instance, in the case of the minister
in the pulpit at home, I see two images of him, no matter how much
I may try to get rid of one of them. My recollections of the examina-
tion hall and of the examiner, upon entrance to college, are affected
in the same way, although I have since attended several courses of
lectures -in that room. When I think of the examiner, his several
positions are all very clear, but all double. My recollection of the
office in which the operation was performed is also of everything as
double, although I saw it only twice before the restoration of my
sight, and many times after. The objects which I have seen since
the operation are always single when recalled."

But we may also have phantasms of touch, taste, sound, and smell.
Only a few persons can recall odors ; one writer asserts, on the other
hand, that odors are the most vivid of all his recalled sensations.
Touches axe the next rarest, then sound, then color, while form is

IDEAS SINGULAR AND CONCRETE. 107

most frequently recalled. Of twenty-five writers, all say they can
recall form in some degree, and two thirds of these recall form more
distinctly than anything else that comes to the senses. Colors, ac-
cording to this series of replies, can be fairly recalled by about two
persons out of three, but not so vividly as forms. With only one
fourth the number was the recalling of form and color equal ; with
one tenth was the recalling of form, color, and sounds equal. Those
who recalled sounds could in few instances recall colors readily, and
in many cases there was a vivid recollection of color with a dim idea
of form, or vice versa. Nineteen could recall form best, eleven could
recall colors best, or as well as forms, nine for sounds, three for
touches, and two for odors. These proportions probably indicate
but roughly those which would be obtained from a larger number of
persons. Among individuals they partly attest the relative inborn
acuteness of the various senses, as well as individual preferences for
certain qualities of objects ; objects of distaste are naturally sup-
pressed from our imagery as far as we can control it ; throughout all
is the principle so well brought out by Mr. Galton that our powers of
reviving the impressions of different senses are very uneven.

We may likewise have phantasms of purely psychical or mental
Btates, such as joy, fear, hope, reasoning, resolution ; but these have
not been so carefully observed, though they are, if possible, of more
importance.

SECTION III.

IDEAS SINGULAR AND CONCRETE.

The word " idea " is used very loosely and ambigu-
ously. But it may have a definite meaning. Literally
signifying image, it may stand for all those operations
in which there is a reproduction of past experiences.
When there is an object before me, say a mountain, and
I look upon it, I would not say that I have an idea of
it, but that I know it. In like manner, when I am con-
scious of myself in a particular state, say in pain, it is
not an adequate expression of the fact to say that I have
an idea of the pain ; we have a conscious knowledge of
it. But when the mountain and the painful affection

108 THE REPRODUCTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE POWERS.

are recalled wc may then say that we have an idea of
them. That which is brought up by the phantasy may
always be called an idea. So far as it is thus raised it is
always like the original perceptions of sense and con-
sciousness, singular and concrete, and these may be
called phantasms. Out of the singular and concrete
cognitions there may be formed general and abstract no-
tions, and these may be called conceptions or concepts.
(See iyifra, under Comparison.) Both of these may be
called "ideas," according to the usage of the English
tongue.

In an earlier part of this work I have critically exam-
ined " the ideal theory." In sense-perception the object
is presented and is known directly. When we look at a
tree I would not say with Locke that we have an idea of
it, but that we have a knowledge of it. But when the
tree is not present and we recall it, then it is proper to
say that we have an idea of it. We thus see what is the
proper order of our mental operations, not first the
image and then the substance, but first the substance
and then the image. In this way everything is put in
its proper place. There are metaphysicians who reverse
this order, and put that which is first last, and that
which is last first, and thus derange everything, make it
impossible to distinguish philosophically between the
ideas and the realities, and give to things a shadowy
existence. We avoid this by making ideas the reflection
of things.

CHAPTER III.

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

To the superficial observer it might seem as if these
ever-changing thoughts and feelings of ours follow each
other at random. In certain of our moods they lenp
from topic to topic, certainly with extraordinary rapid-
ity, and seemingly without any order or connection.
We would direct them exclusively to some all-impor-
tant matter, and suddenly they are among objects
widely removed and altogether irrelevant. In the midst
of business they set off in pursuit of pleasure : when we
would compose our minds for devotion, we find, before
we are aware, that they are carrying us wandering over
the mountains of vanity ; while it will sometimes hap-
pen that, in our moments of frivolity and folly, the most
soleinn thoughts will present themselves to sober or to
awe us. Our experience thus seems, at least at first
sight, to show that our ideas flit, at their pleasure, from
gay to grave and from grave to gay ; from home to the
ends of the earth, and from the ends of the earth back
to home ; from fear to hope, and from elevation down
to flatness ; from earth to heaven, and, alas, from heaven
to earth. But while this may be our first impression, it
will be found, if we inquire more carefully, that just as
law rules everywhere in the world of matter over even
the most unruly agents, — over the boiling waves, the
leaping streams, the fickle winds, — so it also reigns,

110 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

with all its order and beneficence, in this kingdom of
mind ; and links, often by invisible ties, our thoughts
and emotions one to another.

We find our ideas pursuing a course. (1.) When we
watch and follow them we find them connected one with
another. Some one refers to the great civil war in
America, and immediately its scenes come before us ;
the circumstances which led to it, the existence of slav-
ery, the feelings of the North and of the South, the bat-
tles and their results ; the terrible suiferings, and the
mistakes committed, the conduct of the statesmen and
the . generals, the part taken by Great Britain and
France ; the sentiments of these countries about Amer-
ica, the effect which this had on America, the issue of
the war and the condition in which it left the United
States. Our thoughts have gone over a considerably
wide course, over a number of years, and two wide con-
tinents, but they have not taken a violent leap ; they
have trod the whole way step by step.

(2.) We can often trace tiiem backward, wlien we find
the same consecutiveness. Often, indeed, we may not be
able to discover all the links, as some of them may be
forgotten in the rapidity of their occurrence. Ordinary
conversation often seems very desultory, yet we can at
times discover the thread on which are strung topics the
most remote and discordant. Thus Hobbe« of Malmes-
bury tells of his being in a company in which the con-
versation turned on the civil wars in the times of the
Commonwealth, when a person asked abruptly, " What
is the value of a Roman denarius ? " " On a little reflec-
tion," says Hobbes, " I was able to trace the train of
thought which suggested the question, for the original
subject of discourse naturally introduced the history of
the king and the treachery of those who surrendered his

THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. Ill

person to his enemies ; this again introduced the history
of Judas Iscariot and the sum of money which he re-
ceived for his reward." I remember trying to make a
company merry by the narrative of a fishing excursion
which had been distinguished by some laughable mis-
fortunes, — of boastings ending in humiliations, and of
duckings without drowning, — when, to my surprise, a
lady burst into tears : it turned out that she had lost
a dear boy, who had fallen into a deep pool when fishing.
In such cases we can detect the train of thought. In
others we may not be able to follow the path, as no
traces have been left behind in the memory ; yet even
in such we are certain that there has been a continuous
course, just as we are sure that the bullet, though we
have not seen it, has passed through the whole interme-
diate space between the rifle and the target ; and that
the lightning, which cometh out of the east and shineth
even unto the west, has passed through every point be-
tween.

" Who shall say,
Whence are those thoughts, and whither tends their wayj
The sudden images of vanished things
That o'er the spirit flash, we know not why.
Tones from some broken harp's deserted strings —
Warm sunset hues of summers long gone by —
A rippling wave — the dashing of an oar —
A flower-scent floating past our parent's door —
A word — scarce no'ed in its hour percliance.
Yet back returning witli a plaintive tone —
A smile — a sunny or a mournful glance
Full of sweet meanings, now from this world flown ;
Are not these mysteries, when to life they start,
And press vain tears in gushes from the heart 1 "

I am to endeavor to say whence are these thoughts.
In doing so I find it expedient, first, to announce and
illustrate the laws which are obvious and which are gen-

112 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

erally acknowledged, and then to discuss some more sub-
tle and disputed points. The laws of association are of
two sorts, Primary and Secondary.

SECTION I.

PRIMARY LAWS.

These regulate the succession of all our spontaneous
ideas ; not, however, of all our mental states, some of
which, such as our sensations and perceptions, are called.
up by external circumstances. The laws may be ar-
ranged under two heads, Contiguity and Correlation.

I. Contiguity. When two or more ideas have been in
the mind together, on one coming up it is apt to be fol-
lowed hy the other or others. The law takes two forms,
the one that of Succession, when the ideas have followed
each other ; the other that of Coexistence, when they
have been together.

(1.) The Law op Succession. When two ideas
have immediately succeeded each other, on one of them
coming up there is a tendency in the other to follow.
This is the Law of Repetition. The same follows tlie
same. Our thoughts have gone once, twice, or several
times in a train, — A, B, C, D, E ; one of them, A, is
started, and off goes the mind after B, C, D, E.

" John Gilpin wns a citizen,
Of credit and renown."

The child goes over this once, twice, thrice, till the words
have been associated according to the law of repetition ;
and now you have only to start " John Gilpin," and
away he slides — as on an icy track which he has made on
the snow, " was a citizen of credit and renown." Thus
it is, that things having been associated once, twice, or
often in our minds, the one is apt to recall the other. It

PRIMARY LAWS. 113

is thus we have joined China and tea ; Japan and lack-
ering ; Cornwall and tin ; Manchester and cotton ; Belfast
and linen ; Switzerland with high mountains and gla-
ciers ; the Highlands of Scotland with hills, brown heath,
rugged rocks, and leaping streams ; Ireland with green
grass and foliage ; ancient Athens with literature ; an-
cient Rome with conquest. Thus it is, that having often
seen them together, the black coat becomes associated
with the clergyman, the red coat with tlie soldier in
England, and the blue coat with the soldier in America.
Thus it is that the sign becomes associated with the
thing signified ; the rose with England, the shamrock
with Ireland, and the thistle with Scotland. Thus it is,
and as far more important, that when we have become
familiar with the meaning of a word, it at once, and
without an effort, calls up the signification ; and in an
hour we comprehend all that is in the lecture with, per-
haps, its five thousand words. Thus it is that places
become associated with what has been experienced at
them. We see this law at work even among the lower
animals. If a horse has had a fright at a particular
place it will begin to tremble as it comes to the locality.
The widow, whose husband was killed at a particular
turn of the road, cannot pass it without being over-
whelmed with OTief. The mother ever remembers her
boy, now, perhaps, grown into a man, as she passes
the place where she parted with him, as he set out to
face the hard struggle of life in some distant city or
foreign land. Thus it is that certain localities suggest
great historical events. Marathon and Bannockburn
and Waterloo call up nations delivered from tyranny j
and Bethlehem and Nazareth and Jerusalem call up
freedom achieved by a mighty deliverer for the sin-
enslaved race of mankind.
8

114 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

Taking this key with us we can often explain certain
peculiarities of character which may seem very odd. The
child screams when he hears of his being about to re-
ceive a visit from the surgeon, who had to perform a
painful operation on him. That boy will not taste the
jelly piece offered him, because the jelly is associated
with the nausea of the drug which was administered in
it. An excellent lady of my acquaintance was nearly
killed by a bullock when a child, and ever since she runs
from the most harmless cow as if it were a lion. Thus
it is that certain persons have been made to acquire a
horrid shrinking from certain objects, such as mice or
rats, as frogs or toads, as cats or dogs, or from darkness,
which is associated with ghosts. Beginning with these
simpler instances, we can now explain more complex
and recondite cases ; as how people become prejudiced
against certain persons ; these persons have inflicted on
them some real, or quite as possible, some imaginary
injury ; or against certain scenes, because there they
have suffered a humiliation. I know a man who sup-
poses that I kept him out of an office which he very
much coveted, and ever since, when he is in danger of
meeting me, he sets off the nearest by-way that may ena-
ble him to escape. Those who have injured any one in
his property or good name are apt ever after to shrink
from his company ; for his presence reminds them of
their sin, which they would rather keep out of sight. I
knew a young man who made a fool of himself, and was
laughed at, the first night he entered a debating club,
and never after could he be made to face such a meet-
ing, which he always looked upon as an array of brist-
ling spears — the tongue of every member being ready
to enter into his heart. Young persons are to be on
their guard against falling under the power of such un-

PRIMARY LAWS. 115

reasonable or sinful associations. When we are in dan-
ger of being subjected to them, we should hasten to
deliver ourselves from the thraldom by connecting the
objects with other and more pleasing remembrances. I
know a boy who in early life got a fright at dogs, and it
was only by his being led to mingle for long with very
gentle animals, that he was cured of his terror ; that is,
dogs now became associated in his mind with harmless-
ness and playfulness. I am acquainted with a physician,
who, feeling how injurious it is to children to be in
terror of their doctor, contrives to amuse his juvenile
patients till he becomes a favorite. It is thus we should
endeavor to overcome our antipathies towards all of
whom we ax'e jealous ; let us think of them under the
more favorable aspects of their character, or, if we can-
not but know and abhor their bad qualities, let us, at
least, ever remember that we ourselves are also sinners.
It is thus we should contend against every sinful preju-
dice; against every prejudice, indeed, except the preju-
dice against sin, whiih we should certainly ever associ-
ate with loathing and detestation.

But it is of more moment to remark, that it is this
law that mainly gives its strength to Habit. Let us
glance for a little at habit and its power for good and
for evil. Habit, as eveiy one knows, is characterized by
two marked features.

(a.) There is a tendency to repeat the acts which have
often been done. Certain mental states, ideas, feelings,
and resolutions have followed each other in a certain
order, once, twice, ten times, or a hundred times ; and
now, on any one of these coming up, the others will in-
cline to follow — quite as naturally as the stone falls to
the ground if unsupported, or as water, bursting from
its fountain, will run in the channel formed for it. You

116 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

wonder at the drunkard become so infatuated, but the
grieving, the downcast mother, or the disheartened wife,
can tell you of a time — and a sigh heaves her bosom as
she speaks of it — when the now outcast and degraded
one was loved and respected, and returned with regular-
ity to quiet and domestic peace in the bosom of the fam-
ily. But, alas, he would not believe the warnings of a
parent ; he did not attend to the meek unobtrusive rec-
ommendations of a wife or sister ; he despised the com-
mands of the living God ; and, seeking for happiness
where it has never been found, he spurned at those who
told him that the habit was fixing its roots, till nov/ he
has become the scorn and jest of the thoughtless, and
the object of pity to the wise and good : talking of his
kindness of heart while his friends and family are pining
in poverty ; boasting to his companions, in the midst of
his brutal mirth, of his strength of mind, and yet unable
to resist the least temptation. What we see in so marked
a manner in drunkenness has equal place, though it may
not be so striking, in the formation of evei-y other habit ;
as of indolence, which shrinks from everj^ exertion ; and
of avarice and worldly-mindedness, which keep us ever
toiling among the clay of this earth ; and licentiousness,
which wades through filth till it sinks hopelessly into
the mire of pollution : the man is driven on as by a
terrible wind behind moving to fill up a vacuum; as by a
tide with its wave upon wave pursuing each other, under
an attracting power which will not let go its grasp. In
all cases we see how difiicult it is for those who have
been accustomed to do evil to learn to do well ; at times
almost as impossible as for a man, who has thrown him-
self from a pinnacle, to rise up when he is half way
down ; or for one who has committed himself to the
stream above Niagara to stop when he is at the very
brink.

PRIMARY LAWS. 117

And let no man try to excuse his criminality on the
ground that the acts are now beyond his will. He
should resist the wave till it has expended itself: he
should seek a more favorable wind to drive him along.
He is even now to blame for not resisting the evil and
not seeking divine aid to help him out of the pit ; and
he is chiefly and above all to bUime for the habit, which
is his formation throughout. For it was by repeated
acts — by repeated voluntary acts — that the man wore
the ruts and deepened the ruts, out of which it is now
so difficult to move him. It was the glass of whiskey or
brandy from day to day, the intoxicating drinks from
week to week, at the dinner or evening party, — it was
this that formed the addictedness to intemperance. In
these processes there was criminality at every step ; and
all that ensues — this slavery and these chains — is a
judicial infliction for the evil that has been done : the
punishment here, as in hell, adding to the greatness and
virulence of the wickednfiss. In most cases, indeed, the
man did not see the consequences, but it is because he
shut his eyes to them. He would do the deed only this
one time, and then he would stop. But the temptation
which swayed him the first time presents itself anew,
and once more is yielded to. Having crossed the line
which separates vice from virtue, he thinks that a few
more transgressions may not much aggravate the offence ;
he therefore goes a little farther, still cherishing the
idea that he may return at any time. At length some
rash deed of excess, or unexpected exposure, shows him
that it is time to draw back ; and then it is that he feels
how ditticult the retreat. It was easy to slide into the
net, but what obstacles catch him as ho would draw
back. His past motion has created a momentum which
impels him farther, and ever on towards the gulf. " Be

118 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

not deceived, God is not mocked ; for whatsoever a man
soweth that shall he also reap." He has sown to the flesh,
and of the flesh he now reaps corruption. He has sown
to the wind, and the whirlwind rises to toss him along as
by an irresistible power. He has set the stone a-rolling,
and he has to answer for the injury it may do as it de-
scends. He has loosed the wagon, and let it go down
the inclined plane, and he is responsible for all the havoc
it may work as it dashes on with ever accelerated speed.
There are affecting cases, in which the man is conscious
of his misery as he sinks — like a traveller lost in the
Alps — down the snowy descent into the awful gulf.
Take the following confession of a man of genius, a
poet and a philosopher, at the time when he had become
the slave of opium, taken in the first instance to relieve
a bodily disease. " Conceive," says Coleridge, " a poor
miserable wretch, who for many years had been attempt-
ing to beat off pain by a constant recurrence to the vice
which reproduces it. Conceive a spirit in hell tracing
out for others the road to that heaven from which his
vices exclude him. In short, conceive whatever is most
wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and you will form as
tolerable a notion of my state as it is possible for a good
man to have. I used to think the text in James, that
he who offended in one point offends in all, very harsh ;
but now I feel the tremendous, the awful truth of it.
For the one sin of opium, what crimes have I not made
myself guilty of. Ingratitude to my Maker and to my
benefactors, and unnatural cruelty to my poor children ;
nay, too often actual falsehood. After my death I ear-
nestly entreat that a full and unqualified narration of my
wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made pub-
lic, that at least some little good may be effected by the
direful example."

PRIMARY LAWS. 119

(b.) Habit gives a facility in doing acts which have
often been performed. This peculiarity is derived from
that just considered. It is the tendency that gives the
facility — the acquii'ed momentum that gives the veloc-
ity. At first the work could be done only by an effort
— only by a special act of the will setting itself to de-
vise means and avoid obstacles. Now, the process once
begun goes on of itself. As a consequence, that which
may at first have been irksome, because laborious, now
becomes pleasant, because easy, — and now natural, that
is, according to a natural law.

Under the other aspect of habit, we were led to view
its evil results. Now we are rather invited to contem-
plate its beneficent effects ; and surely the law of habit,
like every other part of our constitution, was appointed
for good by our Maker. True, it is found that when we
abuse this law it has within itself, and evidently pro-
vided for this end, the means of inflicting a terrible judi-
cial punishment. But certainly tbe law is good to them
that use it lawfully. We have forgotten a great deal of
our childish experiences, yet we remember so much, and
we see enough to convince us that that little boy has
his trials at every stage as he learns to read : — as first
he masters the letters, one by one ; then the words,
word after word ; and then is able, out of these black
strokes, to gather a history, or a science, or a doctrine
regarding God and Christ, and the soul, and the world
to come. And yet how easy do we now find all this
as in a few minutes we read a whole page, with perhaps
its 1,500 letters ? I mention this for the encouragement
of those who are still carrying on their education. For
our efforts to improve our minds should not cease with
our childhood. We should be scholars all our days on
earth ; and until we shall reach the kingdom of heavea,

120 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

where I suppose we shall also be scholars sitting at the
feet of the Great Teacher. I recommend that every
young man should, at every particular time, be ambi-
tiously and resolutely engaged at his leisure hours in
mastering some new branch of knowledge, secular or
sacred. Let one propose to himself to acquire a new
language, say German or French ; another to master a
science, say chemistry or natural history ; a third to be-
come thoroughly familiar with some department of civil
history ; while others, or the same, would make them-
selves conversant with Bible history, or of the history
of the Chuich of Christ in the early ages, or of the Ref-
ormation struggle, with its instructive lessons and thrill-
ing incidents of suffering and martyrdom ; or they would
master the system of Christian theology, or the plan and
reasoning of the Epistle to the Romans. In prosecuting
any one of these tasks they will find difficulties ; but let
me assure them, for their encouragement, that these will
be felt only at the beginning, and will disappear and be
forgotten, like the difficulties they had years ago in
learning the alphabet. And these difficulties being over-
come, they will find their minds braced and strengthened
by the very effort made and the victory gained. Of all
attainments youthful habits of a useful kind are the
Boost valuable — more valuable than even all the knowl-
edge acquired in forming them. And youth is the spe-
cial time for acquiring habits ; habits of industry and
application ; habits of manliness and independence ; hab-
its of activity ; habits of benevolence and self-sacrifice ;
habits of reading ; habits of rigid thought ; habits of
devotion. I have been uttering a warning against the
formation of evil habits ; but no one will be able to pre-
vent bad habits in any other way than by cultivating
good ones. You will not be able to keep down the weeds

PRIMARY LAWS. 121

except by preoccupying the soil with good seed. And as
I have said, the very labor undergone in forming good
habits will harden the mind and body for further ex-
ertion. There is a fable told somewhere of a Norman
captain who became possessed of the virtues, whether
courage, sagacity, perseverance, or whatever else, of the
persons slain by him in battle. This fable becomes a
fact in the history of every one who has acquired a
good habit. Every difficulty surmounted by him,- in a
branch of useful knowledge, clothes him with new
strength, and prepares him the better for new con-
quests.

(2.) The law of coexistence. Ideas which have "been in
the mind at the same time tend to recall each other. This
law is so allied to the other, that the two might be ex-
pressed at once under the general name of contiguity or
redintegration ; that is, thoughts that have been together
in the mind, either contemporaneously or consecutively,
tend to bring up each other. But while the two have
affinities, advantages scientific and practical arise from
illustrating the law of coexistence separately.

A curious question has been started as to how many
things we may have before the mind at one and the
same time. Sir William Hamilton maintained that we
can have a clear idea, at one time, of six separate ob-
jects. It is a matter for experiment. You will find, I
think, that if you place before you, in fact or in imagi-
nation, a number of objects, — say persons, or marbles,
or chairs, — you will not be able to see or contemplate
more than four or five of them ; the rest will either
look very dim, or, if you think of them, you must do
so consecutively. Suppose, then, that you have a few
objects before you. A, B, C, D, E, then on any one of

122 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEA«.

these, B, coming before the mind, it may call up some
one or all of the rest. You met for the first time, and
conversed with two persons in one company ; you after-
wards meet one of them, and the image of the other
stands before you, possibly, with the room and furni-
ture in which you talked with them. Happening once
to meet a Belfast man at Rotterdam, I never see him
without thinking of that city. In my childhood I was
accustomed to hear a flock of geese cackling as I lay in
bed' in my father's house, and on the romantic hills in the
neighborhood I ever heard the lapwing, the curlew, and
the grouse, and I cannot hear the cries of these birds
now without having the whole scenes of my younger
years before me. In my early life of study I sat in a
room through which the blue flies buzzed most vigor-
ously, and the buzzing of a big blue fly always makes
me seated in a certain room at a little table, with my
Homer before me. You heard a person tell a tale that
interested you ; whenever the tale occurs to you, it
brings up the narrator, and vice versa; the two formed
as it were one complete thought, and the one hauls in
the other. You have been accustomed to hear a tune
sung to certain words ; whenever the words are brought
up the tune comes up with them, while the tune is apt to
bring back the words ; rendering it very perilous to at-
tach profane tunes to sacred songs, — the tune of " Where
the sweet waters meet " to a hymn, — as there will al-
ways be a risk that the worshipper thinks of the " sweet
waters " instead of the Divine Being. As one separate
object thus recalls another separate object with which it
has been associated in thought at any time, so (what is
very much the same thing) if I have noticed a number
of qualities of one and the same object, any one of these
may become a starting-point for an association. If I have

PRIMARY LAWS. 123

met a man with a snub nose and a blue neckcloth and

extremely witty, so that pun flashed after pun, and re-
partee succeeded humorous description, I am apt, when
I see a snub nose, to think of the blue neckcloth and
the jokes which were fired off. I was obliged once to sit
two whole hours at dinner beside a lady with a blazing
crimson gown, loaded all over with jewelry, but who
had an awful incapacity for conversation, and I never
see that gaudy color without thmking of the lady and
yawning as I do so, as I recall the terribly long two
hours I had with her, starting topic after topic, without
a response. The very idea of a dinner company here sug-
gests to me that the dullest party I w;is ever at was one
where there was a table groaning with rich food, with
ten kinds of wine, and all the delicacies of the season,
— that is, with very unseasonable lamb in January ; and
I ever since get terribly alarmed for a stupid meet-
ing when I see a gross display of eatables and drink-
ables, having no quality but a vulgar and sinful expen-
siveness.

This law of coexisting ideas helps greatly to give
sweep and variety to our thoughts. Were there no law
save that of repetition, our thoughts, like Dumbiedyke's
pony, would carry their supposed master always by the
same route to the same spot. But by the law of coexist-
ence a number of roads are spread out before us, that to-
day we may pass into one, and to-morrow into the other.
By the law of repetition our thoughts hang on each
other like the links of a long chain ; by this other they
are connected as in a network, branching off in all direc-
tions. The law of repetition would carry us rapidly as
by a railway to a particular point, but by the law of co-
existence we have the freedom of a man driving or rid-
ing, or as more independent still, walking, and who may

124 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

take the straight road, but who may also take the wind-
ing one, and strike off when he chooses from the high-
ways to the byways ; or leave all paths behind as he
follows the windings of the stream, and is enlivened by
its purlings, or muses on its dark pools ; or as he lies
down by the fountain and gazes on its perpetual spiing-
ing and the patch of green around ; or dives into the
deep woods, and listens to the eerie sound of the melan-
choly wind howling through them as if seeking rest and
complaining that it cannot get it ; or as he goes out
into the wayless waste, to enjoy a sense of freedom in
wandering at his free will ; or as he boldly marches up
the steep mountain to see the sweep of hills and rocks,
of plains and streams, of scattered houses and crowded
towns, with the smoke curling up from them to show
that there are dwellers within.

But in order to take full advantage of this law we
must have the knowledge of a variety of objects, and
this is to be acquired by observation, by intercourse
with our fellow-men, by reading, by travelling, that tlius
we may ever have themes to set off upon in our musings
and reflections. Persons in charge of the deaf and dumb
tell us that they may not be more stupid than others,
but being from " one inlet to knowledge quite shut out,"
their range of thinking is very restricted, till they are
taught the use of signs, whereby to communicate with
their fellow -men. The ideas of the uneducated man,
who has never travelled many miles from his native
place, are apt to be very few and confined, and the top-
ics of conversation between him and his wife very soon
become exhausted — persons of intelligence in this walk
of life are commonly so glad when they can have the
society of one beyond their narrow sphere. " I never
thought the world so big till I went to Belfast," said a

PRIMARY LAWS. 125

good woman brought up twenty miles away in a solitary
house in the Antrim glens. The vvoi'ld does look bigger
as we come to know that there are other people in it
besides those who live in our own parish ; or as we
study history and study science, and go back through
English history, and Irish history, and Scottish history,
and Roman history, and Hebrew history, and back be-
yond to the geological epochs ; or as we go out beyond
the range we can see from the hills above our mother's
house and begin to conceive of so big a country as the
United States, and then take in the whole globe of our
world, and the sun's magnitude, and realize in thought
that these stars are suns and systems of suns ; or as we
are trained out of God's book to take in the yet nobler
idea of a spiritual God, who fills all time and all space,
so that they are no longer empty, but full of life and
love.

But just because there is such a wide range, there is
greater scope allowed our thoughts to wander into for-
bidden regions. And what starts they do take ! You
would think of a solemn doctrine of religion, and you
remember how you heard it preached by a minister in a
particular church, where was a lady, whose character
and whose ribbons you jfind yourself somewhat eagerly
discussing instead of the religious truth. This is a small
matter, and may be easily rectified ; however, there
should be a rectification, otherwise we shall soon lose
control over our minds altogether. But the danger lies
in systematically allowing ourselves to indulge in im-
proper thoughts, which come thus to coexist and mingle
with all our trains, so that every train brings them up
along with it to carnalize and degrade the mind. Thus
there are some who have cherished thoughts of vanity
(*' how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee,"

126 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

— Jer. iv. 14), and encouraged themselves in the midst
of all their employments to think of their supposed abil-
ity, skill, prowess, generosity ; and such feelings being
thus fondled present themselves even when they are not
wished, till the man becomes literally puffed up with van-
ity, which is sure ever to land him in humiliations be-
fore his fellow-men, even as the self-righteous spirit has
all along been displeasing to God. Another has allowed
himself to dwell on the evil qualities, real or supposed,
of his fellow-men, till he becomes habitually envious in
thought, and censorious in speech. A third has rolled
impure thoughts as a sweet morsel under his tongue, till
he has defiled his whole soul, and he becomes the easy
prey of, the first temptation. In proportion as such
thoughts as these are cheiished and mingled with our
whole life, so will they certainly and frequently come up
of their own accord and unbidden. " Be not deceived,
evil communications corrupt good manners." The wise
father is accustomed to warn his son of the danger aris-
ing from evil companions, which are perilous in very
proportion as they are pleasant. But there is another
class of companions who are yet more dangerous, be-
cause they have yet closer access to us, and these are evil
ideas and evil feelings. We think we can allow these to
dwell in the soul, and yet be untainted by them. Ah,
it is the mistake of the youth who thinks he can go into
scenes of dissipation and folly, and yet keep himself free
from the vices which conquer others. Once having ad-
mitted these visitors to our familiar heart, we will not
be able to banish them when we choose. Having called
up these spirits from the vasty deep, we shall find that
we are not able to allay them when we please ; they
will insist on abiding with us, first to tempt, and then
torment us. " Can a man take fire in his bosom, and

PRIMARY LAWS. 127

his clothes not be burned ? Can one go upon hot coals,
and his feet not be burned? "

Under this head the youth needs to be guarded
against a more subtle seduction. He must beware of
identifying morality and religion with what is mean and
gloomy ; and agahi, of associating vice or sin of any
kind with what is pleasant, and noble, and generous.
This is a snare which the wicked will lay in the path of
the inexperienced, whom tbey would tempt to look on
religion us fit only for the dying, or as likely to be
accepted only by knaves and simpletons; while they
represent irreligion as manly, independent, and opening
numerous sources of enjoyment. Those who would al-
lure the thoughtless know well how to set off sin and
folly by theatrical accompaniments, by the setting of
cut flowers which look pretty at night, but which are
faded on the morrow, and by scenery which appears fair
only when seen in the glare of artificial lamps, but which
we turn from as unbearably paltry and shabby in the
light of day.

But it is not enough to guard against this association
with evil ; we must seek the society of the good. And
here is the proper place for mentioning, that aids to the
memory proceed very much on the principle we are now
expounding. Persons connect something which is apt
to be forgotten with another thing which must come
before the mind, and which, as it comes up, brings its
companion with it. This was the use of those signs
upon the hands, and frontlets between the eyes, which
were used in the East, and which are referred to in
Scripture. Such artificial aids are still used in modern
education, and commonly proceed on the laws of succes-
Bion or coexistence. Rut by far the most useful sort of
aid to memory is that which arises from the judicious

128 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

arrangement of time, which secures that as the day uf
the Aveek comes round, or the hour of the day presents
itself, it lets off, like a mill-wheel, its allotted work. It
is proverbial that what may be done at any time is apt
to be done at no time ; and the reason why, because it is
not connected with any specific time, and so is forgotten
or postponed ; whereas, when the exercise has been tied
to a particular hour, the hour brings the recollection of
the duty, and the inclination to perform it. Let me
suppose that there are two young men, one of whom has
made no distribution of his time, but has left himself at
the mercy of circumstances as they cast up, whereas the
other has allotted one part to devotion, another to busi-
ness, a third to relaxation, a fourth to reading and the
means of mental improvement ; I venture to say that the
latter, with much more ease and satisfaction, will soon
find himself rewarded by having done a far larger amount
of work, and why? because he has conformed to a law
which God liimself has planted in our constitution.

It is not enough to accommodate ourselves to these
practical rules ; we must seek to surround ourselves with
the beautiful and the good. Some have supposed that all
beauty consists in association of ideas. This I believe
to be a mistake. There are objects, there are feelings,
which are lovely in themselves. Still, nmch of the feel-
ing of beauty which collects around certain objects
arises from their coming to be associated with peace and
plenty, with life or power, or some other living reality.
It is a fact that uneducated persons, and persons low in
the scale of humanity, have, in general, not much sense
of the beautiful. " That 's a grand mountain ! " I said
once to an Irish lad who was driving my car. '' Yes,
sir," said he, " it feeds a hundred cattle." " What a
lovely bank ! " said a romantic young lady to a decent

PRIMARY LAWS. 129

Scotchwoman, " Ou, ay," was the reply, "it is gran'
for bleachin' claes." Yet there is surely a pure source
of high enjoyment thrown open to those who are capa-
ble of looking on multitudes of objects in an interesting
light. It is an attainment, when we have so cultivated
our associations that wherever we are, and in every sea-
son of the revolving year, — whether among the opening
buds and blossoms of spring, or among the full-blown
flowers of summer, or the fruitful riches of autumn, or
the pensiveness of the falling leaf, or even among the
wrecks strewn by winter, we everywhere fix on objects
which awaken feelings of the beautiful, the picturesque,
or the sublime. We have a compassion, apt to be min-
gled with contempt, for the man who looks on Staffa and
the Giant's Causeway merely as a lump of rock, or on
the ocean simply as a great pool of brine. We have no
great respect for the Yankee who lamented that there
was so much water power lost at the Falls of Niagara, or
for the Glasgow man who valued Loch Ketterin as a res-
ervoir or big tub, holding so many hundreds of thousands
of gallons to supply his city with water.

** A cowslip by the river's brim,
A yellow cowslip was to him,
And it was nothing more."

Let us cherish a yet higher ambition. Let us seek to
raise ourselves up by the high and noble company we
keep, as we surround ourselves with the society of the
pure and the good : by holy doctrine ; by stern law ; by
the " primal duties that shine aloft like stars ; " by the
memories of deeds of courage and perseverance, and
self-sacrifice ; by images of purity ; by models of excel-
lence ; by high ideas of God, who is a spirit ; by tender,
awful, and yet familiar remembrances of the God Man,
as He walked the earth and did his work, and bore mys-
9

130 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

terlous sorrow while He scattered offices of kindness ;
let us surround ourselves by generous sentiments, by
the mercy that is ever pitiful, by " the charities that
soothe and heal and bless," that, as we walk with them
and they converse with us, they may elevate, and yet
humble and instruct and admonish and cheer and con-
sole us.

II. The Law of Correlation, according to which,
tvhen we have discovered a relation between things, the
idea of one tends to bring up the others. Attempts
have been made to resolve this law into the others. I
am not to enter into these subtle discussions liere ; it is
enough for me that there is such a law simple or com-
plex ; it is a fact, that things between whicli a relation
has been discovered suggest each other.

I have classified below (p. 211) the relations which
the mind can discover, those (1) of Identity, (2) Whole
and Parts, (3) of Resemblance, (4) of Space, (5) of
Time, (6) of Quantity, (7) of Active Property, (8) of
Cause and Effect. When we have discovered any one of
these relations the objects are apt to call up each other.
An object in one position calls up the same object in
other circumstances. A part suggests the whole and the
whole a part. Resembling objects bring up each other
as contiguous objects in space and time and quantity do.
The properties and causal relations of objects are pow-
erful bonds of association.

But instead of enlarging on all these we may illus-
trate a few of them in a way which will come home to
the experience of every one. Thus like recalls like. It
is the law of similarity or resemblance. I see a portrait
and immediately I think of the original. I see a boy
and I am at once reminded of his father, whose features

PRIMARY LAWS. 131

he bears. This law brings comparisons and likenesses
of every kind before us, and we delight to trace them.
There are analogies which commend themselves to the
minds of all, and the one object ever suggests the other.
Thus we connect sunshine and prosperity, night and
adversity, light and truth, darkness and error, mist and
confusion, whiteness and innocence, sin and pollution, the
dove and meekness, the serpent and Aviliness, the lamb
and gentleness, the tiger and fierceness, the fox and cun-
ning, the dog and faithfulness, fickleness and fortune,
the forest and wandering, high winds and calamities,
waves and troubles, heights and hollows with prosperity
and adversity alternately succeeding each other, human
life and the running stream, spring and childhood, sum-
mer and the bloom of youth, autumn and sober middle
age, the fading year and declining life, old age and gray
hairs with the snows of winter. Prose uses such compar-
isons for instruction, and poetry seizes them, and brings
thein forth for delight. " James Thomson," said Samuel
Johnson, '' could not see these two candles without mak-
ing an image out of them." The earlier poets brought
out the more obvious, the broader, and more striking
comparisons, and these ever come home most powerfully
to the hearts of all ; but these being now become com-
monplace, certain more modern poets, such as Keats,
Tennyson, and Browning, are led to search for more
subtle and recondite analogies, which affect most in-
tensely a select few who have run through all older
poetry. Poetry seeks to take advantage of all sorts
of correlations, of sound and sense, of measured sylla-
bles, of rhyme, of balancings of idea and sentiment, of
metaphor, simile, contrast, and comparisons of every kind.
Hence it is that poetry is more easily committed to
memory than prose ; we have now not only the law of

132 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

repetition to aid us, but the law of resemblance or cor-
relation, the one strengthening the other, and the whole
giving impetus to the stream. But this law is not con-
fined in its influence to poetry ; it aids the scientific in-
quirer in every biandi of investigation, by often bring-
ing together the things that are like, and which should,
therefore, be put into the same class or group. The
botanist sees a plant; it suggests a like plant, and the
species and genus to which it belongs. This law of mind
within thus helps us to discover the laws of nature with-
out us ; and to make us feel that we are surrounded
with objects not constructed arbitrarily, nor distributed
capriciously, but fashioned after an ordained model-form
or type, and capable of being arranged in the most
methodical manner into species and genera, and orders
and kingdoms. By this corresponding law within, we
are thus made to feel at home amid the varied and com-
plicated works of nature ; and to discover among these
adaptations evidence of a plan and a purpose.

And then resemblance is only one of many correla-
tions which the mind is inclined to discover and to fol-
low in its spontaneous trains. There are a numbei- of
other lines, on which rails are set for it, and on which it
will run if it is once placed on them. Thus it is apt to
run on from effect to cause, and cause to effect ; from a
whole to its parts, and a pai't to its whole ; from means
to end, and end to means. On seeing an effect, the
mind naturally goes after its cause. Thus, in history,
we inquire what agencies God employed to effect the
great Reformation in the sixteenth centurj^ ; what causes
produced the French Revolution of 1790 ; what influ-
ence made the people demand the Reform Bill in Eng.
land in 1830 ; and we would seek to determine wliat are
the causes that produce the special forms of immorality

PRIMARY LAWS. 133

which disgrace our country. And again, when we see
a powerful set of agencies at work, we inquire what will
be their effect ; what, for instance, must be the issue
of the abolition of slavery in America? In science,
Newton inquired what draws a stone to the ground, and
found it to be the same gravitation as keeps the moon in
her sphere : and there are persons asking what keeps up
the sun's light, and they think it is a shower of bodies
which run round him, and as they ever come nearer dash
into his atmosphere and strike light and heat. Thus it
is that when we fall in with a complex object we are in-
clined to resolve it into its parts ; and when we see an
ingenious machine, to find out what is its use. We need
not illustrate this farther. All philosophy and all sci-
ence are illustrations of relations of some kind, of class
or cause, of parts and whole, or means and end ; and
minds of a philosophic or scientific character are exer-
cised in discovering these relations, which are the rela-
tions that bind nature together ; and all persons gifted
with high intellect delight to pursue and follow such
relations, as they are unfolded to us through all the
works of the Great Creator. Thus, too, we like to have
essays, sermons, lectures, speeches, not disjointed and
leaping abruptly from one topic to a distant one, but, on
the contrary, having all the parts connected by a rela-
tion of some kind, and all the sentences leading grace-
fully the one to the other ; and when this is done our
thoughts follow the train more pleasantly, and we find
that by means of the ties' thus supplied we can, with
less difficulty, call when we please all the topics back
into our memory.

It should be observed that as the result of the work-
ing of the laws of Coexistence and Correlation, our ideas
are apt to come up in groups ; at times to annoy us by

134 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

collecting a troublesome crowd ; more frequently to help
us by calling in the powers which enable, us to accom-
plish our ends, which we now do as if by instinct.

It is by such high relations that the ideas of minds of
the higher sort are knit together, and their thoughts, in-
stead of running lilce those of commonplace minds in
the same track, or bringing together the things that have
coexisted before, go after analogies and causes and con-
sequences and analyses and uses, and bring illustrations
and proofs and confirmation from remote regions. The
memory that proceeds by correlation is much higher in
kind than that which follows mere repetition and co-
existence. It has often been said that a powerful mem-
ory is seldom associated with a strong judgment. This is
so far a mistake. In order to ascertain the exact truth
we nmst distinguish between two kinds of memor)', —
the memory that goes by repetition and coexistence,
and the memory that pursues resemblances and causes
and other intellectual relations. A memory that excels
only in repeating may certainly exist without any high
powers of judgment or reason. There have been ex-
traordinary instances recorded of this repeating memory.
The story told of a man employed by Frederick of Prus-
sia to repeat a poem of Voltaire, on once hearing it,
is rather amusing. Voltaiie was to read to the king a
poem of considerable length, which lie had just com-
posed. After he had finished reading the king remarked
dryly, " That poem is stolen ; I have heard it before."
" That is impossible," said the poet. Whereupon Fred-
erick said he would prove it, and immediately sent for a
man who, to the great confusion of Voltaire, repeated
the poem word for word. Tlie person had been placed
behind a screen, and from once hearing the poem was
able to repeat it correctly. But this memory is after all

SECONDARY LAWS. 1S5

the child's memory, which goes by repeating the same,
or striking off after the topics thut have been together
in its mind before. It is not the memory of the man
intellectually advanced, which will not follow the one
straight line, because it has many other lines alluring it ;
which will not spring up straight like the stalk of grass,
or the reed, but goes off ramified like the tree in mul-
tiplied branches and branchlets of varied curvature,
covered all over with graceful foliage. It is not the
memory of the historian, the memory of the poet, the
memory of the man of science, all of which proceed by
correlation, and bring in facts and images and generali-
zations from the past and the distant, as well as from
the present and the near, from the real and from the
ideal, from earth and from heaven ; to instruct by their
truthfulness, to please by their beauty, to strike by their
novelty, or to combine the scattered works of God in a
sublime unity, illustrative of the one great creative mind.
A memory which thus gathers in from su(!h varied quar-
ters is ever associated with, as indeed it proceeds from,
a powerful understanding.

SECTION II.

SECONDARY LAWS.

The Law of Preference, which is the Law of
Native Power and Active Energy. — The laws of
which I have been speaking seem to me to be those
which regiilate the train of thought. But the question
arises, How is it that the mind is led to follow one of
these rather than another ^ or why, among a variety of
objects which it might follow, does it take one rather
than another ? I met two persons in a particular com-
pany ; the next time I fall in with them I remember the

136 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

one, but not the other. Why is this? The reason may
be that the one of them had a very brilliant conversa-
tion, or he committed some great blunder which exposed
him to ridicule, or he had a pair of peculiar gray eyes, or
a limp as he walked. The question now is. Can we gen-
eralize these reasons ? The laws of this kind have been
called Secondary Laws by Brown, and the Law of Pref-
erence by Hamilton. I have a way of my own of stat-
ing them.

There seem to be two grounds on which the mind
turns to one associated object rather than another. The
one of these is the ground of Native Power, Taste, and
Disposition. We are so constituted by nature that our
feelings go in one way rather than another. Thus one
mind ever tends to repetition, another rather to correla-
tion. One man delights in poetical images, another in
scientific classes or causes. One intellect is inclined to
observe resemblances, another differences and exceptions.
I cannot illustrate this ; it does not bear so much on the
practical object I have in view.

But I must explain and illustrate the Law of Mental
Energy. Those ideas are brought up most readily and
frequently on which we have bestowed the greatest
amount of mental exertion. Thus it is when we have
once and again, in the past, thought or felt about certain
objects, they will be apt once and again to come before
ns in the future. Every mind seems to be endowed with
a certain amount of power, and according to the power
expended on an idea, so is it remembei-ed for a greater
length of time, and it comes up more easily and fre-
quently. I suppose it is because youth has the greatest
amount of this energy that the memory is strongest at
that period of life, while in consequence of fading
strength old persons feel a less interest in the objects

SECONDARY LAWS. 137

and events which pass before them, and these in conse-
quence leave little impression on their minds. This ex-
ertion may be an energy of Feeling^ of Intellect^ or of
Will.

(1.) Those ideas that have been attended with deep
feeling are called up more frequently/ and readily. — I
have forgotten many of the events of my childhood, but
there are some I can never forget, they were accompa-
nied with such deep emotion. I cannot, for example,
forget that solemn sabbath-day in which I saw the corpse
of a revered father spread out on the couch on which
I had so often played with him. Much that I did and
saw in my college days has passed into oblivion ; but I
cannot banish one scene from my mind. I was passing
along the streets when I saw a child literally divided in
two by the wheel of a heavily-loaded cart passing over
it. I got but a momentary glimpse of the scene, of the
mother hurrying frantically past me to embrace a man-
gled corpse instead of a living child ; but there it remains
psiinted on my memory, fresh as if it had happened
but an hour ago. I do not remember all that I saw in
a pedestrian tour which I took in the highlands of Scot-
land, but I can never, wliile I have a memory, forget
such scenes as Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. I can-
not recall all that I saw in Germany, but I can bring
up at pleasure the " Unter den Linden " of Berlin and
the scenes hallowed by the deeds of Luther. If Italy
is named, Venice, and the plains of Lombardy, and the
Cathedral of Milan, and the Lake of Como come up
lively as a picture. I remember much of Switzerland,
but I dwell most fondly on the sunrise as seen from the
Riffelberg ; on the high top of Mont Blanc, flanked with
its pointed buttresses ; on the huge bulk of the Jungfrau,
with its deep gullies ; and on the placidity of Lake Lu-

138 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

cerne, guarded by its horrid mountains of snow and ice.
My recollection of Belgium is somewhat flat, but I do
not forget 'Waterloo. Why do such scenes and events,
and a thousand others of the same kind, rise up like
mountain-tops in my retrospective memory, while others
have sunk out of sight like the valleys between? It is
because, to use a geological illustration, they have been
heaped up by the fiery heat of deep and fervent feeling,
which has elevated them from the usual low level of life
to cut and to face the sky.

We see, then, one way of preserving events in the
memory. We may let the mean and the trivial pass
away into oblivion. But let us preserve those that are
worthy by embalming them in warm feeling. You can
often determine what a man is wont to feel an interest
in by the objects which he remembers. Suppose a num-
ber of persons, of different tastes, training, and trades,
have traveled over the same country in company, you
may guess the objects in which they felt an interest by
the nature of the scenes remembered by them most
vividly. The farmer has a distinct recollection of the
soil, and of the way in which the land is cultivated. The
merchant and manufacturer will rather dwell on the
symptoms of advancing or declining trade in the towns
and villages along the route. The man of scientific cul-
ture can tell you what were the plants and animals of
the district, and what the sti'ucture of the rocks ; while
he who" has a taste for the beauties of nature can never
forget those hills and glens and streams of romantic
beauty which so kindled his eye as he passed them.
The antiquarian delights to describe that ruin covered
by the hoar of age ; while the man of historic taste will
wonder at all the others because they never noticed
that plain where a great battle — that decided the

SECONDARY LAWS. 139

doubtful fate of a country — was fought, or that house
which was the birthplace of some patriot or poet. And
that phiin-looking dwelling : it was not observed at all
by the mass of the company, and those who noticed it
thought it one of the dullest, stupidest places on the
whole journey ; but to one man it is one of the kindest
and most endeared spots on the surface of this wide
world, — for that house was his birthplace, associated
with his earliest and dearest recollections, recalling the
scenes of childhood and the countenances of friends de-
parted from this world, so that the wealthiest cities
on the route, and the most goigeous temples, and the
loveliest of the valleys, and the grandest of the rocks
and mountains, have not had to him half the interest
which this place possesses.

(2.) Those ideas come up most frequently and readily
on which we have bestowed the greatest amount of intellec-
tual energy. — Children, it is well known, are apt to for-
get those lessons which they have learned easily, whereas
other lessons acquired with greater care cling to the
memory. We sometimes see the principle very strik-
ingly illustrated in the case of two boys in the same
family, one of whom learns quickly and forgets as rap-
idly, whereas the other has acquired his task more
laboriously, but retains it longer. There were many ad-
vantages in the old plan of thorough drilling and dis-
ciplining. I have no faith in science made easy, and
philosophy in sport. Some one was recommending to
Sir Walter Scott a plan of teaching science by cards.
" You will easily," he remarked, " teach them to be fond
of the cards ; you will have a greater difficulty in giving
them thus a taste for the science." I have no faith in
those quack teachers who can make you master of pen-
manship in tw^elve lessons, or of French in three months.

140 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

or Latin in a twelvemonth. There is really no royal
road to knowledge. The Prince of Wales must learn his
mathematics in the same laborious way as the peasant's
son. Drilling is a good thing in itself ; it is the sole way
to make an intellectual soldier ; only the exercise, if not
less laborious than it used to be in old times, should be
made as interesting and pleasant as possible. There is
no lielp for it ; the man who would get to the top must
climb the mountain, but there may be some rests by the
way, and he may get some pleasant views as he ascends.
Young men should not grudge the labor bestowed on a
branch of study ; it is one of the conditions of their
being able to retain what they have got, for it is as true
of knowledge as of money, that what is I'apidly earned is
often as rapidly spent, whereas what is laid up with care
and industry is commonly more sedulously preserved.
Young men cannot acquire a more valuable habit than
that of giving their intellect thoroughly to their busi-
ness, their reading, their religion. There are many per-
sons who, from neglecting so to discipline their intel-
lects, seem to have lost all power of actively exercising
them, and any knowledge they have acquired has passed
through their mind, like the familiar striking of a clock,
or like the walk from their house to their place of busi-
ness. Their very reading, which is chiefly in novels and
romances, is a sort of idleness, which gives no robust-
ness to the frame ; is often, indeed, a sort of intoxication,
which exhilarates without strengthening, and ends in
ennui and disgust. Those books are the best, not which
think for you, but which make you think. If you have
not thought over what you have attained, all your ac-
quirements are like the articles in a lumber-room ; some
of them may be valuable enough, but they are not at
your command. It is when you have thought a book

SECONDARY LAWS. 141

and its subject all over again that it becomes your own,
and its tlioughts will not only abide in your memory,
but be, as it were, incorporated into your intellectual
being, to abide with you for strength and for useful
application.

(3.) Ideas come up more readily and frequently when
they are associated with an act of the will, more especially
when we exercise an act of Attention regarding them.
It is mercifully, as I think, provided that much of what
we have witnessed and experienced passes away speedily
from the memory. Were this not the case, our minds
would be filled with innumerable trifles. We must hear
the timepiece that strikes in the room in which we are,
but a minute after we cannot say whether we heard
it or not. How little does a commercial traveller re-
member, in ordinary circumstances, of his journey from
Manchester to Liverpool, or from New York to Phila-
delphia, which he has so often taken ! It is well that
much passes away after this manner. But we must not
allow all to vanish in this way. And we have a means
of retaining what is valuable : let us exercise our wills
regarding it, let us direct our attention towards it. We
blame our memories when we forget, but there is often
a greater culprit than the memory, and that is the
heart ; we felt no interest in the subject ; the party to
blame is the will ; we paid no attention to it. I know
a man noted for his forgetfulness ; but it has been re-
marked about him that he only forgets what relates to
his neighbor's interests and feelings ; he never forgets
what relates to his own. We must all know children
who are forgetful enough when we cannot get them in-
terested, but who never forget what is taught them
when we can allure them to attend. We complain that
we are apt to forget the books we read, the sermons or

142 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

lectui'es we hear. Possibly it may not be of great im-
portance to remember all that we have read or heard :
but if it is worth recollection, there is a means of fixing
it. Our voluntary determinations have a sort of ^.nti-
septic power to preserve what they are applied Lo. Let
us, as we read the book, voluntarily recall the topics at
the end of every chapter. Let us go over mentally, after
it is closed, the sermon or lecture we are anxious to re-
tain in the mind ; or, better still, let us take notes of
the topics of importance in the book or lecture, and we
have got the patent process which will fix forever the
coloi's that might otherwise fade.

The question has been asked, How is it that when we
form a purpose to do an act at a certain time, we recol-
lect, in the multitude of our thoughts within us, to per-
form it ? The answer is that we are able to do so only
when the resolution has been sufficiently earnest. If
formed in a careless way it may never be executed. We
have heard of the young gentleman who forgot the
appointment he had made to meet a young lady at a
particular hour. Whereupon she east him off, very
properly, for if his love had been deep he would not
have been so oblivious.

We live in an age in which men know well how to
use all sorts of material power, how to use water power
and steam power and electric power ; and they guide the
steam, and condense the vapor, and place wires to con-
duct the unseen agency, and all that they may set up
incalculable machinery wherewithal to produce nutri-
ment and covering, for utility and for ornament. But
God has given to every one a lease of a far more impor-
tant power, that we may guide it into the proper chan-
nels, and get it up at the proper times, and direct it along
the proper lines, and all that we may awaken genuine

SECONDARY LAWS. 143

feeling, and gather swift knowledge from afar, and go on
to useful and benevolent action. But youth, I remark, is
the season in which this power is the quickest and the
strongest and the most easily directed. In after life we
shall be apt to find it already directed in channels from
which it cannot easily be moved ; and (to change the
image) the endeavors you make to get up life will be
like the attempts of the birds in October to raise a song :
a cheerful note it is in its way, and we do enjoy it at such
a season, but it is not like the full chorus of the wood
in spring, — and such is the activity of youth, when it
is wisely directed, and all turned into a song of praise to
the Great Creator.

We have thus shown that law reigns in mind as
it does in matter. When we know what the laws of
matter are, we can take advantage of them, and apply
them to useful purposes in the arts. When we know
what the laws of mind are, we can apply them in the
education of the mind.

But before closing I must guard against an impression
which may be left, when it is proven that the succession
of our ideas is governed by laws which operate indepen-
dently of us. It may be concluded that we have, and
that we can have, no control over our thoughts and feel-
ings, which move, and must ever move, like the winds of
heaven. I have been laboring to give the very opposite
lesson. It is because the succession of our mental state
is under law that we can command our minds and bring
them into subjection. We certainly see many who seem
to have as little control over their own minds as they
have over the minds of others ; they are the slaves of
the thought, the impulse, the feeling, the suspicion, the
passion, that happens to come up at the time or be
uppermost. But we have a will, and a free will, given

144 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

US by God for this purpose, that we may rule our
thoughts ; and this we can do most effectually when we
know what the laws are which our thoughts obey in
their order and succession. We cannot, indeed, will into
our minds any absent thought ; for, as has often been
shown, to will it is already to have the thought. If I
have forgotten the name of the capital of Japan, I cannot
command it to appear. But if 1 remember any object
with which it is associated, I can, by an act of the will,
detain this, and think of it till what I want comes. I
can think of Japan and of the Japanese I have seen,
till Tokio comes up by the law of association. It is
for this purpose I have been at such pains to expound
the laws of association, that as knowing them we may
employ and apply them for the proper ordering of all
our knowledge, for the formation of good habits, and
generally to obtain a thorough command over our
minds, — a command which we find to be more glo-
rious than that of the general when he has horse, foot,
and artillery, all so trained and disposed that they
move like the limbs of his body at his will. " He that
ruletli his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."
By thus systematically disciplining our minds, we shall
find that we have a greater control over our thoughts
than we at first imagined. We shall find that as we
habitually repel them, the things that are vain and evil
disappear, while the tilings that are great and good, as
we cherish them, remain with us, to talk with us, to in-
struct us, to elevate us. He who has a mind so stocked
and trained is like the traveller who carries his provisions
with him ; he is in some measure independent of the ordi-
nary accidents of life and the circumstances in which he
may be placed, for he can feed, wherever he goes, on the
stores he has laid up.

ERSITl

PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES INVOLVED IN ASSOCIATION. 145
SECTION III.

PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES INVOLVED IN ASSOCIATION.

The question is put whether I have explained thorou;;hly the tacts
of association. I answer that it is doubtful whether this has been
done by any one. There is one important element of which no ac-
count has been taken. Association of ideas must depend partly
on the brain, on the gray cellular matter at the periphery, or on the
currents through the brain, or, as I rather think, on both, the nature
and disposition of the ceils determining the direction of the cur-
rents.

There is reason to believe that every action of the mind, intellec-
tual and ouiotive, leaves an impress on the brain. It may be main-
tained that a concurrence of brain action is necessary to mental
action, j)articularly to the calling up of the ideas of material objects.
Our ideas flow more pleasantly when the brain is in a healtliy state.
On the other hand, we feel embarrassed in the ordei-ing of our thoughts
when oppressed with headache: we labor to call up a series of ideas,
and we find that they will not appear. Late at night, after hours of
anxious thought, we find that the required train will not move on ; it
will start on its journey only after we have been refreshed by sleep.
It is clear that the cellular powers or nervous curi'ents must help or
hinder the use and flow of ideas.

I believe that every thought and every feeling produces an effect
upon the cellular portion of the brain, and leaves an impress upon it.
Now, in order to the reproduction of the thought and feeling in
memory, it seems to be necessary to have a cooperation of the organ
of the brain thus affected, and to have the aid of currents. When
the association has not this concurrence it is hindered and re-
strained. How irksome do we find it to learn the graiimiar of a new
language, or the technicalities of a new science, or, indeed, to pen-
etrate into any unfamiliar subject ; while we find it easy to nse the
tongue, or follow the science, or to speak on the topic, when lines have
as it were been made for us in the brain to carry us on. So, when there
is a lesion in a particular part of the brain, we may lose certain of our
recollections, say of Greek, or of certain events in our past life. In
old age memory is the first faculty that fails, because of decaying or
decayed organs. The recollection of names is apt to go first, be-
cause, names being commonly arbitrary, there are no mental correla-
10

146 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

dons to bring them up, and we have to hunt for connected ideas to
call them forth. I have observed when names have correlations,
when they are titles or are expressive of the objects, they are as
easily brought up as other things.

Physiology has to advance several stages before it can give a full
account of the connection of the brain with the use of thought. We
should be grateful to it for any light it may throw on the subject.
But two important positions are to be defended. First, The ideas in
the mind are not mere cellular or nervous products. We cannot
perceive them by the senses. The microscope has not detected
them. We are conscious of them, and our consciousness tells us
their nature, which is mental, and not 2)hysical. Secondly, There
are mental laws of association, such as I have just been seeking 1o
enunciate and illustrate, say Contiguity and Correlation. These are
undoubtedly the principal laws guiding the flow of our ideas ; the
physiological ones being merely subsidiary-

This may be the most appropriate place for noticing the circum-
stance that as trains of thought, at first conscious and voluntary, are
confirmed by frequent repetition, they become more involuntary,
and we are scarcely conscious of them. Thus we come to run over
the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1, 2, 3, . . .100, without
an effort, with scarcely any feeling, and with no recollection. It is
supposed that many of our organic actions were originally voluntary,
but are now involuntary and unconscious. I am convinced, how-
ever, that much of this action has still a sort of dull consciousness
attached to it, and that the dormant will maj' awake on occasions.
This may account for some of the curious phenomena of our com-
pound nature, such as- mesmerism, dreaming, and so forth.

Measurements, not always trustworthy, have been made as to the
time occupied in reflex action, as when a sound or sight goes up to the
brain and is answered by speech. But it has been found more difB-
cult to determine the time occupied by our purely mental acts, say
by a succession of ideas in counting. Is there any relation between
the normal time of the successive ideas in our mind and that of the
beating of the pulse and winking of the eyes ? It is certain that the
flow of ideas differs very widely in different states, in fever the
rapidity may become very great.

THE RAPIDITY OF THOUGHT. 147

SECTION IV.

THE RAPIDITY OK THOUGHT.

Lord Brougham has given us instances of the rapidity of thought.
He was dictating when he fell nsleep while his clerk wrote the sen-
tence he had dictated. On awaking he found that an immense num-
ber of thoughts had passed through his mind. But we have now
more accurate measurements. I have been favored with the follow-
ing summary by James Mark Baldwin, A. B., Ex-Fellow of Prince-
ton College. (See his excellent translation of liibot's " German
Psychology of To- Day.") The measurement of the duration of
mental acts was begun by Bonders about 1861. Before him, it was
generally admitted that psychic processes must be construed in time,
and the question of the rapidity of thought was discussed from a
standpoint of consciousness. We think sometimes faster, sometimes
more slowly. But this subjective estimation of time was necessarily
vague, inasmuch as it was impossible to eliminate the physical and
emotional influences which alter the flow of our ideas. Since the
discoveries of Helmholtz and others, as to the velocity of nerve
transmission, it has become possible to arrive at a determinate ex-
pression for the time necessary to some of the simpler processes.

(1.) Beginning with sense-perception, the simplest intellectual act,
the case is briefly this : Let the skin of a man in normal condition
be pricke<l, and let the subject speak as soon as the pain is felt. The
period which elapses is called the simple reaction time, and is found
to vary with the different senses from one eighth to one fifth of a
second.

Upon consideration it is readily seen that this period may be di-
vided into three parts; first, sensor transmission to the brain; second,
the mental process of perception and volition ; and third, motor-
transmission to the organs of speech. Now since the velocity in both
the motor and sensor nerves is known, we reach by subtraction the
time of the mental act. Instruments are used by means of which
differences to the ten-thousandth of a second are noted. Avoiding
figures, which are still somewhat in dispute, we may give two gen-
eral principles.

(a.) The simplest mental act occupies an appreciable period of time.

(b.) The purely physiological time is less than half of the entire re-
action.

(2.) Passing from simple perception to the reproduction of ideas as

148 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

memory pictures, it is concluded from experiments conducted upon
similar methods, that

(a.) The time of the reproduction of a state of consciousness is longer
than the time of its production.

(b.) The time of reproduction depends upon the degree of energy ex-
erted (1) in the original perception, (2) in the reproduction.

(3.) A third operation, upon which many experiments have been
made and definite results obtained, is that of discernment or discrimi-
nation. Two colored lights are shown indiscriminately and the sub-
ject is to react only when he sees the color agreed upon beforehand.
This involves first a comparison and second a judgment. By an
easy process the purely physiological time is eliminated and the dura-
tion of the mental act is found to be one twentieth of a second
(Kries) to one tenth of a second (Wundt).

(4.) Experiment has rendered service also in defining and confirm-
ing the laws of association. The time of a simple association is de-
termined, that is, three fourths to four fifths of a second.

(5.) A fifth class of experiments relates to the logical judgment of
subordination (from species to genus). It is found that the time is
longest when the subject is abstract and the predicate a more general
notion ; shortest when the subject is concrete, and the predicate a
less general notion. The average of a great number of experiments
gives the time about one second.

It should be said that these results are true only in an average
sense and under normal conditions. During the last five years great
activity has been shown in the study of abnormal and artificial states,
but the difficulties are very great, and the present condition of the
science does not warrant a positive statement of results.

It may be added, however, that in every case the general utter-
ances of the inner sense are directly confirmed, and the ultimateness
of consciousness as the psychological point of departure is in so far
vindicated.^

SECTION V.

DISCUSSIONS AS TO THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION.

I have illustrated the subject in the loose way in which it is com-
monly presented. But difficult and disputed points have arisen. All

1 Books of reference on this subject are : Wundt, Physiologische Psycho-
\ogie, ii. cap. 16 ; Ribot, German Psychology of To-Day, Eng. trans., chap
vii. ; Buccola, La legge del tempo, etc.

DISCUSSIONS AS TO THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 149

are agreed that Contiguity is a law of Association. Some reckon it
the sole law, and argue that by some little subtlety all other laws,
such as that of Resemblance, can be reduced to it. It will also be
generally allowed that there is a law of Correlation to the effect that,
having discovt^red a relation between objects, when the one comes
up the other is apt to follow. But it is evident that this may be
merely an exemplification of the Law of Contiguity, for the objects
have been together in the mind.

It is clear, however, that the correlation discovered greatly
strengthens the association. We remember a discourse much more
readily when the thoughts were connected. It is for that reason we
can commit to memory a piece of poetry more easily than one of the
same length in prose ; in the former case we have not only the con-
tiguities but the congruities to carry us on ; we have the correlations
of sound and sense. There is an amusing story told of a minister who,
on finding a boy at the helm guiding a vessel, inquired of him if he
couhl box the compass, which he did. He then asked him to do the
same backward, which he also did. The boy then asked the minis-
ter to say the Lord's prayer, to which the clergyman complacently
assented. The boy then insisted on his saying the Lord's prayer
backward, which he declined to undertake. The boy was able to
interpret the instrument backward because in the compass he had
correlations, whereas the other had none in the Lord's prayer. Sci-
entific truths are more easily called up than scattered, disconnected
ones, because ihey have been placed under laws of correlation or
connection.

Rut the question arises. Do correlated things suggest each other
before the correlation has been discovered ? On entering a room wc
see a portrait on the wall, and we immediately think of the original,
whom we have often met. Had we ever seen the original and the
painting together the idea would have been called up by the Law of
Contiguity. But we never heard that there was a portrait of the
person, and yet his figure casts up. Apparently it does so by the
law that " like recalls like." Prima facie, the Law of Resemblance
seems a simple and original one, and has commonly been so regarded.

It should be noticed that, in order to correlative association, the
two objects must both have been previously in the mind ; the por-
trait is before us and we are acquainted with the figure and expres-
sion of the original. In seeking to penetrate deeper into the nature
of the suggestion of resemblance, it is to be borne in mind that ob-

150 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

jects are known by their qualities, and that all actual objects are
complex or concrete, that is, have several qualities, and they are so
remembered by us. Let the letters of the alphabet denote the ob-
jects related. Let us denote the portrait with its qualities as a, b,
c, d, in which a, b are the figure and expression and c, d, the can-
vas, frame, etc. This portrait recalls the person a', b', x, y, etc.,
when a', b' are the features and expression, and x, y, etc., the man's
walk and gestures. Now it may be argued that a, b of the portrait
call up a', b' of the person, while the others, x, y, come up accord-
ing to the Law of Contiguity. If this view be correct it is the same
that calls up the same, the second same calling up by contiguity the
objects associated with it.

It may be more difficult to explain in this way other correlated
associations. But let us try some of them. In doing so we may find
that every relation has a ground, and that they are the same qualities
in each object forming the correlation that constitute the principle of
the association. It should be observed, however, that it is not by
the affinity of abstract qualities that the association takes place, but
simply by the objects possessing the same qualities; by the portrait
and the original both possessing the same qualities, figure, and ex-
pression, in this respect being alike.

We can account in the same way for Contrast, being, as Aristotle
asserted, a law of association. Contrast, as a relation, comes under
general correlation of Resemblance and Difference. In all Contrast
there is implied some sameness ; there is no contrast of things en-
tirely different, and the implied sameness a, b, in both binds the ob-
jects together in our minds.

This seems to be the law of correlative association. The same
suggests the same, which by contiguity brings in correlative objects,
and the relations are perceived by the mind. Those acquainted
with the lectures of Thomas Brown, of Edinburgh, will remember
that he has two kinds of suggestion, Simple and Relative, — Simple
being much the same as I have been describing in Chap. III. Sect. I.
But Relative suggestion embraces two powers ; the one association
proper, and the other the discovery of relations. These I think should
be carefully separated. The latter is really the power of discovering
relations or comparison. But while they are different, they may
combine in the way I have been endeavoring to describe, and the
process may be called Relative Suggestion.

Let us view the mind acting under this power. When objects

DISCUSSIONS AS TO THE LAWS OP ASSOCIATION. 151

present themselves to us by sense or by image, tliey do so by means
of their qualities. Our anxiety is to know what tlie object is^
and how it stands related to other objects. Whence has it come If
How does it act ? As we keep the object or idea before us, one a*«
sociated quality after another presents itself, all, it may be, in an im-
measurably short time, ■— we say, '• quick as thought." As they do
so, the mind perceives by its power of comparison vaflous relations,
and as the result we find what the object is, what its nature and its
use. That cry is the same as I heard in my boyhood, in the moun-
tain region I used to visit; it is the screech of an eagle. That
sound is of a bell inviting me to the house of prayer. That pic-
ture has the features and expression of a friend I knew well, and
is his portrait. The wound of that person lying on the ground is
the same as I have seen inflicted by a gun-shot, and I fear the per-
son has been murdered. A boy is going along a road with a satchel
of books ; this suggests a school, and we decide that the boy is going
to school. We may have noticed that it is only after allowing the
object as we think of it to suggest one quality after another, that we
touch the chord which discloses to us what we are in search of, —
the nature and use of the object. Thus closely are the associations
of correlation and the discovery of relations connected together and
mutually aiding each other. But the farther discussion and illustra-
tion of this subject and its application to cause and effect, to identity,
and other relations, may be expediently deferred till we come to dis-
cover the nature of Comparison and Relation under Book TH., The
Comparative Powers.

It should be noticed that a great many of our associations are
carried on by means of words. These words are primarily associa-
ted with thoughts and things by the Law of Contiguity. But each
of them is associated with other things which are brought into re-
lation with each other in our minds. The orator is enabled to carry
on his speech without a break, the thoughts and words mutually
suggesting each other. We may often notice a very beautiful play
of association in the conversation carried on by a company of intel-
ligent and witty people, each starting and pursuing suggestions with
their numberless correlations.

I am here giving as important a place to Association as those who,
following David Hume, have accounted by it for our conviction as to
cause and effect and the deeper principles of the mind. A largo
body of profound philosophers maintain that there are necessary

162 THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

' principles in the mind, such as that requiring us to believe that an
effect must have a cause. The sc;hool to which I have referred, and
which I may call the School of Hume, or the Empirical School, ex-
plains this by invariable association: the cause and effect having
ever been together, we cannot think of the one without also thinking
of the other. Now, it is undoubtedly true that when things have
been invariably together in the mind in the past, the one will recall
the other. But this is a very different kind of necessity of convic-
tion from that which is attached to fundamental truth. It can be
shown that this last proceeds from self-evidence, is seen to be in the
nature of the thing perceived, and is perceived by the reason. We
perceive that it is in the very nature of the cause to produce its
effect; for example, of fire to burn. The Law of Contiguity may pro-
duce invariable associations and make one thing to come up after
another in the mind, but cannot produce necessary convictions or
judgments pronounced on a discovery of relations in the nature of

' the things.^ It is now acknowledged that mere Contiguity cannot
give us a priori truth, and we have a new theory that this is gen-
dered by heredity, of which all I have to remark here is, that it may
give us tendencies of thinking, but certainly not the decisions of
reason. But while Association (and heredity) cannot do this, it may
aid our comparative or judging powers by bringing before the mind
the ideas on which they pronounce a judgment. I have shown else-
where ("Logic," pp. 166, 167) that Association brings together,
more especially by the Laws of Correlation, the notions, major,
minor, and middle, which are compared.

1 See an admirable history of the discussions in regard to the association
of ideas, and a sifting examination of the attempt to account by this for
onr necessary principles, in La Psychologic de I' Association, par LouiB
Ferri.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BECOGNITIVE POWEE.
SECTION I.

ITS NATURE.

It is the power by whicli we recognize an object as
having been before us in time past. Let us bring out by-
analysis what is involved in this capacity.

(1.) We recognize an object. — In this there is more than
a mere image, phantasm, or idea. That object does not
come under our notice for the first time ; we recognize
it as having been before us at a. previous date. That
object may have been a material one perceived by the
senses, or it may have been a mental state or conscious-
ness, or a judgment passed or a feeling experienced.
Quite as frequently it may have been an event occupy-
ing more or less time, and with more or fewer details.

(2.) We recognize the object as having been before us.
— Wc not only remember the object ; we remember it as
something which has been under our notice before ; we
remember it as having been in our consciousness. These
two elements are in the concrete recollection, and we
must give a place to both if we would unfold all that is
in the mental act. All our recollections are memories of
ourselves and of our experiences. This analysis may, on
the first hearing, sound as if too subtle. And it is to be
acknowledged that in the ordinary exercises of memory
from day to day this perception of ourselves is not prom-

154 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

inent. The fact is that though it is in all our memo-
ries, we are usually so absorbed with the event that it
is scarcely noticed. This is one of those cases in which
an element of a concrete act very much disappears be-
cause we are occupied with the other or others. Still
this element is always present. In every act of memory
proper (not necessarily of the phantasm) we know the
object or event as having been previously before us.

3. We recognize the event as having been before us
in Time Past. — It does not come before us in an uncer-
tain way as to its occurrence, as to whether it is past,
present, or future. We regard it as past ; we believe it
to have happened in time past. In proof, we appeal to
consciousness, personal and universal. This introduces
us to

SECTION n.

THE FAITH ELEMENT.

In all these reproductive acts we believe in the previ*
ous existence and previous knowledge of an event which
may not now be present, but was before us in the past.
Here, then, is a primitive faith, as distinguished from
primitive cognition in which the object is present.

We draw the distinction between faith and siglit. It
is a loose and popular one, but it may be made a philo-
sophic one between primitive knowledge and primitive
faith. In the former the object is present and known ;
in the latter it is not present, but is believed in. This is
the distinction between the simple Cognitive Faculties
on the one hand and the Reproductive on the other. In
the one, the object is present and is known as present ;
in the other, the object is not present, but is recognized
as having been present at a previous time ; in short,
is not presented but re-presented. There would be no

THE FAITH ELEMENT. 156

propriety in saying of our immediate sense-perceptions
and consciousnesses that they are acts of faith, for the
objects are before us and known. When I receive a
blow from an instrument and suffer pain, it would imply
a confusion of thought and an abuse of language to say
that I had a belief in the instrument and the pain ; we
are giving an adequate expression of our experience only
when we affirm that we know the objects. But it would
be proper in narrating the occurrence afterward to de-
clare that I believe in the existence of such an instru-
ment, and that I suffered from the blow inflicted by it.

We have now come to a belief, in a rudimentary form,
in the absent and unseen. This is an essential part of
our nature. It is a most important element in our con-
stitution, standing next to our power of primitive cogni-
tion, and in some respects higher than, and certainly
prior to, our discursive or reasoning capacity. There are
some "who insist on our proving everything. They forget
that as we can prove only by means of premises we must
at length come to premises which cannot be proven, and
which must be assumed as being either primitive cogni-
tions or primitive faiths.

If it be asked why we believe in the trustworthiness
of memory, the answer is that it is a case in which we
are not entitled to ask the why. There are cases in
which the mind feels itself entitled, nay, required, to
ask a reason. If I am required to give credence to a
story about Romulus being suckled by the wolf, I de-
mand proof. But I need no mediate evidence to con-
vince me that I am seated on a chair as I write this, or
that before writing I had thought over all these subjects.
I feel that any proof proffered would not add to the
strength of my conviction ; would, in fact, be an imper-
tinence. The evidence — if we can call it so, and I

156 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

think we can so call it — is not mediate, but is in the
very cognition ov a belief in the thing itself, and is
called immediate, not simply because it is in the percep-
tion, but is in the thing perceived. I require proof when
it is asserted that the dog star is a certain distance from
the earth ; and when I get it I am satisfied. But I am
equally satisfied, without external proof, that I cannot
rise from my chair and go to another, without passing
through the space between. In all investigation, if we
follow it sufficiently far, we come to such primitive
rocks. He vtho would go deeper down is trying to get
beneath the foundation. He who would go farther back
is trying to mount higher than the beginning. Setting
out with these primitive truths we find their accuracy
confirmed, but not primarily established, by our experi-
ence. We remember the hills and valleys where we
were brought up, and on returning after many years we
find them corresponding to our recollections.

The faith before us is of a primitive kind, but it is
the beginning of those faiths in the past and in the
future, in time and in eternity, which mount so high and
carry us above and beyond our world and our experi-
ence. We should find pleasure as we advance in noti-
cing the origin and natuie of these higher beliefs. Mean-
while we are invited to notice how faith comes in. So
far as the initial faith is concerned it is a primitive
belief in objects primitively known, — it is the atmos-
phere that compasses the solid earth.

SECTION III.

THE IDEA OF TIME.

We see how this idea arises. Every event remem-
bered is remembered as having happened in time past.

THE IDEA OF TIME. 157

This gives us the idea in the concrete — " an event hav-
ing happened in past time." We can now, by a process
of abstraction, separate the time from the event, and we
have the abstract idea of time. As we do so we are sure
that the time is quite as much a reality as the event that
has occurred in it. I am sure that I was at a particular
dinner party, but I am quite as sure that it was at a cer-
tain past time. If it is asked, What sort of reality has
it ? I answer that it has the reality which I am led to
believe it to have. It is not known by me as the sub'
stances mind and body are, as having potency. But
it is known as having being and independence of ray
observation of it. It is known as a thing in which events
occur, and that the time is a reality quite as much as
the events occurring in it.

We are now iii a position to criticise the opinions as to
time which have been entertained by distinguished phi-
losophers. Locke, as we have seen (p. 81:), derived all
our ideas from sensation and reflection. He evidently
saw that he could not get the idea of time from sensa-
tion and so drew it from reflection. We reflect, he says,
on the succession of events and thus get the idea of time.
But, I ask, how can we know that there is a succession
except in time, of which therefore we have some knowl-
edge. To know one event as following another is already
to have an idea of time. Here, as in so many other
cases in which metaphj^sicians are endeavoring to sim-
plify the operations of the mind, they are simply as-
suming what they profess to prove or explain.

At this point Locke has, I think, been successfully
met by those who maintain that the mind itself, in its
exercise upon the materials supplied by the senses and
consciousness, is a source of ideas. Leibnitz and Kant
showed that the idea of time could not be had from the

168 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

experience of sense or consciousness. But their theories
on this subject are as objectionable as those of Locke.
Proceeding on the principle that the ideas of space and
time could not be had from sense, Leibnitz made them
mere relations between objects and these relations given
by the mind. Kant, proceeding on the same principle,
represents them as being forms given to the objects by
the mind, thus making them entirely subjective. Fichte
followed, and argued that if the mind could create space
and time, it might also generate the objects discerned in
space and time, and this led to a skeptical idealism, be-
lieving in ideas, but not in things. The way to meet all
this is to insist that space and time are realities such as
we are led to regard them by our instinctive cognitions
and beliefs.

SECTION IV.

The phrase is used at some times in a wider and at
other times in a more limited sense. Locke employs it to
signify Retention. In our common literature it is used
in a larger sense to denote all those reproductive acts
implying belief. There are three of the reproductive
powers implied in the exercise of memory thus under-
stood : there is (1) The Retentive Power ; (2) The
Recalling Power ; and (3) The Associative Power. But
the essential element is (4) The Recognitive Power.
Wherever there is recognition there is memory, and
wherever there is no recognition it cannot be said that
there is recollection.

It is a curious circumstance that adults are not able to
remember their infantine experience. But that infants
remember is shown by the circumstance that they are
gathering experience, for instance, learning distances

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MEMORY. 159

and forms, which they could not do without recollection.
Carpenter mentions the case of a person who remem-
bered in after life what had passed when only a year
and a half old. We may not be able to find out all the
reasons of this forgetfulness of young children. It may
arise from a want of tenacity in the brain, but also from
the want of correlations to call up ideas. That memory
fails in old age seems to arise from the want of healthy
brain concurrence. It fails first in names, because they
are arbitrary and have not numerous correlations to call
them up.

SECTION V.

IMPROVKMENT OF THE MEMORY.

It is to be improved by taking advantage of the Laws
of Association, Primary and Secondary.

We should use the Secondary Laws (see p. 135).
Objects and occurrences are more apt to be remembered
when they are in accordance with our Native Tastes
and Inclinations. There are boys who can attain and
retain a lesson in classics who cannot be made to keep
hold of their mathematics, to which they have an aver-
sion ; and vice versa^ there are some who never forget
their mathematical demonstrations who lose their classics
in a short time after they have laboriously learned them.
There are persons who, because of the intense interest
they feel in it, can remember a hundred lines of poetry
after reading them once or twice, whereas there are
others on whom verse produces no impression, but who
never forget the facts detailed in prose histories ;ind
books of science. In the practical professions and busi-
ness of life, we find people cherishing what they have a
taste for, and letting all else pass away as being utterly
indifferent to them. In listening to discourses or con-

160 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

versation, or in reading a book, the things are apt to
cling to us that have an affinity witli us, and others are
driven away. So far as this law is concerned we cannot
directly influence our memories by an act of will ; but
we can do so indirectly. First, we can call forth into
active operation, and we can cherish, those tastes which
we wish to cultivate, by associating them with, and bind-
ing them to, ends in which we are interested. Some who
have no i*elish for pure mathematics can be made to study
them eagerly when they discover their important prac-
tical applications. Many have entered on their profes-
sional work with no great ardor for it, but they are led to
pursue it eagerly as they find that it brings them wealth
or reputation. Secondly, in all circumstances let us try
to connect what we wish to learn and retain with some
of our native inclinatifuis. Many a boy is made to learn
cheerfully an irksome task by his love to his father or
his teacher. Some of us who have no pleasure in learn-
ing foreign languages have acquired them industriously,
because of the treasures of literature and knowledge
which are laid up in them.

We should in all cases make use of the laws of Energy.
What we bestow no thought upon is sure to be forgotten ;
as, having been neglected when it presented itself, it will
never appear again. By turning a subject round and
round in our reflections we may so make it our friend
that it will visit us frequently. We may accomplish the
same end by associating what we wish to recollect with
feeling of some kind. By showing that we love an object,,
it will be encouraged to make its appearance before us.
We remember the scenes of our childhood which called
forth feeling pleasant or painful, whereas things unim-
portant, or it may be important, but which were indiffer-
ent to us, are lost forever. It is on this principle mainly

IMPROVEMENT OF THE MEMORY. 161

that a teacher, who is beloved by his pupils and makes
them feel an interest in their work, is able to impress
himself and the subjects of study so deeply on their
minds that they can never be effaced. But it is by the
third law of energy, that of will, that we have the most
effective control over our memories. We have all to re-
gret that so much of the instruction which we received in
our younger years is lost because we could not be made
to attend to it. On the other hand attention puts a
stamp on all to which it is strongly directed, and this
gives it a continued currency.

But WG may also turn the Primary Laws of Associa-
tion to profitable use; as, for instance, the Law of Con-
tiguity. We may repeat what we wish to lemember,
and then any part of the train, any word used to ex-
press it, will bring up the rest. Children retain for
life those rhymes or passages of Scripture which they
committed (to use a common but expressive phrase)
to memory. If we wish to keep an object or event in
perpetual remembrance let us tie it to something which
is sure to come up ; say our work, or study, or devotion, to
a particular place or hour of the day. If we are anxious
to be reminded of a particular duty at a certain time or
place, let us associate it with the persons or objects we
are then and there likely to meet. We have to buy an
article in a certain shop ; we have a message to carry, or
an intimation to make to a certain person. Let us so
connect the things that when we come to the place, or
meet the individual, what we wish to do is immediately
suggested. We may so use the law of coexistence as to
have what we wish constantly to remember, — say our
business or our duties to God and our neighboi', our devo-
tions and our alms, — associated with our habitual train,
80 that they come up at all times. Some have their
11

162 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

thoughts and feelings so regulated that at any time ejac-
ulatory prayer is ready to rise to God, and their hands
are ever ready to supply relief to the poor.

Thoughtful minds may also use profitably the Pri-
mary Law of Correlation. They may, as things pass
under their observation, note how they are related to
other things, and then these other things will recall
them. If we are in the habit of noticing causes, the
causes will ever after suggest the effects and the effects
the causes, and we shall walk in this world as in a con-
catenated cosmos. Again, those who are in the habit of
putting all things under heads or arranging them into
classes, of course by their points of resemblance will find
the law of similarity making the particulars bring up
the species, and the species suggesting individuals. In
the higher professions, such as law and medicine, the
knowledge acquired is so assorted that it is available at
all times, and comes out often in unexpected ways, on
great emergencies and on small. The scientific man has
his knowledge and notions arranged as in a museum, so
that he can lay his hands on what he wishes at any time
and place, and put every new thing that presents itself
in its proper compartment. The historian lays up events
under heads as the naturalist does his specimens in
drawers. The very poet, though his domain is more
like a garden, or a wide-spread landscape, is ever gath-
ering up images which he is ready to plant in their
proper place for aesthetic effect. A number of very
eminent men intellectually are spoken of by Hamilton
and others as possessing great memories, — as Julius
Caesar Scaliger, Ben Jonson, Grotius, Pascal, Leibnitz,
Euler, Niebuhr, Mackintosh, Macaulay ; of whom it
should be observed that their memories proceeded by
correlation which had been observed by their under-
Btan dings.

DOES THE MEMORY DECEIVE US? 163

SECTION VI.

DOES THE MEMORY DECEIVE US?

The answer is that our original and intuitive memo-
ries never do, but our acquired memories may.

The memory, using the phrase in a loose sense, does
seem liable to mistakes. Two people, both honest, give
somewhat different accounts of a transaction which they
have both witnessed. We have all found our recollec-
tions set aside by facts well established. In order to
explain the facts and save our constitution from the
charge of deceit, we have to draw a distinction in regard
to our memories, similar to that drawn (see above, p.
29) between our original and acquired perceptions.
There are intuitive perceptions which do not and cannot
err. But we are ever making additions to them by
guesses and inferences meant to fill up chasms, and make
our vague and confused memories clear and consistent.
We have seen how much there is of inference in our
ordinary sense - perceptions ; we see a shape before us
in a wood or in the twilight, and we conclude that it is a
man or a ghost, whereas it is only a rock or a tree seen
under a certain aspect. In like manner our recollection
of an occurrence is dim, with breaks in it, and we pro-
ceed to fill up the figure, and make it full and consist-
ent with itself, only, it may be, to make it inconsistent
with facts.

Our original memories, having the sanction of our
constitution and of God who gave it to us, seem to be con-
fined within very stringent limits. No man can remem-
ber the whole time, and all that has occurred in it, be-
tween the present and a distant event in the past. He
cannot cast a retrospective glance on the instant over
the whole line between this instant and any given time

164 THE RECOGNITIVE POWER.

mentioned, — say the time when he went to school, or
began business, or when a sister died, — any more than
he can tell by the eye the distance of that mountain
peak. A man is asked how many years it is since his
father died. He cannot endways see the continuous line
and measure its length, and he has to inquire, to calcu-
late, and his reckonings may be wrong. It was before I
took a particular journey, or before I max'ried, — the
eras which he regards as landmarks, which he thinks he
has fixed most certainly, but which he has marked erro-
neously on his life chart. Whether we are seeking to
have the exact facts for ourselves, or narrate them to
others, in all cases, but especially in witness-bearing, or
where our words are apt to be quoted to the weal or
woe of others, let us be conscientiously on our guard
against going beyond our memories proper, and of add-
ing a form or coloring which may be a perverted one,
formed by the fancy under the influence of a prejudiced
heart.

CHAPTER V.

THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.
SECTION I.

ITS NATURE.

It puts in new forms and dispositions what had been
previously before the mind. First, it contains a dimin-
ishing power ; having seen a human being, I can picture
a Lilliputian — children are greatly interested in the feats
of Tom Thumb. Secondly, there is an enlarging power;
having seen a man, I can imagine a giant, and be enter-
tained with his exploits. Thirdly, there is a separating
power; having seen a church, I can have an image of the
steeple apart from the rest of the building. Fourthly,
there is a compounding power ; having seen a bull and a
bird, I can put the wings of the bird on the body of the
bull and fashion a winged bull such as we see on the
sculptured slabs of Nineveh.

I place this faculty among the Reproductive Powers,
for, far reaching as it is, it cannot produce anything of
which it has not had the elements in a previous experi-
ence. Its power is always constructive, never creative.
" This shows," says Locke, " man's power to be much
the same in the material and intellectual worlds, the
materials in both being such as he hath no power either
to make or destroy." A man born blind cannot have
the most distant idea of colors, nor can the man bom
deaf have the dimmest idea of music. But when a per-

166 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

son has seen colors, though he should afterwards like
Homer or Milton be smitten with blindness, he may be
able to combine them in unnumbered ways, all different
from that in which they are mixed in existing objects,
natural or artificial. Give one possessed of fine musical
ear a knowledge of sounds, and he may be able to dis-
pose them so as to produce symphonies such as were
never heard before, but which, as people now listen to
them, make the soul to swell or sink with their swelling
or sinking notes.

It is the office of the memory to reproduce what has
been previously before the mind in the form in which it
first appeared, and with the belief that it has been be-
fore the mind in time past. The imagination (of which
composition is the main element) also reproduces, but it
reproduces in new forms, and is not accompanied with
any belief as to past experience. Both are reflective of
objects which have been before the mind ; but the one
may be compared to the mirror, which reflects what is
before it in its proper form and color ; whereas the
other may be likened to the kaleidoscope, which reflects
it in an infinite variety of new shapes and dispositions.
Each of these has its peculiar endowments by which it
is enabled to accomplish its specific end. The imagina-
tion does not, like the memory, disclose realities ; but on
the other hand, the memory cannot enliven by the varied
pictures which are presented by the imagination. Each
is beautiful in its own place, provided it is kept in its
own place, and the one is not put in the room of the other ;
as was said severely of an author that he resorted to his
imagination for his facts and his memory for his figures.
The one is represented by observations, experiments,
records, and annals ; the other by allegories, myths,
statues, paintings, and poems. The one, as Bacon has

THE IMAGINATION. 167

remarked, is peculiarly the faculty of the historian, the
other of the poet and the cultivator of the fine arts.

SECTION It

THE IMAGINATION.

There is implied in order to its exercise (1) The Re-
tentive and (2) The Associative Power. All its images
come from cognitions and ideas which have been before
the mind, and are retained. They always rise up ac-
cording to the Laws of Association of Ideas. The im-
aginations always come up according to the Laws of Con-
tiguity and Correlation ; and the peculiar character of
them in the individual is mainly determined by the
Secondary Laws of Native Taste and Energy.

The fancies of some follow more specially the Laws of
Contiguity, and things unconnected with each other
come up often to delight and amuse us by their liveli-
ness, by their unexpected appearance, by their variety^
and their curious juxtapositions. As they involve no
intellectual strain we are apt to follow these in our
moods of dreaminess, or when we are seeking rest and
relaxation. Novels are specially fitted to gratify this
propensit}^, and are resorted to by those who do not wish
to be troubled with much thinking, and by men of busi-
ness when they wish a cessation from toil. In the case
of the former the constant indulgence in fiction is apt
to produce a frivolous turn of mind, more and more indis-
posed to exertion of any kind. In the case of the latter
the effect may be soothing if kept within proper limits,
and the reading not carried too far into the night. But
when the scenes are sensational and persons dwell often
or too long among them, there may be as much wasting
of the nervous power as even by business or study ; and

168 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

the issue, a restlessness and dissatisfaction. The end ac-
complished by poetry, especially narrative and descrip-
tive, is much the same : to occupy the mind with exciting
images. But there is this difference between the novel,
at least the common novel, and poetry, that the latter
is usually more condensed, and therefore requires more
thought and brings before us a great many correlations
of sound and sense. The consequence is that poetry is
much better fitted than the novel to produce mental
elevation, and is less liable to the abuse of excess.

The imaginations of others are more disposed to fol-
low the Law of Correlation, to pursue things that are
connected with each other. In our highest poetry and
poetical prose, we are called to dwell among interesting,
and it may be subtle and far ranging analogies, and among
harmonies often between material and spiritual things,
between earthly and heavenly things. Then there may
be imagination, as has often been remarked, exercised,
and this legitimately in science. In such cases the mind
proceeds according to the associative principle of corre^
lation, and follows connections in reason, and in the
nature of things between one department of nature and
another.

But the Secondary Laws have the main influence in
determining the peculiar character of our imaginings.
Our Tastes, native or acquired, are shown as readily and
certainly by the character of our spontaneous musings as
by anything else ; more so than even by our business
pursuits, which may often be determined by external cir-
cumstances. Thus we may give a direction to our fan-
cies by associating what we wish to revive in old forms,
or in new, with exercises of intellect, of feeling, and of
will. Viewed in this light we see that we have a greater
power over our imaginations than we might at first im.

THE IMAGINATION. 169

agine. "What we think about and feel an interest in
and attend to habitually will use the privilege of a
friend and often visit us when wished for and when not
wished for. In fact we can to some extent determine
the character of our imaginations, good or evil, as we do
those of our associates, by the friendships we form and
the preferences we show.

In imagination there is

(1.) A Picturing Power. — A mother, let me suppose,
looks out of the window of her dwelling to take one
other look of a beloved son setting out to a distant land
that he may there earn an honorable independence. It
is a fond look which she takes, for she knows that on the
most favorable supposition a long time must elapse be-
fore she can again meet with him. She continues to fix
these tear -filled eyes upon him till a winding of the road
takes him out of the field of view. When he has turned
that corner she can no longer be said to perceive him
with her bodily eyes, but the mind's eye can still con-
template him. For often, often, does she imagine to her-
self that scene with all its accompaniments. Often does
the memory recall that son at the particular turn of the
road, on a particular day, rainy or sunshiny, in a particu-
lar dress passing round that corner, and as she does so
the whole is, as it were, visible before her. In this the
senses are no longer exercised, but the memory, and the
imagination may also begin its appropriate work. For
not only will the mother recall the scene, as it occurred,
— there will be times when it becomes more ideal, when
one part will be separated from another, and when the
parts selected for more particular contemplation will be
mixed with other circumstances ; and in various forms it
will appear in her night dreams and reappear in her day
dreams, and she will picture that son toiling and strug-

170 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

gling in that distant land to which he has gone, rising
from one step of aggrandizement to another, and return-
ing at last by that same road and round that same corner
to this same home; and she will picture herself as receiv-
ing him, not as she parted with him, with mingled fears
and hopes, but with one unmingled emotion of joy, while
he showers upon her a return for that affection which
she so profusel}'- lavished on him in his younger years.

(2.) A Constructive Power. — For the mother not only
pictured the past, but put it in new shapes and combi-
nations. Like the prisms, the imagination divides that
which passes through it into rich rainbow colors.

This last is the highest property of the imagination.
It is one of the characteristics of genius. It is a constit-
uent of every kind of invention. The particular charac-
ter of the invention will be determined by the native
tastes and predilections, and by the acquired habits of
the individual. If a person have a strong tendency to
observe forms, the imagination will call up the shapes
in new combinations, and if his talent is cultivated he
may become a painter. If he be disposed to admire the
beauties of nature, new landscapes will be apt to ap-
pear before his mind made up of dispositions of objects
which he has witnessed in real scenes. When an indi-
vidual has a mechanical turn, the imagination will ever
be prompting him to devise some new instrument or
engine; or, if his taste be architectural, new buildings
will rise in vision before him. If he be a man of great
flow of sensibility, he will ever be picturing himself or
others — a mother, sister, or wife — in circumstances of
joy or sorrow, and at times weaving an imaginary trag-
edy or comedy, in which he and his friends are actors.

This is a gift which like every other can be cultivated.
I know, indeed, that genius is in itself a native endow-

THE IMAGINATION. 171

ment. No teacher can communicate it in return for
a fee, nor can it be acquired by industry ; but unless
pains be taken, it is apt to run wild and become useless
or even injurious. It admits of direction and improve-
ment. The painter who would rise to eminence in his
art must study the finest models and fill his mind with
scenes natural and historical such as he would wish to
represent. The poet who would awaken his genius must
live and breathe and walk in the midst of objects and
incidents such as he would embody in verse. In science
discovery is commonly the reward reaped by a power of
invention wdiich has been trained and disciplined. It is
seldom that discoveries are made by pure accident. It
was (according to the common story) on the occasion of
Newton's seeing an apple fall to the ground that the
thought flashed on him, This apple is drawn to the earth
by the same power which holds the moon in her orbit.
Bat how many people had seen an apple fall without
the law of universal gravitation being suggested to them I
The thought arose in a mind long trained to accurate
observation and disciplined to the discovery of mathe-
matical relations. It was as he gathered up the frag-
ments of a crystal which had fallen from his hands to
the ground that the Abbe Haiiy discovered the princi-
ples which regulate the crystallization of minerals ; but
the idea occurred to one who was addicted to such inves-
tigations, and who was in fact studying forms at the
very time. On falling in with the bleached skull of a
deer in the Hartz forest, Oken exclaimed, " This is a
vertebrate column," and started those investigations
which have produced a revolution in anatomy ; but the
view presented itself to one meditating on the very sub-
ject, and in a sense prepared for the discovery.

Before leaving this bead it is proper to state that the

172 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

imagination can picture and put into new forms not only
the material, but the mental and the spiritual worlds.
The mother, in the illustration employed, can not only
picture her son in new scenes, she can picture the feel-
ings which he may be supposed to cherish in these scenes,
or the feelings with which she herself may contemplate
him. Milton, culling what was fairest from the land-
scapes and gardens which had passed under his view,
describes in his Paradise Lost an Eden fairer than any
scene now to be found on our globe ; but as a still higher
and far more successful achievement of his genius he
contrives, by combining and intensifying all the evil
propensities of human nature, — pride and passion, am-
bition and enmity to holiness, — to set before us Satan,
contending with the holy angels and with God himself.

The poet, the dramatist, the novelist, dispose the ele-
ments of human nature in all sorts of new shapes and
collocations, in order to pie; se, to rouse, or instruct us.
If I am not mistaken, poetry and fiction generally must
be led to deal more and more, in every succeeding age,
with the motives, the sentiments, and passions of man-
kind, — not indeed in a scientific or metaphysical man-
ner, but in their actual concrete forms. This is a field
very much overlooked by the ancients and left over to
the moderns to cultivate. If we leave out of account
the Book of Job and other portions of the Hebrew
Scriptures, and the plays of ^schylus and other Greek
dramatists, we shall find very little of the deeper moods
and feelings of humanity in the poetry of the ancients.
Tlie poet who would catch the spirit of modern times
must unfold the workings of the soul within as the an-
cients exhibited the outward incident.

I believe that the visible and tangible machinery used
in times past by the poets is waxing old, and must soon

THE IMAGINATION. 173

vanish away. We can relish to some extent the alkision
to harps and lyres, to nyinphs and muses, to Minerva
and Apollo, by the Greeks and Romans, for they were
sincere in the use which they made of them. But it is
only indicative of the barrenness of his genius to find the
modern youth talking of awaking his lyre when perhaps
he never saw a lyre in his life ; invoking the Muses when
he believes that there are no Muses ; and appealing to
Apollo when he knows full well that Apollo cannot help
him. Poetry, in order to be true poetry, must come up
welling from a true heart. There was nothing artificial
in the use of their mythology by Greeks and Romans,
but there must always be something unnatural, not to
say affected, in the employment of it by the moderns.
The old apparatus of the poets is now gone and gone
forever, and I for one scarcely regret it. But will the
scientific character of the age, which believes in astron-
omy and geology, and not at all in ghosts or fairies,
admit of any new machinery sensible and bodily? I
doubt much if it will, for there would be no sincerity in
the use of such, and sincerity must be an element in all
genuine poetry.

Is the modern then precluded from the exercise of the
poetic imagination ? Is the time of great poets, as some
would hint, necessarily passed away ? I for one believe
no such thing. But I am convinced, at the same time,
that poets who would do in these times what the older
poets did in their days must strike out a path different
from that in which the ancients walked. The novelist
has, it seems to me, already entered on this path. He
has described human nature, or at least certain moods of
it, — its passions, foibles, consistencies, and inconsisten-
cies, — and so his works have had a popularity in these
latter days far exceeding that of the poet. Poets are

174 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

read very much in proportion as they deal with man-
kind. The poetry of Shakespeare ranks higher, I sus-
pect, in this age, than that of Milton, and this mainly be-
cause the former exhibits human nature in almost every
variety of attitude. Most of the greater poets of tlie past
age delighted to daguerreotype the states of the human
soul, — whether in its moods of quiet communion with
nature like Wordsworth, or in the wider excursions of the
imagination like Coleridge and Shelley, or in the deeper
workings of passion like Byron. Even when bringing
before us the objective world they often expose it to the
view by a flash of light struck by the inward feeling
awakened. Tennyson, in his " In Memoriam," gives us
little else than the feeling of sorrow for the departed
projecting itself on the external world and darkening it
with its shadow.

I believe that as the world advances in education and
civilization, and entertains a greater number and vari-
ety of thoughts on all subjects, and is susceptible of an
ever-increasing range of emotions, poetry must take up
the theme, the workings of human nature, and make this
its favorite subject. This is a mine of which the ancients
gathered only the surface 'gold, but which is open to
any one who has courage and strength to penetrate
into its depths and thence to draw exhaustless treasures.
As the most inviting of all topics to the poet I would
point to the human soul, to its convictions, its doubts, to
its writhings and struggles, in boyhood and manhood, in
idleness and in bustle, to its swaying motives, its desper.
ate fights, and its crowning conquests.

THE USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 175

SECTION III.

THE USE OE THE IMAGINATION.

The imagination has a noble purpose to serve. It
widens the horizon of the mental vision. It fills the
empty space which lies between the things that are
seen, and it gives a peep into the void which lies beyond
the visible sphere of knowledge. It thus expands the
mind by expanding the boundary of thought, and by
opening an ideal outside the real world. It is also fitted
to extend the field of enjoyment. It peoples the waste,
and supplies society in solitude ; it enlarges the diminu-
tive and elevates the low ; it decorates the plain and
illumines the dim. The cloud in the sky is composed
of floating particles of moisture, and would be felt as
dripping mist if we entered it, but how beautiful does it
look when glowing with the reflected light of the setting
sun ! Such is the power of fancy in gilding what would
otherwise be felt to be dull and disagreeable. The
imagination can do more than this : it can elevate the
sentiments, and the motive power of the mind, by the
pictures, fairer than any realities, which it j^resents.

This faculty has [)urposes to serve even in science.
" The truth is," says D'Alembert, " to the geometer
who invents, imagination is not less essential than to the
poet who creates." To the explorer in physical science
it suggests hypotheses wherewith to explain phenomena,
and which, when duly adjusted, and verified by facts,
may at last be recognized as the very expression of the
laws of nature. There was a fine fancy in exercise, as
well as a great sagacity, when the poet Goethe discov-
ered that all the appendages of plants — sepals, petals,
stamens, and pistils — are after the leaf type, and thus
laid a foundation on which scientific botany has been

176 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

built. In every department of science this faculty
bridges over chasms between discovered truths, and
dives into depths in search for pearls, and opens mines
in which precious ores are found.

May we not go farther and affirm that it is of service
in the practical affairs of life, — always when subordi-
nated to the judgment. Not only does it supply devices
to the inventive warrior, such as Napoleon Bonaparte,
and suggest means of reaching unknown countries to
the adventurer by sea or land : it helps the farmer to
discover new modes of tilling his land, and discloses new
openings in trade to the merchant.

Need I add that it is the power which constructs those
scenes which are embodied in the fine building or statue,
which are made visible to us on the canvas of the paint-
er, or which the poet enshrines in verse, — as we have
seen shrubs and flowers imbedded in amber. Generally,
those writings are the most widely diffused and univer-
sally popular which address this imaging power of the
mind. At the head of this pictorial school is Sir Walter
Scott, and after him we have a whole host of writers in
history and in fiction. These authors do not content
themselves with relating the bare incident : they set
before us the actors, with all their accompaniments of
locality, dress, manner, and attitude. This pictorial
power illumines the book of knowledge, and fills it as it
were with prints and figures, which allure on the reader
from page to page, without feeling his work to be a toil.

This faculty too has the power of awakening senti-
ment deep and fervent. And here it will be needful to
call attention to the circumstance that the very mental
picture or representation of certain objects — say our-
selves or others in circumstances of happiness or pain —
is fitted to call forth feeling. The novel-reader rejoices

THE USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 177

over the success of the hero of the tale as he would over
the triumphs of a living man, and weeps over the mis-
fortunes of the heroine as he would over a scene of ac-
tual misery. To account for this it is alleged by some
(as by D. Stewart) that there is a momentary belief in
the reality of the object. I am not sure that it is neces-
sary to resort to this supposition. It is the very mental
picture or apprehension of persons exposed to happiness
or sutfering which calls forth the emotion, and this with
or without a positive belief. No doubt if unbelief come
in it will arrest the play of fancy and feeling ; and unbe-
lief will always interpose when the picture is unlike
any reality, and hence it is needful for the novelist, the
tragedian, and the actor to make the characters and ac-
companiments as natural as possible, lest the doubting
judgment appear to scatter the images and with them
the emotions. But if unbelief does not lay a cold in-
terruption on the process, it seems to me that the men-
tal representations, as they flow on, will of themselves
draw along the corresponding train of feelings, whether
of joy or sorrow, of sympathy or indignation.

According, then, to the cherished imagination, so will
be the prevailing sentiment. Low images will incite
mean motives, and sooner or later land the person who
indulges in them in the mire. Lustful pictures will
foment licentious passions, which will hurry the individ-
ual, when occasion presents itself and permits, into the
commission of the deed — to be remembered ever after,
as Adam must have looked back upon the plucking of
the forbidden fruit. Vain thoughts will raise around
the man who creates them a succession of empty shows,
in which he walks as the statues of the gods are carried
in the processions before pagan temples. The perpetual
dwelling on our supposed merits will produce a self-

178 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

righteous character, and a proud and disdainful mien
and address. Gloomy thoughts will give a downward
bend and look, and darken with their own hue the
brightest prospects which life can disclose. Envious or
malignant thoughts will sour the spirit and embitter the
temper, and ever prompt to words of insinuation, iimu-
endo, or disparagement, or to deeds of sulkiness, of ma-
lignity, or revenge.

This is the darker side. On the other side, when the
fancy is devoted to its intended use, it helps to cheer, to
elevate, to ennoble the soul. It is in its proper exercise
when it is picturing something better than we have ever
yet realized, some grand ideal of excellence, and sets us
forth on the attainment of it. All excellence, whether
earthly or spiritual, has been attained by the mind
keeping before it and dwelling upon the ideas of the
great, the good, the beautiful, the grand, the perfect.
The tradesmen and mechanic attain to eminence by their
never allowing themselves to rest till they can produce
the most finished specimens of their particular work.
The painter and sculptor travel to distant lands that
they may see and, as it were, fill their eye and mind
with the most beautiful models of their arts. Poets
have had their yet undiscovered genius awakened into
life as they contemplated some of the grandest of na-
ture's scenes ; or as they listened to the strains of other
poets, the spirit of poetry has descended upon them, as
the spirit of inspiration descended upon Elisha while the
minstrel played before him. The soldier's spirit has
been aroused, more than even by the stirring sound of
the war trumpet, by the record of the courage and hero-
ism of other warriors. The fervor of one patriot has
been created as he listened to the burning words of "
another patriot, and many a martyr's zeal has been kin-

THE IDEA OF THE INFINITE. 179

died at the funeral pile of other martyrs. In this way
fathers have handed down their virtues to their children,
and parents have left their offspring a better legacy in
their example than in all their wealth, and those who
could leave them nothing else have in this example left
them the very richest legacy. In this way the good men
of one age have influenced the characters of the men of
another, and the deeds of those who have done great
achievements have lived far longer than those who per-
formed them, and been transmitted from one generation
to another.

SECTION IV.

THE IDEA OF THE INFINITE.

The imagination is strikingly illustrative both of the
strength and weakness of the human intellect. There
are stringent limits laid on its exercises. All the images
of the fancy are only reproductions of what we have
experienced. In using its materials the mind can en-
large them to an infinite extent, but stretch itself as it
may the image is still finite. In expanding the image in
space it is incapable of doing more than representing to
itself a volume with a distinct spherical boundary. In
following its contemplation, in time the image is of a
line of great length, but terminating in a point at each
end. But where the mind is held in by its weakness
there it exhibits its strength. It can image to itself only
this bounded sphere, this line cut at both ends, but it is
led, or rather impelled, to believe in vastly more. At
the point where it is obliged to stop it takes a look, and
that look is into infinity. Standing as it were on the
shore of a vast ocean it can see only so much, but it is
constrained to believe that there is a region beyoijd that

180 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

horizon to which no limits can be set. It is here that I
find the origin and genesis of such an idea and belief as
the mind can entertain of infinity.

We are approaching a profound subject. It is not
easy to sound its depths. It was long before I was able
to attain to anything like clear ideas on the subject.
I have pondered it for successive hours only to find
it shrouded in thicker clouds. On the one hand I
found the more profound philosophers of the Continent
of Europe, such as Anselni, Descartes, Leibnitz, and
Kant, giving this idea a high, indeed the highest, place
in their systems. In coming back from flights in com-
pany with these men, to inquire of Locke, Hamilton, and
British philosophers what they make of this idea, I find
their views meagre and unsatisfactory, for the idea of the
infinite according to them is a mere impotency in re-
spect of the mental faculty and a negation as to the idea
reached. But if we can entertain no such idea, how can
we speak of it ? If it be a mere impotency, how do we
feel ourselves called on to clothe the Divine Being with
this perfection ?

Feeling as if I needed to find it somewhere I pro-
ceeded in the truly British method, that is, the induc-
tive, to inquire how does such an idea of, or belief in,
the infinite as the mind can entertain rise within us,
and what is its precise nature? The imagination can
add and add; so far we have the large, the indefinite.
Thus in respect of time (of which we have seen we have
an idea by the Recognitive Power) it can add millions
of years and ages to millions of years and ages. In
respect of extension or space (which it knows by the
senses) it can add millions and billions and trillions of
leagues to millions and billions and trillions of leagues,
and then multiply the results by each other millions of

THE IDEA OF THE INFINITE. 181

billions and trillions of times. But when it lias finished
this process it has not infinity, it has merely immensity.
If, when we had gone thus far, time and space were to
cease, we should still have the finite, — a very wide
finite, — but not the infinite. But it is a law, and it is
a conviction of the mind, that even when we have gone
thus far we are necessitated to believe that to whatever
other point we go there must be something beyond.
Such seems to me to be the true character of the mind's
conviction as to the Infinite.

The Infinite, as apprehended by man, may be regarded
as having two elements, or rather may be viewed under
two aspects.

I. The Infinite is always something beyond our widest
image and conception. The mind strives to form an
image of infinity, but as it does so it is always baffled
and thrown back. It can easily picture a sphere as wide
as that of the earth's movement around the sun, and try
to image that vast orbit in which our sun moves. Let
us stretch the imagination thus far, as far as the most
distant point which the largest telescope reaches, as far
as the star which requires thousands or hundreds of
thousands of years to send its rays across the immeasur-
able regions which intervene. Are we then at the far-
thest limits of existence ? Can we believe that we are ?
Suppose we were carried to such a point ; would we
not stretch out our hand, confidently believing that there
is a space beyond, or if our hand be hindered, it must be
by a body occupying space ? We are necessitated to be-
lieve that when we have gone thus far we are not at the
outer edge of the universe of being ; nay, though we
were to multiply this distance by itself ten thousand
millions of times, till the imagination feels dizzy and
reeling, still, after we have reached that point, we are

182 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

constrained to believe that there must be something be-
yond. This seems to me to be the law of the mind in
reference to infinity ; it not only cannot set limits to
existence, it is constrained to believe that there are no
limits. " If the mind," says John Foster, " were to
arrive at the solemn ridge of mountains which we may
fancy to bound creation, it would eagerly ask, Why no
farther ? What is beyond ? "

II. The Infinite is such that nothing can be added to
it. We may farther say that nothing can be taken from
it. It is The Perfect. ^

All that we know by our highest faculties and in our
most elevated moods is seen to be limited, and in this
sense, and it may be others, it is imperfect. But amid
all the excellencies and evils before it it is ever looking
out for that which has no deficiencies. So whatever is
known to us as great and good we stretch to the utter-
most, and combine all in one ; and would unite Almighty
Power, Omnipresence, Eternit}^ Omniscience, Bound-
less Goodness, and Spotless Holiness all in this Per-
fect One. The mind is made to acknowledge that it
cannot compass all this, but is expanded in the endeavor,
to comprehend it. The imagination loses itself as in a
forest ; but we feel all the while that we are safe, wher-
ever we are, — in the immensity of space or time or
eternity, in this world or in worlds unknown. I have
been speaking of our rudimentary faith in the unseen
and the distant ; we have now come to a faith in what
cannot be transcended. We have now a grand ideal set
before us to contemplate, and though like the pole-star it
is far above us, it is there to guide us. We are ever
drawn towards it, and as the asymptotes of the hyper-

1 After working out this twofold aspect I found that I had been antici
pated by Aristotle. See Intuitions of the Mind, Part ii. B. ii.

THE IDEA OP THE INFINITE. 18S

bola ever draw nearer, while they never touch each other,
so we would ever approach that model which is yet
ever above us.

This second aspect of infinit}'- iis the grander and ths
more important, 'i'his was the feature brought into
prominence by Anselm, the great mediseval philoeopher
and theologian. It was the one fixed on by DescarteS)
the founder of the French philosophy, and by LetbnitK,
the originator of the German philosophy. We find the
germ of it, ready to be expanded, in the minds of all
men, if we go sufficiently far down. We strike upon it
in all our deeper reasonings in regard to Divine things.
The profound philosophers just named argued from the
very existence of such an idea in the soul, that there
must be a corresponding object, and that therefore God
exists. Whatever may be thought of the validity of
this argument it is certain that there is such a rudiment-
aiy idea in the mind, and that it is ever prompting us to
seek after God, and enabling and constraining us when
we get evidence of the existence of God, say from the
traces of design in nature, to clothe him with infinity.

This second aspect of the infinite is not inconsistent
with the first, but is complementary to it. Combine the
two and we have such a view as man can entertain of
the infinite. By the one aspect he is humbled under a
sense of inferiority ; by the other he is elevated as he
gazes on it. Certainly, man's idea of the infinite is not
an adequate one ; he is made to feel so as he entertains
it. But it is not a negative idea, or a mere im potency, as
Locke and the British school of philosophy bold ; it has
positive elements in it, and man is never more exalted
than when he is seeking to rise to it. The belief may
be regarded as an intuitive one ; in our deeper moods
we find ourselves gazing on it. It is a necessary one ; we

184 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

cannot be made to think otherwise. It is, in a sense, a
universal conviction. No doubt the widest ima^e formed
by human beings, as by children and savages, must be
very confined ; but, narrow or wide, we feel that there
must always be something beyond. Pursue any line
suflBciently far and we find it going out into infinity.
So true is it, as Shelley says, —

" The feeling of the boundless bounds
All feeling, as the welkin doth the world."

But the infinite which the mind is led to believe in
is not an abstraction. It is a belief in something infi-
nite. So when " the visible things of God " declare that
there is an intelligent being, the author of all the order
and pui'pose in the universe, the mind is constrained to
believe that he is infinite, and clothes him with " eternal
power and godhead."

SECTION V.

THE ABUSE OF IMAGINATION.

While the imagination is fitted, when properly reg-
ulated, to widen the field of enjoyment and elevate the
standard of character, there is no faculty which is more
liable to run into error and excess, and in the end to
land the possessor in more helpless and hopeless misery.
If I had the genius of Plato, and were able like him
to clothe my thoughts in instructive myths, I would
represent the God who created us as allotting, when
he distributed to the faculties their proper spheres of
dominion, to the understanding the land, to the passions
the sea, and to the imagination the air. While each has
a kingdom put under it, it is all the while under a higher
Sovereign to whom it must give account, and who is
rerady to punish if his eternal laws are contravened.

THE ABUSE OF IMAGINATION. 185

And there may be transgression, not only in erroneous
judgments, not only in violent passions, but in the imag-
ination wandering into forbidden regions. No sin brings
its punishment with it more certainly in this life than a
disordered imagination. This kingdom of the air, just
as much as the land or the sea, has had laws impressed
on it. If the land is not properly cultivated it will
yield no crops ; if the sea is not skilfully navigated it
will speedily dash the vessel in pieces ; but the air is, if
possible, a still more perilous element to wield than the
earth or the ocean, and the penalties which it inflicts
are still more fearful ; when it is offended it raves in the
storm, it mutters in the thunder, it strikes with its light-
ning. How melancholy have been the lives of vei-y
many of those who have possessed in a high degree that
fearful gift, the gift of genius ! One who was himself
possessed of high genius was wont to thank God, be-
cause he could discover no traces of poetical talent in
his son ; and when we read the lives of the poets we
can understand how Sir Walter Scott — for it is to him
I refer — should have felt in this way. For in how
many cases has their elevation above other men been like
that of Icarus : they have mounted into a region purer
and more fervent than this cold earth, only to find their
wings melted by the heat, and their flight followed by a
melancholy fall. This is a gift which young men of
noble aspirations are especially apt to covet, and if they
possess the gift by all means let them use it; if God
has given them wings let them soar. But let them
know that if the gift is abused, in very proportion to the
greatness of the endowment will be the greatness of the
punishment. For in this unreal world of their own cre-
ation, they will meet with horrid ghosts and spectres
(also of their own creation, but not on that account the

186 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

less dreadful), ready to inflict vengeance upon those who
have made an unhallowed entrance into forbidden regions.
The miseries of men of genius have been the deepest of
all miseries, for the imagination has intensified all the
real evils which they suffer, and added many others,
giving a greater blackness to the darkness in which they
are enveloped, and a keener edge to the weapons by
which they are assailed.

The youthful mind, especially if of a vain or of a pen-
sive and indolent turn, is much tempted to exercise the
imagination in castle building. Speaking of his younger
years. Sir James Mackintosh tells us : " Reading of
Echard's Roman History led me into a ridiculous habit
from which I shall never be totally free. I used to
fancy myself Emperor of Constantinople, I distributed
oflBces and provinces among my school fellows. I loaded
my favorites with dignity and power, and I often made
the objects of my dislike feel the weight of my imperial
resentment. I carried on the series of political events
in solitude for several hours. I resumed them and con-
tinued them from day to day for months. Ever since I
have been more prone to building castles in the air than
most others. My castle building has always been of a
singular kind. It was not the anticipation of a sanguine
disposition expecting extraordinary success in its pur-
suits. My disposition is not sanguine, and my visions
have generally regarded things as much unconnected
with my ordinary pursuits and as little to be expected
as the crown of Constantinople at the school of Fortrose.
These fancies indeed have never amounted to convic-
tion, or, in other words, they have never influenced my
action, but I must confess they have often been as steady
and of as regular occurrence as conviction itself, and that
they have sometimes created a little faint expectation,

THE ABUSE OF IMAGINATION. 187

or state of mind, in which my wonder that they should
be realized would not be so great as it naturally ought to
be." A person of a very different temperament, Cliar-
lotte Elizabeth, describes herself as falling, in her younger
years, into a similar habit, which, however, she speedily
corrected. ^' I acquired that habit of dreamy excursive-
ness into imaginary scenes and among unreal person-
ages, which is alike inimical to rational pursuits and
opposed to spiritual-mindedness." I have remarked in
my own experience (for I confess to have been an archi-
tect of these airy fabrics) that all such " vain thoughts "
sooner or later end in sadness ; — after the height comes
the hollow, deep in proportion to the previous elevation ;
after the flow comes the ebb to leave us stranded on a
very sandy waste. The mind, when it awakes as it
must, revenges itself for the dreams by which it has
been deceived. For the time they enfeeble the will,
they relax the resolution, they dissipate the energies, and
they issue in chagrin, disappointment with the world,
ennui, and not unfrequently bitterness of spirit. The
indulgence in such weak imaginations is like the sultry
heat of a summer day : it is close and disagreeable at the
time, and it is ever liable to be broken in upon by thun-
ders and lightnings. These gathering clouds, though
they may seem light and floating, will sooner or later
pour forth tempests. They that sow the wind shall
reap the whirlwind. If the imagination is unlawfully
engaged when building palaces among the gilded clouds,
it is equally misemployed when, under the guidance of a
melancholy spirit, it is hewihg out sepulchres in desolate
and gloomy places, and peopling them with ghosts and
demons to keep the timid from going out into the dark
night when duty calls. " Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof.'"

188 THE POWEB OF COMPOSITION.

This vain spirit is mucli fostered and increased by the
excessive novel-reading of the age. I am not to enter
upon a crusade against the perusal of works of fiction. I
should be sorry to debar the child from Robinson Crusoe
or the Pilgrim's Progress, or to prevent any one from be-
coming acquainted with the character of Jeanie Deans
or of Uncle Tom. But I do protest against that constant
and indiscriminate perusal of romances in which so many
indulge. In the use of such stimulants I am an advocate,
not of total abstinence, but of temperance principles. I
am not afraid of an occasional stimulant, provided people
be not constantly drinking of it, and provided they be
taking solid food in far larger measure. For every novel
devoured let there be eaten and digested several books
of history or of biography, several books of voyages and
travels, several books of good theology, with at least a
book or two of science or of philosophy. If you exam-
ine some of our circulating libraries you will find a very
different proportion, — far more works of fiction than of
truth. Those who consume this garbage will soon take
its hue, — as the worm takes the color of the green
herbage on which it feeds ; and the furnishing of their
mind becomes excessively like the circulating libraries
to which I have referred, — a strange medley, in which
the vain and fictitious occupies a far larger place than
the real and the solid.

Nor let it be urged by the novel-reader that as he does
not believe the tale when he reads it, so no evii can
possibly arise from the perusal of it. For the mischief
may be produced altogether independent of his belief or
his disbelief. It arises from the impressions produced,
unconsciously produced, unconsciously abiding, and un-
consciously operating. Like the poison caught from vis-
iting an infected district, it is drawn into the system

THE ABUSE OF IMAGINATION. 189

without our being aware of the precise spot from which
it comes, or even of its existence. Like the evil influ-
ence of companions, these evil communications corrupt
good manners, all the more certainly because they work
pleasantly and imperceptibly. The evil arises from
the vain shows into which the mind is conducted ; from
the false pictures of the world and of human character
which are exliibited. It springs from the images with
which the mind is filled, and which present themselves
when invited and when not invited. For having called
up these spirits, and cherished and fondled them, we
may find that we cannot lay them when we choose ;
that they abide with us whether we will or no, first to
tempt and finally to torment us.

Even when the novels are all proper in themselves the
immoderate use of them has a pernicious tendency. It
has been shown by Bishop Butler and by Diigald Stew-
art ^ that it is injurious to the mind to stimulate high feel-
ing, — as is done in the novel, — when the feeling is not
allowed to go out in action. It is a good thing to cher-
ish compassion towards a person in distress, when we are
led in consequence to take steps towards his relief. But
it is not so good a thing to indulge in sympathy towards
an imaginary personage whom we cannot aid. The ra-
tionale of this can be given. In proportion as we be-
come familiar with scenes of distress we are less and less
affected by them. But when the scenes are real, and
when we are in the way of relieving the misery, we are
in the mean time acquiring a habit of benevolence, which
like other habits will grow and strengthen with the ex-
ercise. In going into such scenes we may not feel so
keenly as we at one time did, but if the mere sensibility
of benevolence is lessened, the principle and the habit

1 Butler's Analogy ; Stewart's Elements, Part i. cap. viii.

190 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

are increased. But it is different when our feelinsrs are
in the way of being roused by harrowing scenes in a
romance ; here we have the feelings deadened to ordi-
nary misery without any habit of active benevolence
being acquired. Hence it is that we so often find that
the eyes which stain the novel with tears refuse to weep
over the -real miseries of the poor. " From these rea-
sonings it appears," says the philosoplier last named,
" that an habitual attention to exhibitions of fictitious
distress is in every view calculated to check our moral
improvement. It diminishes that uneasiness which we
feel at the sight of distress, and which prompts ns to
relieve it. It strengthens that disgust which the loath-
some concomitants of distress excite in the mind, and
which prompts us to avoid the sight of misery, while at
the same time it has no tendency to confirm those habits
of active benevolence without which the best dispositions
are useless."

This is the result even on the supposition that the
characters are properly drawn. Still more fatal conse-
quences follow when the imagination is employed in
such works to decorate vice or depreciate true excel-
lence ; to piiture human nature as essentially good and
the ungodly as truly happy ; to represent piety as mean
or profanity as something noble ; to picture tiie religious
as either fools or hypocrites ; or daub over with paint the
face of fading worldly vanity.

SECTION VI.

TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION.

It may best be educated by laying up a store of noble
images, ever presenting themselves to enliven and in-
struct the mind. There are works devised by the imag-

TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION. 191

ination of man fitted to accomplish this end. There is
the statue uith the soul shining through the marble.
There is the painting, setting before us historical incident
and character, and rousing the. soul to high sentiment
and energetic action. There is the grand cathedral witli
its imposing towers, its pillar succeeding pillar, and arch
upon arch, with the long prospective of the nave and
the withdrawing aisles. It is worth our while to travel
many a mile to store the mind with such memories.

But the works of God are still more replete than
those of man with food for the fancy. Nature every-
where brings before us figures which strike the eye,
wliich imprint themselves on the memory and engage
the musing intellect. The planet has a regular oblate
spheroid shape, and it runs in a regular elliptic orbit.
Minerals assume crystalline forms which are mathemat-
ically exact. The mountains stand so stable and leave
their figure on our mind so distinctly as they cut the
sky. But it is in organic nature that type has most sig-
nificance. The elementary form is the cell ; then there is
what I call the organic column, being a shaft widened at
the two ends, seen in the stalks of the leaf, in the boles of
trees, in the fingers, and in all the bones. All the parts
of a flower are formed on the model of the leaf, and I
have shown that there is a correspondence between the
form of the leaf and the form of the branch and of the
whole plant. How beautiful an object is a tree growing
fully in a sheltered lawn ; how picturesque the same
tree in winter, so sharply defined by a frost-bound cover-
ing of snow. Now the fancy is interested, and through
it the meditative intellect, when " man in his spirit com-
munes with the forms of nature."

No one has traveled much among the lovelier or
grander of nature's landscapes without witnessing scenes

192 THE POWER OK COMPOSITION.

whicli can never be effaced from the tablet of the
memory, but which are photographed there as by a
sunbeam process. It is a quiet valley separated from
all the rest of the world, and in which repose visibly
dwells. Or it may be a wide extended plain and fields
with hedge-rows and scattered trees, and dotted over
with well-fed kine which need only to bend their necks
to find the herbiige ready to meet them ; and a river
winding slowly through the midst of it, with villages
and village churches on either bank, — the church towers
fixing the whole scene in the memory. The ship with
its pointed masts and its white sails stretched out to
the breeze makes the bay on which it sails lively and
attractive. More imposing are the bold mountains which
cleave the sky, and the scarworn rocks which have faced
a thousand storms and are as defiant as ever. How
placid is the lake sleeping in the midst of them, shel-
tered by their overhanging eminences and guarded by
their turreted towers ; heaven above looks down on it
with a smile, and is seen reflected from its bosom.
Grander still, there is the ocean, always old and yet
ever new in its aspects, never changing and yet ever
changing ; and the sea-bird, careering from cliff to cliff,
and hoarsely chiding all human intruders from what it
reckons as its own domains. The faculty which God has
given us is educated by the contemplation of the scenes
which He has placed around us. A stroll among such
scenes at least once a year, when our large cities give
clouds of dust but refuse to give us breath, is as ex-
hilarating to the mind as it is to the body ; and the
mental vigor resulting will continue longer than the
revived bodily vigor ; while the pictures hung round the
chambers of the mind will be seen looking down upon
us ever and anon, to relieve the irksomeness of our daily
solicitudes.

TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION. 193

But human nature, with its joys and sorrows, its
achievements and disappointments, is better fitted to
stir up our higher faculties than the grandest objects
fashioned out of matter. History and biography reveal
incidents which incite the imagination, and youth should
be made acquainted with them. They bring under our
notice characters which transcend in grandeur the great-
est of the works of nature, — its mountains and its vales,
its streams, its cataracts, and its precipices. Those who
would train the mind to its highest capacity must fur-
nish to the young the record of deeds of heroism, of
benevolence, of self-sacrifice, of courage to resist the evil
and maintaui the good. Friendship, fidelity, patriotism,
and piety must be presented in their most attractive
forms. It will be acknowledged, even by those who fail
to discover that the Scriptures are inspired, that they
bring before us the incidents best fitted to interest the
young and to improve the character.

I have been uttering a word against the excessive
novel-reading of the age. But works of fiction in poetry
and prose gratify the powers which God has given us,
and if consistent with moral and religious principle may
refine and enlarge them. Let us look to the highest
models which the highest writers of ancient and modern
times have set before us. It appears to me that some of
the tales presented to the young, some even of our Sab-
bath-school stories, tend rather to dissipate and weaken
the mind. Others give utterly perverse views of human
life, and make men, women, and children act from
motives which never swayed human beings. Let us not
confuse the mind by having presented to it a multitude
of fictitious scenes, which tend to efface each other.
But let us have a limited number of images stored up,
each standing out prominently and distinctly. Let these

194 THE POWER OF COMPOSITION.

be the characters which have become chissical by being
represented by the great writers of ancient and modern
times.

By all means let the minds of youth be inspired by
tales of heroism. But let me not be misunderstood. T
do nut regard tliat man as a hero who has slain hun-
dreds of thousands of his fellow-men, but who has been
all the while the slave of his own ambition. I trust that
as the world grows older it will also become wiser, and
reserve its admiration for men of a higher stamp. By
heroes I mean those who have risen above the meanness
of the world, above their age, it may be above them-
selves, who have sacrificed their own interests to the good
of others, who have aimed at nothing less than render-
ing their fellow-men wiser and better. A heroism, this,
to be found as readily in the cottage as in the palace ; in
the cabin among the mountains or the most obscure
alley of a great city as in the camp or battle-field ; in
the weaker woman as in the stronger man. She is a
heroine in my estimation who, knowing that she risks
her life, nurses night and day the brother or sister who
is in raging fever and breathing infection all around. He
is the hero who, in the midst of pollution, temptation,
and defalcation, holds himself high above them and re-
fuses to be contaminated. Every one may claim a noble
lineage who is sprung from ancestoi's who displayed such
qualities. He is of no mean descent who can claim an
honest father and a virtuous mother. A man's personal
experience is valuable in proportion as it has brought
him in contact with persons of high soul and noble
aims. Highly privileged is the youth who has had a
father who has set him an elevated example, or a mother
who forgot herself in attending him, who has an attached
brother or sister, or who has-gained a disinterested friend,

TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION. 195

willing to stand by him in misfortune. There is a sort
of education which ennobles a youth more than book or
training in school or college. These home scenes are
more instructive than foreign travel of any description.
The image of such a sister, of such a wife, is more pleas,
ing and benign than the recollection of a painting oi
a Venus or Madonna. The remembrance of a friend
who defended us is more invigorating than that of a
statue of a Hercules or Apollo. A man whose mind isi
stored with these memories is never alone, for he ha&
friends to travel with him wherever he goes, to enlighten
him with their wisdom, and warm him with their love.
By means of such scenes the imagination is inspired i
and out of them it constructs its cherished fancies and
its ideal world.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SYMBOLIC POWER.
SECTION I.

ITS NATURE.

By this is meant the power of thinking by means of
signs or symbols, especially Language.

When the objects are now present and under the
senses external and internal, such as the mountain before
me and the joy we feel in contemplating it, we do not
need any sign to enable us to think of them. We can
compare these two statues without the use of words or
any other medium, and decide for ourselves that the one
has better proportioned form and the other has more
intelligence and expression in the countenance.

When the objects are absent we need ideas of them
in the mind, what I call phantasms, in order to think of
them. By means of these we can compare two statues
not before our eyes. In such cases we primarily com-
pare the images, but these images stand for the things,
say the two statues, and we regard ourselves as compar-
ing the things as imaged.

When the ideas or images are singular we can easily
think of them ; we can compare them and reason about
them by means of the ideas which represent them. It
is thus we can discover resemblances and contrasts be-
tween Homer and Virgil, between Alexander the Great

ITS NATURE. 197

and Julius Cassar, Newton and Leibnitz, Locke and
Kant, Washington and Abraham Lincohi, Napoleon Bo-
naparte and Louis Napoleon, the English, American,
and French Revolutions.

Even when we are thinking of qualities or classes
(abstract or general notions), we can do so by means of
phantasms. We have occasion, let me suppose, to think
of elasticity (an abstract term), and we image a rub-
ber ball, which can be squeezed, but speedily takes its
original shape. We have to reason about roses (a gen-
eral notion), and we make an effort to place before the
mind a plant which has all the qualities of the rose
without those of other plants, such as the daisy or lily.
This kind of idea is much dwelt on by Locke. " Thus in
forming our idea of man we leave out of the complex idea
that which is peculiar to the individuals, — that which
is peculiar to Peter and James, Mary and Jane, — and
retain only what is common to all." (Essay, B. IIL 3.)
Locke is certainly right in holding that we do endeavor
to form such an idea. Farther, we do in fact think,
compare, and judge, by means of such phantasms. But
it should be observed that these are not the same as our
abstract and general notions. They are concrete and sin-
gular, and so are not the same as abstract notions, which
are notions of parts or attributes of objects, or as general
notions of an indefinite number of objects joined by the
possession of a common attribute. In all such cases the
phantasm is used as a sign, the individual image standing
for a quality w^hich it strikingly exhibits, or for a general
notion of a member of which it is a sign. We can often
think correctly enough by means of such ideas. When
we can do so we move in the midst of pictures, and our
thinking is rendered livelier and more interesting.

Such ideas, it should be noticed, are always inade-

198 THE SYMBOLIC POWER.

quate when considered as standing for abstract and gen-
eral notions. They are concrete, and present more than
the abstract idea ; they picture the object as well as the
attribute. Bishop Berkeley exposes with great acute-
. ness the absurdity implied in the supposition that the
mind can form abstract general ideas in the sense of
positive representations. " The mind having observed
that Peter, James, and John resemble each other in cer-
tain common agreements of shape and other qualities,
leaves out of the complex or compounded idea of Peter,
James, and any other particular man that which is pe-
culiar to each, retaining only what is common to all, and
so makes an abstract wherein all the particulars equally
partake, abstracting from and cutting off all those cir-
cumstances and differences which might determine it to
any particular existence. And after this manner, it is
said, we come by the abstract idea of man ; or, if you
please, humanity or human nature, wherein it is true
there is included color, because there is no man but
has some color ; but then it can be neither black nor
any other particular color wherein all men partake.
So, likewise, there is included stature ; but then it is
neither tall stature nor low stature, but something ab-
stracted from all these." (Int. to Prin.) Such consid-
erations show conclusively that the mind cannot form
any just or adequate idea in the sense of image or phan-
tasm of a class. The truth is that every image before
the mind must be that of an individual, and cannot
therefore fully exhibit a species or a genus. And as
the notion becomes more and more general or more ab-
stract, especially when it is of mental or spiritual objects,
the representation becomes more and more difficult ;
and in our higher intellectual processes it is felt to b<;
impossible to form any picture. Who can form an idea,

ITS NATURE. 199

in the sense of image, of gravitation, of law of virtue, of
expectation, of indignation, of civilization, of govern-
ment?

It is a mistake to suppose that we cannot think, can-
not compare, or reason, or feel, or approve, or disapprove
without language. It is necessary that man should first
think before he can understand language. Certainly it
must have been necessary for him to judge and reason
before he could invent language. Man thinks primarily
by means of phantasms, and these can be made to stand
for higher thoughts and used accordingly.

Man uses signs in the first instance to indicate his
wants, and to express his meaning to others. Even the
lower animals, such as crows, have the capacity of using
signs to announce the discovery of food or of danger to
their species, and of understanding them. Laura Bridg-
man, without the senses of sight or hearing, had a dis-
position to resort to movements of the body to express
her thoughts and feelings. Children are commonly dis-
posed to ring their vocables the livelong day. Homer
gives it as one of tlie characteristics of mankind that
they are word-dividing ()uepo7rcs), analyzing and con-
structing to form a language suited to their ever-advan-
cing thoughts, and using that language to advance their
thoughts still farther.

In our higher abstractions and generalizations, and in
our reasonings and moral judgments, we need symbols,
and especially language, to carry on our mental processes.
They are as much required as figures are in arithmetic,
as letters a, 5, x^ y, in algebra. In the first place, it would
be difficult to form a mental image of 10, of 856,673,
or of ^^, or of personal prejudice, or benevolence, or self-
sacrifice, or spiritiial puritj^ or perfection. In the sec-
ond place, these phantasms in our uneducated reasonings

200 THE SYMBOLIC POWER.

and recondite researches might have a confusing, a dis-
tracting, and misleading influence, as bringing objects
and qualities not relevant, or omitting qualities essential
to the argument.

In feeling his need of them and finding the use of
them, man comes to carry on his thinking, to a great
extent, by means of language. In this way his thinking
is abbreviated, by using simple words for very complex
thoughts, and can be carried on more rapidly and much
farther.

It should be adopted as a principle, however, that
in thus using signs for thoughts we should always be
ready to translate the sign into the thing signified. In
discussion an opponent is entitled to insist on this. In
recondite reasoning, in which confusion is apt to appear,
we should do it for our own satisfaction, lest we be led
to affirm or deny of the sign what we would never pred-
icate of the thought or thing for which it stands.

I am inclined to give the Symbolic a place among the
faculties of the mind. It may be difficult to determine
how much of it we owe to original capacity and how
much to development and heredity. It seems to me to
be the product of a combination of several powers.
There is in man an organic apparatus of a very flexi-
ble character, and capable of producing a greater number
and variety and delicacy of tones than any artificial in-
strument ; it consists of the larynx and its attached
organs, the epiglottis, ligaments, and chords. The power
of association of ideas is always involved in it ; the
thought is associated with the sign. However produced,
Language is to man a natural endowment, and is to be
regarded as a heaven-bestowed gift.

ITY

BELATION OF SPEECH TO THE BRAIN.

SECTION 11.

RELATION OF SPEECH TO THE BRAIN.

[I am indebted to my former pupil, M. Allen Starr, M. D., Ph. D.,
for the stiitenient in this Section. It is altogether worthy of being re-
corded.] While there seem to be local centres in the bruin, there is
at the same time a unity of brain action. Since speech is the em-
bodiment of a mental act in physical vibrations, it is evident that it
has both material and psychical elements. Each word which is in-
telligently used has been acquired by a process of education. If that
process be analyzed, it may be shown that the mental basis of speech
consists of a series of word-images, each made up of a number of
memories. Thus the word bell has its mental elements, which may
be distinguished from one another as follows, and illustrated by the
aid of a diagram: There is the memory of the siglit of the bell,
which may be called the visual memory. There is another of its
tone, which may be termed the auditory memory. There is one of
touch, which recalls the rough cold surface of the metal, the tactile
memory. Then the word bell as heard differs from the tone of the
bell, and is preserved in the word-hearing memory. Also the word
bell as printed or written must have been retained in the word-see-
ing memory. Finally, there are two effort memories connected with
the muscular movements involved in uttering and in writing the word.
Thus the word-concept bell is made up of a number of memories, each
of which in the diagram is represented by a circle. The various mem-
ories are, however, associated intimately with one another, so that
when one is aroused the others come to mind. The circles must there-
fore be joined with one another by lines in the diagram, which then
represents the mental elements of the word bell. The physical ele-
ments may now be considered. Each of the memorj'-pictures of the
bell is the relic of a past perception, which has been acquired through
an organ of sense. The visual memory is the reproduction of a per-
ception of sight obtained through the eye; the auditory memory is the
recollection of a tone heard by the ear; and so for the other memo-
ries. Each organ of sense is a physical mechanism capable of re-
ceiving vibrat ions, and is connected by a nerve with its own region
on the gray surface of the brain, to wliich the vibrations are sent as
sensations, and in which they are perceived. In the diagram we
may therefore join the circles with the bell by lines, which will repre-
sent the nerves from the organs of sense, and to the organs of motion.

202

THE SYMBOLIC POWER.

If the memory-picture is a relic of a perception, it follows that th(
memory is located in the same region in which the perception oe
curred. But anatomy has shown that the various regions of th«
brain are joined with one another by nerves which run beneath the
gray surface in the white matter ; so that the lines joining the circles
in the diagram may represent the association fibres of the brain as
well as the mental connections of the memories. The diagram is
therefore more in accordance with an actual arrangement in the
brain than it may have seemed at first.

Diagram op the Word-Image " Bell." (Modified from Charcot.) Each circle repre-
sents a distinct memory involred in the mental image. The circles are joined
together because the memories are associated in the mind. Each memory is the
relic of a past perception, acquired through an organ of sense. The lines to the
circles indicate the source of the perception. The organs of motion by which the
word is spoken or written are the mouth and the hand.

If, now, I show you a bell, and ask you its name, your visual mem-
ory is first aroused, then your word-hearing memory, and, finally,
your word-uttering memory ; three distinct memory-pictures rising

Oil THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGES. 203

in your mind in succession by the process of association. If, how-
ever, I merely ask yoa to repeat the word bell after me, I arouse but
two memories in succession ; one the word-hearinrr, the other the
word-uttering. The latter, being a simpler process than tlie former,
is found by actual measurement to require but one half of the time ;
for the repetition of a word takes but one fourth of a second, wliile
the naming of an object takes about half a second.

But if the memory j)ictures are really distinct from one another,
and lie in different regions of the brain, it should be possible for dis-
ease limited to one region to produce a loss of one kind of memory.
And this is actually the case. For it is found that some persons lose
their memory of objects, so that they do not recognize them when
seen ; others lose the power of understanding spoken language; others
forget how to read or write; and others, still, lose the power of speak-
ing the words which they know and remember. So that there are
diseases of the brain whose effect is to deprive the person suffering
of a single set of memory-pictures, an effect which could be repre-
sented on the diagram by obliterating one of the memory-circles.
And further, there are forms of disease which affect the association-
fibres joining different areas of the brain, in which case the associa-
tion of ideas is interfered with. If, however, the surface of the brain
in these cases is not destroyed the memories remain, and it is often
curious to see the manner in which they are reached by indirect as-
sociation when the direct fibres are broken. All these facts point to
the existence of a physical basis of speech in the brain, which corre-
sponds, as we have seen, quite closely to the mental basis. It is an
interesting fact that only one hemisphere of the brain presides over
the process of speech : in right-handed persons it is in the left hemi-
sphere that the memories are stored ; while in left-handed persons it
is the right hemisphere which preserves the mechanism. The study
of diseases of memory has led to the discovery of the facts men-
tioned, and is likely to throw much light on other mental processes
now imperfectly understood.

SECTION III.

ON THE TEACHING OF LANGUAGES.

From an early age children are very much dependent
on symbols (as all teachers know), and especial!}^ on

204 THE SYMBOLIC POWER.

language, for the exercise of thinking. To a small ex-
tent this may be a disadvantage, as in the use of words
they are made to think as those do who have coined
the phrases and who use them. But to a far larger ex-
tent it is a benefit, as it puts them in possession at once
of the matured thought of ages. The power of speech,
early practiced and going down by heredity, is a natu-
ral endowment and should be cultivated by children. I
rather think, however, that young children should not
be distracted by learning any other tongue than their
own, which they should be taught to use correctly. But
great advantages arise from people who claim to be edu-
cated being instructed in other tongues as well as their
own, as they are thereby introduced to the thoughts of
other peoples, and are not bound to move in the ruts
which have been worn by their countrymen.

A talent for langunges is developed at an earlier age
than one for mathematics or physics. At the age of
nine or so a child may begin to learn Latin or French,
but should not be pushed hard. In a year or two after-
wards Greek or German may be added, great care being
taken not to overload the brain or to confuse the think-
ing. I find that a much greater number of young people
from twelve to sixteen or so betake themselves with more
eagerness to languages than to abstract science ; advan-
tage should be taken of this taste to have the teaching
of languages commenced in childhood, and I am disposed
to add completed in youth, except, indeed, when lin-
guistic scholarship is sought, when it may have to be
continued for life.

If we wish to make the acquisition of foreign lan-
guages attractive they should be learned in much the
same way as our native tongue has been. There must
indeed be simple grammatical rules, gathered from the

THE TRAINING OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWERS. 205

passages read, taught from the beginning. But the more
scientific grammatical and linguistic laws should not
be insisted on till the scientific faculties have been so
far matured and are ready to work.

I am bound to add that when the sole education or
even the main part of it has been in languages, the ti-ain-
ing is not favorable to independence or to solidity and
manliness of thinking. When children rise to fourteen
years or so, scientific should be mixed with the linguis-
tic studies, if the mind is to be fully or healthily de-
veloped.

SECTIOX IV.

THE TRAINING OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWERS.

I have taken pains, in my exposition of the separate
powers, to show how they may be cultivated. It now
remains only to gather the remarks to a point. The
reproductive powers come next to the senses and the
accompanying consciousness, in the order of their appear-
ance. They should be educated in early life, in order
to call forth and prepare materials for the higher pow-
ers, such as the judgment and the conscience. Exercise
in memory and in language, if we follow the course of
nature, should come before science, into which, as I
think, some modem educators would hurry children at
too early an age. Our fathers were right in exercising
the memory, the apprehension, and fancy before intro-
ducing youths to the more abstract problems of science ;
but they often erred in burdening the mind with too
many dry details, or in engrossing it with words.

(1.) Pains should be taken to retain knowledge and all
useful lessons in the mind. I have carefully explained
how all this may be done. In order to this it is needful
that the teaching should be as interesting as possible, — -

206 THE SYMBOLIC POWER.

that It should engage the intellect by everything being
explained and the attention being thoroughly secured.

(2.) It is of vast moment that the association of
thoughts and feelings be properly regulated, that vice be
not painted as something grand and noble, and virtue
as something mean. We must not be satisfied to have
youth learn by rote, that is, by the mere law of contigu-
ity ; they must lay up facts in classes and according to
tbe relations of causes and consequences.

(3.) I have shown how the memory may be improved
by taking advantage of the laws of association, primary
and secondary. Particular pains should be taken to
make children distinguish between the original and
proper Inemories and the color which may be given and
the additions made by association and by rapid infer-
ence. It is thus that we can have truth without a mix-
ture of fiction, and, what is one of the most valuable of
virtues, a spirit of truthfulness.

(4.) A stock of images, pure, chaste, and ennobling,
should be laid up in childhood and in youth, to be called
up in after years in the midst of the cares of business
and the lassitude of infirmity. Education should not be
made too mechanical or even scientific. Children should
be induced to read tales of heroism and magnanimity, to
watch the aspects of nature, and to mingle in scenes full
of human interest.

(5.) Our forefathers in some schools gave too exclusive
a place to language. But it is certain all the while that
language is a natural gift, that children can learn a new
tongue before they can learn a science, and that lan-
guages, especially our own language, should be culti-
vated from an early age, for the training they give and
for the knowledge they open to us.

There is a keen dispute in the present day as to

THE TRAINING OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWERS. 207

whether language and literature or science should hold
the higher place in our institutions of learning. If we
are to look to the place which God has assigned to these
two departments, we should give to each an equally im-
portant position, and not forget to complete the trinity
by adding philosophy or the branches which inquire into
the foundation of knowledge and the reasons of things,
and call forth the powers of thought and reflection.

BOOK ni.

THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.
CHAPTER I.

OFFICE OF THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

Hitherto every mental perception or apprehension
coming before us has been singular. All objects ob-
served by the senses, external and internal, have been
unconnected. These, when reproduced by the memory,
and even by the imagination, are still units. By the
latter of these powers we may join the tail of a fish to
the body of a woman, but the mermaid thus fashioned is
quite as individual a thing as the woman or the fish
in our idea of it. We are now to consider the mental
power which notices the relations of objects and thus
binds them in our apprehension. It may be called Com-
parison, and is defined as the Faculty which discovers
Relations. It observes, first, the relations of objects
given by the simple Cognitive and Reproductive Powers,
and then goes on to observe relations between these, on
and on to an indefinite extent ; it can notice the relation
of classes to classes, and pursue effect on to cause, and a
cause on to a prior cause, and so with all other rela-
tions.

(1.) The discovery of relations proceeds on a knowledge
of the objects related. Even as the objects perceived to

OFFICE OF THE COMPARATIVE POWERS. 209

be related are real, so are also the relations perceived. I
lay down this proposition in opposition to one of the skep-
tical doctrines of the present day. There are metaphy-
sicians who tell us that things themselves are unknown
to us, and that we perceive only the relations of things.
This makes the relations perceived subjective, that is,
merely in the mind. In standing up for the veracity
of our cognitive faculties and the reality of things, we
should set aside both these positions and maintain that
the things perceived and the relations perceived between
them are both real. No doubt the reality of the two is
somewhat different : the reality of substances and the
reality of the relation of substances. But as the sub-
stances — say mind and body — exist, so do the relations
exist in the substances. These two lilies exist, but so
also does their resemblance in the possession of the same
form. The things that constitute a cause are real, and
also those which constitute the effect, but the power in
the cause to produce the effect is also and equally a
reality.

(2.) Man's knowledge begins, not with relations, but
with things. In laying down this proposition I under-
mine one of the most fatal — as I regard it — errors of
the day. It is said that all man's knowledge is relative.
I look on this as a mistake, logically and chronologically.
Our consciousness being witness we regard ourselves as
having a knowledge of this thing and that thing, — say of
a brown horse, or of ourselves as perceiving it. Having
got this knowledge, we may then compare two or more
objects thus known and discover some connection be
tween them, — as that they are like each other, or that
they differ from each other, or that the one attracts the
other. We discover the relation because we so far know
the things and perceive the relations to be in the things.
14

210 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

This gives us a positive, as opposed to a relative, theory
of knowledge. Instead of saying that we know the rela-
tions of things themselves unknown, the correct state-
ment is that we discover the relations of things known,
and discover the relations because we know the things.
In this way we avoid that most subtle skepticism of our
day, which begins with the doctrine of Relativity and
ends with Nescience or Agnosticism.

(3.) It is wrong to maintain, as so many do in the
present day, that the only relations which the mind can
discover are those of agreement and difference. This is
another of the ways in which sensationalists and posi-
tivists are narrowing tlie capacities of the human mind
and undermining our belief in the reality of things.
They first represent us as incapable of knowing things.
Then they make the relations not to be in the things.
Thirdly, they speak of agreements and differences as the
only relations which the mind can discover. Having
so limited human capacity, many are prepared to ac-
count for it by material agency, or simply by the action
of powers unknown. But to discover that things agree
or disagree we must know something of the things ; we
must know some of the qualities of the things. Farther,
we discover more or less clearly what it is that tliey
agree or disagree in ; it must be in form or property or
something else known or conceived.

CHAPTER II.

CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

We see a tree in full blossom. I. We discover that
this tree is the same as we saw yesterday, though the
blossoms are farther advanced. II. We contemplate
separately the blossoms, but as blossoms of the tree.
III. We notice that the tree resembles others standing
near it. IV. We observe the shape and size of the tree.
V. We calculate how long the blossoms continue. VI.
We try to estimate the number of blossoms. VII. We
find that they emit a pleasant odor. VIII. We discover
that some are blown away by the wind. We thus find
that the mind of man can perceive eight kinds of relar
tion : —

L Identity. V. Time.

II. Whole and Parts. VI. Quantity.

III. Resemblance. VII. Active Property.

IV. Space. VIII. Cause and Effect.

I am sure that the mind can discover all these kinds of
Relations.

SECTION I.

RELATION OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE.

This relation carries us back to the Simple Cognitive
Powers. We have seen that we know objects without
and within us as having Being. (Pages 77, 78.) The
same object may be presented to us at different times

212 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

and it may be with different concomitants, and when we
declare it to be the same the judgment is one of identity.

We have an immediate and direct means of knowing
one kind of identity, and that is our personal identity.
First, in every act of consciousness we know self as having
Being. (Page 70.) Again, in every act of memory we
have a remembrance of past self and also a consciousness
of present self, and on comparing tliera, we at once pro-
nounce the two to be the same. There may have been
many and varied differences between the two states. In
the past state remembered we may have been hopeful,
elastic, joyous; in the latter, sacl, depressed, gloomy; yet
we discern an essential self that is the same. All this is
self-evident, that is, evident on the bare contemplation of
the objects. It is necessary ; we cannot be made to de-
cide otherwise, or allow for an instant that we are dif-
ferent persons from what we were a month or a year or
ten years ago. It is also universal, that is, entertained
by all men. We are thus entitled to regard it as intui-
tive, for it can stand the tests of intuition.

We have no such direct means of knowing the identity
of other and external things. I saw a man with a white
coat yesterday and I see a man with a black coat to-day.
I have no intuitive means of knowing that it is the same
man. I know, indeed, that everything we know hns
being, — the thing we remembered in the past and the
thing perceived at present ; but I have no intuitive
means of knowing that they ai'e the same. We are
here thrown upon experience, which experience always
falls back, however, upon the princi23le that everything has
being. But it is by a gathered induction and inference
that we are able to decide that this person or this table
we now see is the same as that we saw yesterday.
Hence, while there is no room for difference of judg

RELATION OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE. 213

ment as to our personal identity, there is room for dif-
ference of opinion as to the identity of other things ;
and there are often mistakes and disputes as to the
identity of persons. We have in these last cases to
depend on the common rules of experiential evidence,
taking care not to decide one way or other when we
have no sufficient pi'oof.

The Relation of Identity is always one and the same,
but it may take three distinct forms ; Identity Proper,
Contradiction, and Excluded Middle. These were mixed
up together and at times confounded in the ancient phi-
losophy, in the niediseval ages, and indeed till the present
century, when they have been distinguished and care-
fully separated, greatly to the benefit both of Logic and
Metaphj'sics.

Identity Proper. — The same is the same ; A is A.
This proposition is apt to appear very trivial and even
silly till we put it in this form : " The same is the same,
observed it may be in different circumstances, or with
different associations." I am sure that I am the same
person to-day when I am in good humor as yesterday
when I was angry. I discover that this man in robust
health, florid and active, is the man I saw a year ago,
pale, sallow, and listless. This same faculty guides us
in all those judgments (affirmative) which are called
immediate inferences or derivative judgments, — as, w'hen
it is given that all men have a conscience, we argue that
the Indian lias a conscience. It also regulates all cases
(affirmative) in which from two premises we draw a con-
clusion, — as, when it is given that "he who is responsible
has free will," and that " man is responsible," we infer
that " man has free will." In such cases the mind dis-
covers an identity in thought in propositions which differ
from each other in form, in language, and in extent.

214 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

The Principle of Contradiction. — Here when we have
a cognition or an idea of a thing, we are prepared to deny
that it has not those qualities which it is regarded by us
as possessing. As, knowing that this body has a square
shape, we deny that it is round. As, knowing what mam-
mals are, we deny that they are not warm-blooded. Our
negations, like our affirmations, thus carry us back to
our knowledge and our ideas.

The principle of Contradiction has been expressed
variously ; one is, A cannot be not A. The best form,
I think, is the old one so much used by the mediseval
logicians : " It is impossible for the same thing to be
and not to be at the same time." This principle applies
both to things and their qualities. If I know that stone
to exist I cannot allow that it does not exist, and I must
contradict those who so assert. Again, if I know that
I have free will, I must deny that I have not free will.
If I know that this body is extended, I put a negative on
all asseverations that it is not extended.

This principle regulates all propositions which draw a
negative proposition by immediate inference. Thus, it
being allowed that no man is infallible, we infer that the
pope and the public press are not infallible. It also
rules reasoning in which the conclusion is negative. On
being allowed that one who has not reason is not respon-
sible, and that this man is without reason, we argue that
he is not responsible.

Excluded Middle. — When two propositions are con-
tradictory both cannot be true. If this man has free
will it cannot be that he has not free will. When the
two propositipns are truly contradictory one or the other
must be true. If John Smith did commit the robbery, it
cannot be that he did not commit it. But it is to be ob.
served that propositions may seem to be contradictory

RELATION OF WHOLE AND PARTS. 2l5

when they are not so, in which case they may be both
true or both false. Tlins, man may be free while yet
causation acts in his voluntary acts. I may be able in
one sense to conceive of space and time as unbounded,
that is, I decide iiitelU'ctually that they are so ; and in
another sense, I am obliged by my nature to conceive of
tht jn, that is, image them, as being bounded.

It has been shown by philosophic logicians that these
three laws regulate all discursive thought. But it is to
be noticed that discursive thought always implies some-
thing admitted on which it proceeds. All our immediate
inferences and reasonings thus carry us back to our prim-
itive cognitions, beliefs, and admitted judgments.

SECTION 11.

RELATION OF WHOLE AND PARTS.

When we consider the relation of the whole to the
parts, this is Comprehension. When we consider the
relation of a part to the whole, this is Abstraction.
When we separate the whole into its parts, supposed
to be its whole parts, this is Analysis. When we put
the parts together to make up the whole, this is Syn-
thesis. These are operations which every one is per-
forming every day. In their higher forms they act an
important part in science of eveiy kind.

In the ordinary affairs of life we have ever to break
down the concrete or cimiplex whole into its parts, to
contemplate and use separately what we have seen to-
gether, and to combine things in order to make up a con-
nected whole; to combine, for example, the separate sides
and rooms of a house to make up our idea of the house.
We are ever required to consider the attributes of things
as well as the things themselves. In a loose way we are

216 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

ever distributing things into compartments and putting
together the compartments to make a complete concep-
tion.

Required even in practical matters, these are essential
processes in every kind of scientific investigation. In
nature different agencies are so mixed together that if
we would ascertain their mode of operation we must
separate them. Inductive science, says Bacon, begins
with " the necessary rejections and exckisions," or, as
Whewell expresses it, with "the decomposition of facts."
Abstraction is necessary in order to our thinking of, or
inquiring into, any attribute, quality, or law. Analysis
must be constantly employed in every kind of investiga-
tion, physical or metaphysical. It is equally true that
in all scientific inquiry we ever aim at reaching a syn-
thesis of the things we have considered separately.

SECTION III.

RELATION OF RESEMBLANCE.

In our observation of this relation, as of every other, we
proceed on our knowledge or idea, previous or present, of
objects. From the knowledge or idea we have of them
we perceive that there are points in which they are alike.
This enables us to put them into a class, to which we may
attach a name. That class must include all the objects
possessing the common attributes fixed on. By the fac-
ulty which discovers whole and parts we get, as we have
seen, our abstract notions. By the faculty which dis-
covers relations of resemblance we get our general no-
tions or concepts. These two kinds of notions are not
to be confounded. By abstraction we have an idea of an
attribute. In our general notions we put things together
that have a common quality. From this it appears that

EELATION OF RESEMBLANCE. 217

abstraction, which. fixes on the common attribute, is ne-
cessary to generalization. It has to be added that, after
general notions have been formed, we can compare them
and form liigher and more complex concepts.

(1.) It should be noticed that in all cases generalizjv-
tion proceeds on common properties snpposed to be in the
things. The concepts are no doubt formed by the mind,
but they are formed from things known or apprehended.
When the things are imaginary of course the notions
may also be imaginary. But when the things are real
the concept has also a reality, that is, a reality in the
common properties possessed by all the objects embraced
in the class.

(2.) The human intellect by its native tendency is
ever led to seek out points of resemblance among the
objects which fall under its notice. As the singular ob-
jects pressing themselves on our attention are innumer-
able, and would be a burden on the memory were it
obliged to carry them all, so we are compelled to form
them into classes, were it only to enable us to bear them
about with us more readily. While they and their prop-
erties are so numerous, they all proceed from a few ele-
ments, each with a few qualities, and so we are every-
where presented with likenesses which the mind is not
slow to observe. Some of these are superficial and acci-
dental, having no importance in the arrangement of the
objects in the world, but others have a deep significance
as proceeding from some universally acting cause, or fall-
ing out according to a law in which there is a Divine
purpose. These furnish us with the means of arranging
natural objects into what may be called Natural Classes,
— into s|)ecies and genera, orders and kingdoms, which
have a deep meaning, and open to our view the nature of
the order that pervades the universe.

218 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

("3.) It is of importance to clistinguish between tlie
relation of identity and that of likeness. In the one
there is a sameness in that which constitutes the being
of a thing, in the other in one or more of its qualities.

SECTION IV.

RELATIONS OF SPACE.

We can discover these because we have a knowledge of
objects, say our own bodily frames and bodies in contact
with them, as extended, that is, occupying space. We
are now able to compare bodies in respect of the space
which they occupy, and thus determine their form and
size, linear, superficial, and solid. By this gift of Lo-
cality, as it may be called, we are able to estimate the
distance and the bulk of objects, and to determine what
they are as we meet them, say man or woman, bo}'- or
girl, horse or cow, tree or rock, river or mountain, often
at a great distance. In all such cases we seem to settle
on a unit of some kind, of shape or distance, and to fix on
a line of direction, say in a straight line from our eye or
ear, and to bring all things into a relation to these. The
skillful and practised eye, or rather mind acting through
the eye, may attain a wonderful accuracy, apart fi'om the
use of any instrument, in determining these special rela-
tions.

By a process of abstraction we can separate the space
from the bodies in space and then discover the relations
of pure space. This is what is done in geometry. We
define the things we are to look at, line, surface, triangle,
square, circle, and then proceed to compare the things
defined. Some of the truths we discover by pure intui-
tion, that is, by the bare contemplation of the figures.
Thus on considering two parallel lines we declare that

THE RELATIONS OF TIME. 219

they will never meet. In other cases we cannot discover
the relation directly and we resort to mediate reason-
ing. We have found that A = B and B = C and we
conclude that A = C. We do not require any enunciated
•general rule to enable us to do so. We so conclude at
once on the bare contemplation of the objects. But then
some good purposes are served by expressing in a geneial
form the principle on which we have proceeded, which is,
" things which are equal to the same thing are equal
to one another." This may now be aimounced as an
axiom regulating our reasonings. A corollary is a truth
derived at once from some truth we have demonstrated.

SECTION V.

THE RELATIONS OF TIME.

We can discover these because we already, by memory
(the Recognitive Power, p. 153), have an apprehension
of events as happening in time. These relations are not
so nuuierous as those of space, but are of equal impor-
tance. They may be summed up under three heads ; con-
temporaneous, prior, and posterior. Here, as in regard
to space, we have to take a unit of comparison, a second,
a minute, an hour, a year, a century, and estimate all
things by it. The digits give us our decimal units and
the seasons the yearly units. Great events, such as the
Jewish passover, the institution of the Olympic games,
the birth of Christ, the flight of Mohammed, give our
starting-points in historical chronology. The fossils with
the minerals give us the epochs in geology. By such
means we can go far back into the past, and by reasoning
from the past look far forward into the future.

220 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

SECTION VI.

RELATIONS OF QUANTITY.

These are the relations of less or more, of degree of
proportion. We can discover these because we have
had objects before us with bulk and events running
through time, and also because we have discovered rela-
tions between these, such as relations of space and time,
and it may be all other relations. Having discovered
objects and relations, we can find that they have less
or more of the qualities we have fixed on and specify
the projDortion between the qualities. In the practical
affairs of life this capacity keeps tilings in their proper
place, calls forth our acts at the suitable time, imparts
a unity and a consistency to the conduct, and makes
things march in harmony.

This is specially the mathematical talent. In geom-
etry, indeed, the relations of space are the main ones
looked at. In arithmetic we may have to use the units
supplied by time. But ever since Descartes showed that
the relations of space could be expressed quantitatively,
mathematics, as a science, may be represented as the
science of quantity and as dealing with the relations of
quantity.

It is of importance to show that the relation of equality
is not the same as that of identity or as that of resem-
blance. In the judgments of identity we declare the ob-
jects to be the same. In those of resemblance we pro-
claim them to have like qualities. But in equality we
declare them to be the same in point of quantity. When
we declare that A = 6 or that A resembles B, Ave do not
affirm the things to be identical or that they are like, but
that they are equal. By applying these distinctions we

RELATIONS OF ACTIVE POWER OR PROPERTY. 221

are able to correct a mistake which certain mathemati-
cians are seeking to introduce into logic. They inter-
pret the proposition "all men are mortal" as meaning
"all men = some mortals." Now this is to misunder-
stand and pervert tiie proposition, which, when properly
interpreted, means that " all men have the attribute of
mortality," a proposition in comprehension (\vliole or
parts), and the involved proposition in extension, that
is, resemblance, " all men are included in the class of
mortals."

SECTION VII.

RELATIONS OF ACTIVE POWER OR PROPERTY.

We are able to know these relations because we know
objects wdthout and within us as exercising power. We
know body as having potency probably by all the senses :
we seem to have a perception of body, affecting us even
by smell, taste, feeling, liearing, and vision ; certainly we
have it by the muscular sense. It is palpably wrong
to assert, as some do, that body is altogether passive.
There is a sense, it should be admitted, in which body
is passive. If left isolated and alone it will not act ; it
will continue in the state in which it is. But every body-
is acted on by other bodies, it is attracted by them or
chemically affected by them, it acts and is acted on, it
moves and is changed. All action of bodies is mutual
action : one body acts on another and the other acts on
it. In respect of their active powers bodies liave various
relations to each other w^hich we can discover and express.
Physical science consists essentially in the discovery of
the relations of bodies to each other, which are expressed
in laws, mechanical, chem.ical, vital.

It is generally acknowledged that mind has power.
I think I see proof that body acts on mind and mind on

222 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

body : an action of the nerves and brain gives rise to
perception : I will to move my arm and it moves. There
is always much mystery about the relations, that is, mu-
tual actions, of mind and body ; still some points have been
determined as to the relation of mind and the cerebro-
spinal mass, and hundreds are eagerly employed in seek-
ing to make farther discoveries. We certainly know
much sjjeculatively and practically as to the activity of
mind ami the laws which govern it. From the days of
Aristotle there has been a science of mind, and it has
made considerable progress in modern times. This trea-
tise is professedly an endeavor to discover the powers of
the mind and the relations between them. In the busi-
ness of life and the intercourse of mankind, one man
seeks to sway his neighbor by working upon what he
knows of the motives by which he is swayed.

SECTION VIII.

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Causation may be consiilered Objectively and Subjec-
tively. Under the former aspect we regard it as acting
independently of our observation or any observation of
it. A spark will kindle gunpowder whether we notice it
or not. Under the latter we contemplate the mind look-
ing at it ; or, in other words, we inquire what is the na-
ture of the exercise or power which discovers the relation.

(1.) Causation Objective. — Much remains to be set-
tled as to what causation is. How does force stand re-
lated to cause ? How aic properties related to cause,
when it is said that mind and matter are known by
their properties ? What is the dijference between power
in mind and power in matter? Some points seem to me
to be determined, and these may in the end determine
the others.

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 223

First, there is an energy in all physical nature. It is
acknowledged that there is a Conservation of Energy
— Spencer calls it Persistence of Force. Physicists dis-
tinguish between Potential and Real Energy — (Aris-
totle's distinction between Si'i-a/xis and iyepyeia.^ The
former cannot be increased or diminished by any mun-
dane agencv, — by any power but that of God to whom
in the end all power belongeth. All the physical forces,
mechanical, chemical, electric, magnetic, — some think the
vital also, — are correlated and can be transmuted into
one another, so much chemical and electric power being
an equivalent of so much mechanical energy. This power
is always in body, but may be transferred from body to
body according to the capacities of the body. Thus a
ball A in motion strikes a ball B at rest, and the power
in A is transferred to B, which moves while A now rests.
It should be observed that while the amount of energy in
each body has changed, the whole amount of energy con-
tinues the same. I believe the capacity for energy in the
body also continues the same, and it is possible to reverse
the action and make B in motion strike A at rest and
transfer its motion to it. Every body has a certain capac-
ity (SiWyuts) for receiving this power ; and this power,
in exercise, constitutes the properties of the body ; its
gravitating, chemical, electric, magnetic, and, it may be,
vital, properties.

As to mental properties, — say intelligence, emotion,
moral approbation, will, — there is no reason to believe
that they are correlated with physical powers. It is the
office of psychology to determine their nature, their ex-
tent, and their limits. In doing this it labors under the
disadvantage of not having a precise standard of measure-
ment as nn^clianics have in foot-pounds ; but it has a
counteracting advantage in the acts being under the im-
mediate coo^nizance of the consciousness.

224 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

Secondl3% another important point has been established.
John S. Mill has shown that there ^re always two or
more agents in a cause (physical). We are accustomed
to say that this plant was killed by the frost. But there
is more embraced in the cause than the frost, that is,
tlian the low state of the atmosphere ; that agency alone
would not have produced the effect. In the cause we
have to include tlie state of the plant. The frost might
not have destroyed the plant if it had not been tender.
The low temperature and the tenderness of the plant to-
gether constitute the cause and were necessary to cause the
effect. Carrying out the same views a step farther, I have
been endeavoring to show that not only is there a duality
or plurality in the cause, there is the same in the effect.
There is a change in the plant, but there is also a change
produced, difficult to measure, in the temperature of the
atmosphere. It is the same in all cases, two or more
agents acting as the cause and the same agents changed
in the effect. A ball A strikes a ball B, both balls act,
and both balls are acted on and are changed, the one
losing momentum, the other gaining it. There is thus a
most complicated agency in causation and a like compli-
cation in effectuation. How numerous the agencies pro-
ducing any given historical event ! On the supposition
that the wolf suckled Romulus, we may trace the influ-
ence on the whole history of the Roman people. Cer-
tainl}'^ the character of Knox has so far influenced the
Scottish character in all later ages. The Puritan char-
act<"r of the seventeenth century and the Pilgrim Fathers,
modified by very different influences, has helped to mould
the people of New England.

In the common explanations one of the agents, the
more prominent one, or that supposed to be the main
one, is spoken of as the cause. The others are described

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 225

as the conditions or the occasions — it was on the occasion
of this man being exposed to cold that he caught fever
and died. We commonly look only to one part of the
complex consequence, the one most prominent or the
one expected, as the effect, and we call the others inci-
dents or concomitants. We say that the flood refreshed
the gi'ound, but incidentally or accidentally it also
drowned a certain person. But, rigidly speaking, there
is no chance in what is occurring, no accident in what
has taken place. All the agents acting are to be in-
cluded in the cause, and are also to be seen in the effect.
They constitute the invariable antecedent which has
produced the effect, and which when it recurs will for-
ever produce the effect. The same effect precisely will
follow when they are all present.

Cause and effect do not consist, as Hume maintains,
in invai'iable antecedence and consequence. In the cause,
that is, in the agents forming the cause, there is power,
force, or energy to produce the effect. It is not the in-
variable antecedence which makes the cause, but the
cause which makes the invariable antecedence.

All power, we have seen, resides in a substance (p. 79).
Let us suppose, as we have done (p. 223), that every sub-
stance is endowed with its own capacity or property ;
then, the substances continuing the same, there must al-
ways be the same amount of energy in the world, — a
conservation of energy, a persistence of force, as it is
called. The grand doctrine of our day, of the conserva-
tion of energy, seems to follow from these principles.

Causation Suhjecfive. — This falls under Psychology.
This relation, like every other, throws us back on our
primitive cognitions. We know mind by self-conscious-
ness and body by sense-perception, as possessing power
to produce an effect. Our earliest knowledge of mind

226 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

and our earliest knowledge of matter is thus associated
with efficiency. Herbert Spencer may be right in rep-
resenting force as the most essential quality of body as
made known to us. It is certainly known as early and
directly as extension, commonly regarded, and I believe
justly, as one of the essential qualities of body. It may
be by resistance, that is, force from a surface, that exten-
sion is first made known to us by the touch and by the
rods in the eye. Power is more fully revealed to us in
the exercise of mental properties and we regard it as an
essential quality of mind.

We trace everything that occurs to a power in a sub-
stance pioducing it. This is a primitive perception.
It is self-evident, evident in the thing itself as we know
it. It is necessary ; we cannot be made to tliink or be-
lieve otherwise. It is a universal perception. Children
act upon the conviction as soon as they begin to act in-
telligently ; th^y follow the light which they find pro-
duces the pleasant impression on their eye. Savages,
even the lowest in the scale, act upon it, and expect the
same effect to follow the same cause. Not that they are
able, like a metaphysician, to enunciate the law, but
upon the bare inspection of the object before them, they
form a decision and act upon it.

It is after careful introspection and reflection that we
are able to detect the precise nature of the law and to
formulate it. The law is not, as most people, who have
not thought much on the subject, are disposed to say,
that everything has a cause. If this were tiie law, there
would be no first cause, and we would require to seek for
a cause of God himself. Our primary knowledge of
power is of a new thing produced. We instinctively
seek for a cause only for a new object or a new mani-
festation of an old object. The true expression of the

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 227

law is that " whatever begins to be has a cause." This
is to our minds a fundamental law at the basis of all
action.

While our primary conviction as to cause and effect
is intuitive, yet much of the knowledge Avhich we have
of actuul causes and effects is the result of a gathered
induction. It is only by careful observation that we
know the nature of particular jjowers, such as gravi-
tation, chemical affinity, electricity. It is by careful
weighing and measuring that we know wliat are the
powers in any one bodily object, say what is its weight,
or its chemical affinity towards any other body. But
believing that every material object has power we are
prompted to find what are the extent and the limits of
that power. We see that intuitive conviction, so far
from restricting experimental investigation or rendering
it unnecessary, is the main means of inducing us to en-
gage in it ; for while it does not reveal the cause, it con-
strains us to believe that there is a cause, which we there-
fore inquire after.

It should be noticed that the belief in the relation of
cause and effect is not the same as the belief in the uni-
formity of nature. These two have often been con-
founded. Though connected, they are essentially dif-
ferent. The former is intuitive and universal, the latter
is a discovery of science and is rot universally believed
in. The child and the savage always look for a cause
to every phenomenon in which they are interested. But
they have no special faith in the uniformity of nature.
Till lengthened observation — till, in fact, advanced sci-
ence — teaclies them, they are quite ready to believe that
nature, so far from being under law, is acted on by vari-
ous supernatural agencies, and is under agencies always
ncting causally, but in no rigid order. It is only as

228 CLASSIFICATION OF RELATIONS.

people advance in knowledge that they discover that
all events obey laws narrower or wider. It is only
■within the last few ages that the uniformity of nature
has been established as a scientific truth.

But we have here to do not with the uniformity of
nature, but with causation as a law of mind. According
to the account given above causation is always in objects,
material or mental, all of which possess power. As there
is reality in objects, material and mental, there is reality
in the powers and in their causal relation by means of
these powers. The cause of a known effect is not super-
induced upon the objects by the mind (as Kant holds) ;
it is perceived as in the objects and in the nature of the
objects. We are thus in a real world not only in regard
to objects, but in regard to all their action, which is in-
deed an essential part of their nature. These coal strata
which we see in the earth are a reality, and we argue
from them that the deposited plants which formed them
millions of years ago are also realities. By a like rea-
soning process, as we discover these adaptations in the
eye and ear so wonderful, we seek for a cause which is
also real in the designing mind of the living and true
God.

But while all this is true, there may be limitations to
the truth. We know power to be both in mind and
body and in their very nature. But it does not follow
that every act is one of causation and necessary causa-
tion. As a matter of fact we have a peculiar conscious-
ness as to acts of the will when we choose this, and
reject that; when, for example, we resist the evil and
choose the good. Because we believe in a cause be-
hind every other action of body and mind I am not
sure that we are required to seek for a causal power
behind these free acts of the will, or at least that

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 229

this causal power is of the same kind as operates so
sternly in every other part of nature. There may be an
outlet here for free will in perfect consistency with the
universal prevalence of causation in all other parts of na-
ture, including all other mental states, intellectual and
emotional. I do not claim that in this way we can clear
up all the mystery which broods like a cloud over the
point at which free will and causation meet. But we
have shown that there is a place where free will may
act in perfect consistency with all that we know of causa-
tion ; thus allowing our consciousness to give its testi-
mony in favor of free will without interfering with the
dicta of any other part of our nature. The subject will
be resumed when we come to speak of the Will in a
subsequent volume.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISCURSIVE OPERATIONS.-

By these we proceed from something given or allowed
to something else derived from it by the simple exercises
of thought directed to the objects. They are commonly
represented as being Simple Apprehension, Judgment,
and Reasoning. These are all performed by the Com-
parative Powers, specially by three of them : the faculties
which discovei" the relations of Identity, Comprehension,
and Resemblance.

(1.) Simple Ajyjjrehension, the product of which is
the Notion. — There arc three kinds of Notions : the
Singular, the Abstract, :tnd the General (Concept). The
Singular Notion is given us originally by the Simple Cog-
nitive Faculties of Sense-Perception and Self-Conscious-
ness. Upon this we may perform discursive processes
nnd still keep it singular. Thus "Socrates" is a singu-
lar term, which we are enabled to apprehend because we
know ourselves by the two original inlets of knowledge.
" This man " is also a singular term, though we have
performed an intellectual process and referred the indi-
vidual to the class Man. In the Singular Notion there
is no exercise of the Comparative Powers. It comes
into Logic simply among the things given or allowed,
and not among the processes. The Abstract Notion is
formed by what we may call the power of Comprehen-
sion ; it is the notion of an 9,ttribute. The General

THE DISCURSIVE OPERATIONS. 231

Notion or Concept is the product of the faculty of Re-
semblance ; it is the Notion of objects joined by their
possessing common attributes.

(2.) Judgment. — In this we compare Notions with
the view of declaring their jigrei m^nt or disagreement
in a proposition, affirmative or negative. Our judgments
proceed on our notions, and our singuhir notions carry
us back to our primitive cognitions <ind beliefs, and our
abstract and general notions in)ply previous acts of com-
parison, involving previous cognitions or ideas. Our
judgments passed on notiims h;ive thus a reference to
tilings or imaginations formed out of things. Our judg-
ments may be of three kinds. They may declare an
Identity, — as when we say, " Metaphysics is the science
of First Principles ; " " Logic is the science of the Laws
of Discursive Thought." Or they may be judgments of
Comprehension, — as when we say, "The dog barks,"
where we make barking an altrilmte of the dog. Or it
may be one of Extension, that is, of Classes or General
Notions ; thus we may interpret the last example as
meaning " dogs are in the class of burking animals."

(3.) Reasoning. — It is acknowledged that this is a
form of Judgment in which wc have three notions in-
stead of two, and compare two nntions by means of a
third. " The New Zealander, as he has the power of
speech, is a man." Here we compare "New Zealander"
and " man " by means of possessing the power of speech.
We have already seen that the piin(;i|ile of identity reg-
ulates many of our ratiocinations. (See pp. 213-215.)
So far as reasoning in Extension — the reasoning treated
in the common logical treati.-es — is concerned the prin-
ciple of resemblance is involved — the resemblance of tho
objects in the concepts. " This horse being a mammal
is warm-blooded." Here we place " liorse " in the class

•.-9

232 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

Mammal, and therefore in the class of warm-blooded
animals. There may also be reasoning in Comprehen-
sion, in which we look to the attribute, — as when we say
"this man, having intelligence, conscience, and free will,
is responsible ; " where it is argued that, the attributes
of intelligence, conscience and freedom involving respon-
sibility, man as possessing these must be responsible.
Reasoning in Comprehension may always be translated
into reasoning in Extension.

Logic does not, every one now acknowledges, give us
the power of reasoning or discursive thought ; it simply
expounds the process involved. We think and reason
spontaneously, then reflect upon what has passed in our
minds, and may express the operation in formal laws. It
follows that if we have given the proper account of the
logical laws we have unfolded the laws of our ordinary
processes of thinking from day to day in the common
affairs of life. Every man is exercising continually the
faculties which have just passed under our notice, and
what psychology does is to unfold the nature of these
faculties ; while it is the function of logic to formulate
them into laws by which we may test discursive thought,
may justify the truth and expose the error.

CHAPTER IV.

INTUITION IN THE DISCOVERY OF RELATIONS.

I HAVE been showing in this woik that there is intui-
tion, that is, the immediate perception of objects, both
by the senses and self-consciousness. According to the
school of Kant there is no other intuition than that of
sense, external and internal, and all beyond is subjective
and formed by the mind. It is a curious circumstance
that, according to Locke, there is no intuition of sense,
there is only one of judgment ; that is, the perception of
the immediate agreement or disagreement of our ideas.
(Essay, B. IV. c. 11.) I regard both these views as so far
erroneous.

We have intuition of body without and self within.
Put this is not, as Kant holds, of mere phenomena in the
sense of appearances, but of things ; of body as extended
and resisting energy and of self as thinking or feeling in
some particular mode. But there is also a sense, and an
important one, in which we have also an intuition of rela-
tions. We first perceive things and then also the relation
of things, and some of these may be known by intuition.
We know matter as existing, but we also know, and this
directly, that it has relation to other things known, that
it is in space, and that there is causation in its action.
We also know mind as existing, and we know it to have
being, potency, spirituality, thinking, and relations to
things.

234 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

Most important consequences follow. "We not only-
know things, such as body and mind, but things perceived
in them and in relation to them, to be realities ; and both
alike realities. We know mind as having extension,
and we know mind as thinking, say as contemplating
extension, and we know the one as well as the other
with immediate certainty. I hold that as the things
are real so the relations in the things are also real. In
holding this doctrine we save ourselves at once from the
idealism of Locke and the a priori forms of Kant. They
are in error who hold that all knowledge is relative, that
is, only of the relations of things themselves unknown ;
and they are equally in error who affirm that relations
are forms added to things by the mind. The relations
are in the things, and are as real as the things, only with
a somewhat different kind of reality, a sort of dependent
realit)'- in the things. True, we only know individual
things by the senses, but we know by contemplating
them that they have relations. In this way we reach a
realism according to which the mind knows things and
their connections.

CHAPTER V.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

I. These Faculties are in all men ; not merely in cer-
tain individuals, times, or nations, but the properties of
humanity. They are found in a rudimentaiy condition
in children and in idiots, in the former to be developed.
Madmen often display them in an intense form.

II. They constitute the highest of the intellectual
powers ; I may show that the moral are higher. They
carry us out the farthest and they raise us up the higli-
est. They enable us to connect all things we know with
one another, and they take us as far out as the connec-
tions reach. Thus causation takes us as far back as the
millions of geological ages, and as far forward as the
causes now in operation go, — show us, for instance, that
this world is to be burned with fire.

III. In their exercise they have risen very much
above the senses, and the need of the cooperation of
the senses, and of the bodily frame generally. True,
they have been dependent on these for the materials on
which they have to pronounce a judgment, but the judg-
ments themselves are purely mental. Hence we often
find that in old age, when the senses, the memory, and
the informing faculties are breaking down, the judgment
is as sound as ever and fails only when a proper state-
ment of facts is not given it.

IV. They have all a tendency to operate and seek out

236 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

for the appropriate objects, allured by the numerous
relations which may be discovered in them. Thus we
have pleasure in finding an essential sameness in the
midst of minor diversities. We love to visit a locality
with which we were familiar in former days, and to trace
the identity in the hills and valleys, so changed in the
houses upon them and the people dwelling in them.
We are interested in the lights and shadows of the
landscapes and the varying aspects of the sea and sky.
We set ourselves keenly to detect an old friend whom
age has changed. We analyze the bodies in nature and
seek to solve the difficult problems in science and phi-
losophy. We love to resolve a complex whole into its
component parts, and to understand thereby the whole
of which they form a part ; and we feel as if we know a
thing only when we are acquainted with its constitu-
ents. We delight to trace the likenesses among objects,
and to discover the analogies between things often far
removed from each other, and which bind in a unity all
parts of nature and of history. We find it pleasant, as
well as profitable, to observe how plants and animals are
after a type; how the hea-venly bodies move m like
curves, elliptical or spiral ; and how occurrences, his-
torical and cosmic, move on in epochs. The idea was
anticipated by Pythagoras, and has been established in
modern times, that physical laws, such as gravity and
chemical affinity, take a quantitative expression. We
like to see activity in the breeze, in the running stream,
in the leaping cataract, in the rippled ocean ; in the per-
petual motion and prattle of boys and girls, in the con-
tests of wit, and the Demosthenic torrent of eloquence.
All lofty minds delight to follow effect to cause, and
cause to prior cause, on to the great originating Cause
from whom all things proceed.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS. 237

V. Our comparative faculties are admirably suited to
the state of things in which we are placed. I can con-
ceive of a world in which there is no such adaptation ; in
which the relations which we are inclined to notice have
no correspondences in what falls under our eye. There
might thus have been an inscription without the means
of deciphering it, or a writing without an interjjietation.
But we find instead that we live in a world in which
there is a beautiful harmony between the eye that looks
and the forms and colors which it gazes on. We feel
security in falling back with the Eleatics from the phe-
nomenal variations revealed by the senses, upon the per-
manent TO 6V, revealed to the intellect as a voovfxevov^ and
having a correspondence in the permanent mind and the
conservation of energy in matter. Our analytic propen-
sity is rewarded in discovering that complexities can be
resolved into their elements. Our inclination to gener-
alize is encouraged by finding that organic objects can be
arranged into species, orders, and kingdoms. We rejoice
when in accordance with our anticipations we find all
nature conformed to laws of time, figure, and proportion.
We are moved by the movements of nature in heaven
above and the earth beneath, in the rapidity of molecules
and the quickness of thought. We pursue eagerly one
act to a previous one, and are stayed only when we rest
on one unchangeable substance. The consequence of
all this is that instead of being strangers, wanderers,
or outcasts in the world in which we are placed, w^e are,
as it were, among friends, with a Friend who is the bond
of union among them all.

yi. There is a correspondence between the subjective
and objective worlds, between the thinking mind and the
objects it is called to think on. This does not arise, as
the ancient Eleatics and modern pantheists maintain,

238 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

from the unity of thought and being ; for we have as
clear proof of the difference of mind and matter as we
have of their connection. Nor can it spring solely or
even mainly from the two having acted on each other
for indefinite ages and become adjusted, — as Herbert
Spencer accounts for their relation. No doubt their
connection may have influenced both: thus, the contem-
plation of the action of matter by mind may have cre-
ated tendencies in mind ; but to produce this fruit there
must have been an original marriage union. In an-
other department of nature we are prepared to acknowl-
edge that the rays of light have not produced the eye,
nor the eye the rays of light, though they have so far
brought each other into conformity; so neither does the
subjective mind create objective matter, nor objective
matter create the properties of mind. We are thus
driven to the conclusion that there must have been a
foreordained conformity between them. We have thus
the true doctrine of preestablished harmony between
mind and body, of which Leibnitz had after all only im-
perfect glimpses; not a liarmony of the two acting apart,
but of the one acting upon and with the other.

VII. We have seen that tliere is an intimate connection between
our associations and the discovery of relations, and have illustrated
this by Resemblance and Contrast (pp. 147, 148). But the remark
holds true of all relations. For every relation discovered there is a
ground, and this may become the bond of an association which strength-
ens and enlarojes that of conticjuity. (1.) On seeing a man in one dress
to-day we tliink of him in the other dress in which we saw him yester-
day, the man himself being the same in both. (2.) On the leg of a
table being seen by us the idea of the whole table is apt to come up.
(3.) We have already discussed resemblance. (4.) Certain relations
of triangles suggest other relations to the mathematician, also of trian-
gles. Stratford and Shakespeare suggest each other, because of the
birth there of the great poet. (5.) The year 1790 is apt to bring up
both the French and American revolutions, in both there being a rev-

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS. 239

olution about the same time. (6.) The proportions of one figure recall
those of another. (7.) The activity of some one thing, such as hfe,
calls up the activity of other things, such as the wind. (8.) The view
we have given of physical causation, that it consists of two or more
agents in the cause, to be found in a changed state in the effect, ena-
bles us to see how the common qualities of the one should call up the
other. In all cases, the powers in the substance acting in the effect
suggest the powers acting in the cause, it may be with their adjuncts,
and vice rersa.

Associations in all cases imply a contiguity, but in the highest
forms correlative Associations are strengthened and enlarged by the
discovery of relations. I may add that a man's intellectual wealth
is large in proporlion to the formed coins and cut diamonds which he
has laid up in correlations. Without many and varied connections
there can be no readiness or comprehensiveness of memory, such as
is to be found in our greater men. With such accumulated riches
a man is ready to expend bounty of thought wherever he goes.

VIII. The Comparative Faculties differ widely in the
case of different individuals. This may arise from the
intensity of the origuial cognition, or the strength of the
comparative faculty ; from one or from both. In some
cases it looks as if it were the original impression, — say of
form, or color, or incident, which is so keen that it pene-
trates into us. In other cases it looks as if it were a
strong intellectual energy seeking for relations.

It is evident that there are native tastes and talents.
The two commonly go together, the taste calling the tal-
ent into exercise, and the talent forming and evoking the
taste, and both seeking out fitting objects. When these
are very marked they commonly determine the decision
of the youth as to his pursuits, — his vocation, his busi-
ness, his profession, his literary or scientific studies. It
is true that circumstances often have a swaying influence
— in fact, compel a settlement. But in most youths of
any force of character there is a natural ability or incli-
nation which selects his life for him, and this frequently

240 THE COMPARATIVE POWERS.

not in concurrence with outward position, but in opposi-
tion to it. If a man, for instance, has a taste for some
particular pursuit, he will be found pursuing it in his
vacant hours when obliged to engage habitually in far
different work. How often is the merchant or lawyer
longing for a leisure day or week to enable him to exam-
ine the forms of plants, and rushing forth whenever the
pressure of business allows into the midst of the beauties
of nature ? How often does the minister of religion, busy
for most of the week in caring for his flock, find an idle
day or evening in which to pursue philosophic specula-
tion ?

It is thus clear that one man may have a strong tend-
ency to observe one kind of relation and another a differ-
ent kind. It is always to be remembered, however, that
the same natural talent may be exercised on different ob-
jects, and it is here that external circumstances may have
a modifying influence. It may be mere accident which
determines a man with a certain taste to betake himself
to the study of plants or animals, or to painting or sculp-
ture. It is also to be borne in mind that some pursuits
require the exercise of more than one faculty, and it is
only when there is the necessary combination that the
qualification for the particular work is secured. But
making the needful allowances, it will be found that, while
in a few there is a universal ability, and in the great
body of mankind there is a moderate degree of various
talents, in some there are peculiar gifts which will and
ought to find congenial pursuits and thus determine their
destiny. It is a most happy thing when a youth comes
to know what are his peculiar qualifications, and is ena-
bled to put them to proper use. It is a blessed thing
when a man with marked endowments is led to conse-
crate th^m to a high end.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS. 241

IX. All the relations enumerated, with one exception,
are to be found in mental as well as in material objects.
That one is the relation of Space ; we cannot correlate
by it our ideas and emotions. We arrange bodies ac-
cording to type, but we cannot thus distribute or even
conceive of our mental states. The reason is obvious ;
consciousness as a faculty of intuitive cognition does not
make known to us our mental states as occupying space,
and as extension does not appear in the primitive knowl-
edge, so it does not reappear in the discovery of relations.
This might be urged as an argument of some force in
favor of the immateriality of the soul ; we cannot con-
ceive mental as we do physical facts, under spatial
relations.

X. I need not dwell, at the close, on the means of
training the powers, for I have been illustrating them
throughout. It is enough to exhort every young man
to let none of these intellectual faculties lie dormant, or
yield to the temptation to satisfy himself with sensa-
tions, feelings, and passions.

CONCLUSION.

EISE OF OUR IDEAS.

We have traced the powers of intelligence from the
lowest to the highest, and have shown how our cognitions
and ideas arise. From every separate faculty, as they
have been arranged, we get one or more of these.

We receive knowledge, probably our primary, from
the senses. We thus come to know body and its modifi-
cations, especially its essential qualities. Extension and
Resisting Force. We thus get our idea of Space.

A large school, the Sensationalists, maintain that we
get all our ideas from Sensation. This is a fundamental
mistake. We have other and higher sources of knowl-
edge.

We get cognitions and ideas from Self-Consciousness ;
the knowledge of Self in its many and varied modes as I
have been endeavoring to unfold them, as knowledge,
conscience, feeling, and will. It is true that a full and
distinct knowledge of Self, of the Ego, is a late acquisi-
tion, but from birth there is a knowledge of self in all
our acts.

Locke held that we get all our ideas from Sensa-
tion and Reflection. This is likewise a mistake. From
these two we get our ideas of Existing Things, bodily
and spiritual. But in the exercise of the powers as we
contemplate things, we get other ideas ; such as the idea
of Time, when we reflect on the past, and the Infinite,

EISE OF OUR IDEAS. 243

as we go out in thought and conceive more and more,
and yet are sure that we have not come to the end, and
that what we thus believe in is Perfect, and nothing can
be added to it. In these exercises, Faith is at work from
the beginning, and we have a conviction of the reality of
things not perceived by the senses, external or internal.

By Comparison we discover the Relations of Things,
discover a universal interdependence, and extend our
knowledge, indefinitely, upward, and downward, and all
around, and still are among realities.

When Ave come to speak of the Motive Powers, we
may show that we get other ideas from them : as Good
and Evil, and Obligation (the Imperative) from Con-
science, the Lovely and Unlovely from Emotions, and
Choice and Freedom from the Will.

The scattered rays may combine to form the pure
white light, that is, the idea of the all powerful and
good God.

Rise of Ideas in the Minds of Children. — A number of able men in
various counlries are engaged in this investigation, and have given us
some interesting results — only they may find some deeper ideas in
the mind than they have yet brought out to view. It is evident that,
while some acts of new-born babes are simply reflex or instinctive,
— the result of heredity, — the cognitive powers begin to work from
the time of birth, if they do not, as I think, work before.

We give some statements from Darwin's "Biographical Sketch of
an Infant." The infant's eyes were fixed on a candle as early as the
ninth day. Long before he was forty days old he could move his
hands to his own mouth. When nearly four months old, and per-
haps much earlier, from the manner in which the blood rushed into
his face, it was evident that he easily got into a violent passion ; when
forty-five days old he was observed to smile. After more than a year
he spontaneously exhibited affection by kissing his nurse. At the
age of six months and eleven days he showed sympathy by his mel-
ancholy face when his nurse pretended to cry. When four and one
half months old he smiled at his image in a mirror, and in two months

244 CONCLUSION.

more knew what the mirror was. Before he was a year old he un-
derstood intonations and gestures, as well as several words and short
sentences. F. H. Champneys ("Mind," Vol. VI.) speaks of an in-
fant. His eyes were fixed on a candle when he was a week old. On
the fourteenth day he took notice of persons and moving objects.
Smiling was reported at five and one half weeks ; tears, two days
before the end of the fourteenth week. Professor Stanly Hall is
engaged in important inquiries as to the knowledge and ignorance
of children at school age.

Some ideas, it is evident, cannot rise till there is a
gathering of experience, and until relations have been
discovered between things. Comparison cannot work till
there are things known to compare. But within a short
time after birth the intuitive principle of cause and effect
seems to work, and the infant anticipates the return of
the pleasant light that so attracted it. There can be
little associative power exercised till ideas have come up
according to the associations of contiguity and correlation ;
and infants, in consequence, have little control over their
trains of thought. Children have no knowledge, origi-
nally, of distance, but come to grasp at objects in less than
a year from their birth. A pleasure from the perception
of beauty of colors appears in children as soon as they ap-
prehend objects, and gradually rises to higher forms. In
childhood, and onward, as soon as objects are appre-
hended, there is a seeking for connections. Will, as ii
natural gift, operates like intellect, from birth, but at
first there is little knowledge of objects on which to work.
The use of signs in thinking is found in children long be-
fore they are a year old, as, for instance, the sound of a
bell announcing that supper is ready. I believe that even
the mature man cannot form an adequate idea of infinity,
but I agree with such profound thinkers as Anselm, Des-
cartes, and Leibnitz, in thinking that all have it in tlie
germ. I think I have perceived it budding in children

RISE OF OUR IDEAS. 245

of two years, — the mind is ever stretching beyond the
now and the present. I remember distinctly of musing,
when under twelve years, on the mysteries involved,
and losing myself not unpleasantly in the contemplation.
Moral perceptions cannot appear till there is a knowl-
edge of other beings to whom we owe duties ; but con-
science and affection come forth, of course in a low form,
before the intelligent child has completed his first year.
The dim idea of a power beyond the visible appears be-
fore school age, and may be exalted by teaching to a
belief in gods or in one God.

It may have been observed that throughout this work
it has been loosely applied that at the basis of the opera-
tion of all the faculties there are fundamental truths.
The tests of these can be given. They are, first, Self-
Evidence, or evidence seen at once in the very thing.
Secondly, as following from the first, there is Neces-
sity ; we cannot be made to think or believe otherwise.
Thirdly, and confirmatory of the other two, there is
Catholicity, or universal consent. The exposition of these
carries us beyond Inductive Psychology into Metaphys-
ics, or the Science of First Principles.^

^ These principles are unfolded in my work on The Intuitions
OF THE Mind inductively investigated.

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