A good instance of the obstructiveness of incompatible ideas is found in the effort of guessing riddles and conundrums. These usually turn upon the equivocal meanings of words. Now a mind that makes use of language to pass to the serious import or genuine meanings, is disqualified from following out the play of equivocation, not because the requisite associations do not exist, but because these are overborne by others inimical to the whole proceeding.

ASSOCIATION OF CONTRAST.

10. It being known as a fact, that objects, on many occasions, recall their contraries; Contrast, or Contrariety, has been admitted among the forces that revive past thoughts. The influence may be analyzed as follows:

(1) Contrast is a phase of the primary function of mind, named Discrimination or Relativity.

If every state of feeling and of knowledge implies a transition, and is therefore a double or two-sided fact, our knowledge is essentially a cognition of contraries. Heat means, not an absolute state, but the shock of a transition from cold; the recent cold is as essential to the fact as the present heat. When we think of heat, we have a tacit reference to cold; when we think of 'up,' we have a tacit reference to 'down.' To pass into the contrary cognition in these cases, is merely to reverse the order of the couple, to make cold the explicit, and heat the implicit element.

(2) Contrasts are frequently suggested by Contiguity.

A great number of the more usual contrasts acquire a farther connexion through the habitual transitions of thought and speech. Our memory contains numerous associated couples,-up and down, great and small, rich and poor, true and false, life and death.

When we come to understand the value of contrast as a Rhetorical device both for intensifying the expression of feeling, and for clearness in expounding doctrine, we acquire the habit of introducing contrasts on all important occasions.

(3) The mutual suggestion of contraries may be partly due to Similarity.

There is an old maxim that contraries must have a ground of likeness. This is true of all contraries up to the highest contrast of all (Object and Subject). Matter and Space are in the genus Extension (the Object): Intellect and Feeling

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are both under Mind, the subject; blue and red are in the class colour. Thus, while the highest opposition can be suggested only by Relativity or pure Contrast, the lower kinds. introduce an element of similarity in their generic agreement. Wealth may suggest poverty, partly by the opposition, and partly by leading us to think of the generic subject-human conditions.

It is by the mutual attraction of similars, that we are made alive to contradictions. We hear a certain affirmation; the sameness of subject recalls a previous affirmation of an opposite tenor. The announcement that a certain rock is of a sedimentary origin, brings to our mind by similarity the idea of the same rock, coupled with the assertion of its igneous origin.

(4) Many Contrasts are stamped on the mind through Emotion.

Apart from the influence of the shock of change, necessary to consciousness in any degree, the mind may be quickened by strong special emotions. When any quality is in excess, as heat, cold, exercise, rest, we are urged to think of the opposite as a desired relief. The disappointment of our expectations may take the form of a shock of contrast; looking for favour, we may encounter contumely; a journey for health may confirm our malady.

The contrasts of Poetry and Art are transitions for heightening an effect.

The moralist delights in pourtraying the contrasts in human conditions-the pride of prosperity with the chances of misfortune and the certainty of the last end.

1. By means of association, the mind has the power to form Combinations, or aggregates, different from anything actually experienced.

The processes named Imagination, Creation, Constructiveness, have not been taken account of in the preceding exposi

tion. In Similarity, we had before us a power tending to originality and invention; but the genius of the mechanical inventor, the man of science, the poet, the painter, the musician, implies something more complex. In the steam-engine, in the science of geometry, in Paradise Lost, we find something beyond the grandest fetches of Similarity.

Nevertheless, the intellectual powers already described are sufficient for these creations; the addition consists of a stimulus and guidance supplied by the Feelings and the Will. This will appear from the examples.

MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS.

2. In Mechanical Acquisition, we have often to combine movements into new groupings. An exercise of volition, directed to the movements separately, brings them together in the first instance.

In learning to dance, the separate positions are first acquired; when the will can command these, the pupil is directed to combine them into the steps and figures; these at last become coherent by the plastic force of Contiguity. It is the same with military drill, and with education in the manual arts; the learner is first able to command certain elementary movements, and then unites them, in time and order, as directed.

Sometimes the process is to dissociate and suppress movements, as in endeavouring to walk without swinging the arms. The instrumentality is the same. One effort of volition determines the complex movement; another is directed to the members to be arrested; and the required act is the result of the differential operation.

When a complex act has to be performed, made up of timed and ordered movements, successive attempts are needed to make them fall into their places. Thus, in learning to swim, we throw out the limbs, by separate volitions, but cannot at first attain to the exact rhythm of the swimmer. After a time, we make the effort that happily combines every movement in the proper order. The difficulty is at an end: we then keep up the successful conjunction, and fall into it, at pleasure, ever afterwards.

These constructions of our mechanical or muscular energies, exemplify the three conditions or essentials of the Constructive process of the Intellect.

(1) There must be a command of the separate elements.

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The more thorough and complete this command, the easier is the work of uniting them into new combinations.

(2) There must be an idea, plan, or conception, of the desired combinations; some mental delineation of it, such as to make us aware when we have succeeded. . This idea may be a model for imitation, as the fugleman of a company at drill; or it may be a conception of the effect to be produced, as in laying out grounds. In other cases, it is a verbal combination or description, as when we are told to conceive a gold mountain.

(3) There is a series of tentatives, or a process of trial and error. The distinct volitions are put in exercise to bring on the separate movements, but these do not at first chime in to the joint result; the sense of failure determines another trial, and then another, until some one prove successful. The moment of success is attended with a certain satisfaction, or elation, under which arises a re-inforced prompting to maintain the fortunate combination; and the circumstances are then, in the highest degree, favourable for the beginning of a permanent association.

VERBAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS.

3. Verbal constructiveness is exemplified, first, in learning to Articulate.

A certain power of uttering the elementary articulationsthe vowels, consonants, and simpler syllables-being presupposed, it is desired to combine these into words, under the spur of imitation. The ear supplies the type to be conformed to; the will urges various tentatives; there is a sense of these being unconformable to the type, which invites renewal, until conformity is attained. The child can pronounce the syllables may, ree, in separation; it hears Mary, with the wish to say the word; the first endeavours are sensibly wrong; they are renewed, and, at some favourable conjuncture, the two syllables fall exactly together in the right order. The ear is satisfied and delighted, and a gush of nervous influence accompanies the satisfaction, which goes a good way to cement the connexion; every succeeding endeavour involves fewer stumbles, and the association is at last completed.

The child's initial difficulties in this acquirement are owing to the imperfect command of the elementary sounds. The voice is not at first formed to them, and the voluntary link that arouses them is for a long time wanting.

4. The combining of words into Sentences is a farther exercise of constructiveness.

To imitate literally a sentence heard, is substantially the same effort as now described. A farther advance is exemplified, when the child constructs new sentences to suit new meanings. From the combination 'good boy,' and the separate name Tom,' coupled with an approving sentiment towards Tom, the will is prompted to dissociate and recombine the form, 'Tom,' so as to make 'good Tom.' The idea or type in the mind is to convey some expression having the same force towards the new subject, as the old form has towards 'boy;' there must be a feeling, from analogy, that 'good Tom' answers the end; and accordingly, when this is struck out, there follows the throb of successful endeavour. As before, the more or less easy attainment of the end depends on the familiarity with the constituents. When a considerable variety of sentences have been mastered, the process of dropping out and taking in, to answer new meanings, is performed with the utmost rapidity.

5. The highest Combinations of Language fulfil the same conditions.

It is necessary, first, to lay up in the memory a certain store of names (allied to things), and of formed combinations of these into affirmations, clauses, sentences, and connected portions of discourse, with meanings attached. This acquired store contains the material of new compositions; the more abundant and the more familiar the verbal sequences at command, and the nearer they approach to our requirements, the less troublesome will be the work of composition. A meaning has to be expressed, partly, but not wholly, coinciding with expressed meanings already laid up in the memory; the nearest of these previous forms are recalled by the associating forces; we operate upon them by combination, by excision, and by substitution, until our mind is satisfied that the resulting verbal construction embraces the subject proposed.

The compliance with other conditions, besides the signifying of a meaning, demands greater resources to start from, or else more numerous tentatives. Not to mention the forms of grammar, which are comparatively easy to satisfy when the stored up arrangements have been grammatical, there may be in the mind certain ideals of perspicuity, of terseness, of elegance, of melody, of cadence, all which have to be complied