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First, There is a natural curiosity to discover the Laws that govern the stream of our Thoughts. All the workings of nature are interesting, and not least so should be the workings of our own minds.

Secondly, The statement and the explanation of the differences of Intellectual Character must proceed upon a knowledge of the attributes and laws of our intelligence.

Thirdly, The art of Education is grounded on a precise knowledge of the retentive or plastic power of the mind. The arts of Reasoning and Invention, if such there be, naturally connect themselves with the laws of the faculties involved.

Fourthly, Many important disputes turn upon the determination of what parts of our intelligence are primitive, and what acquired. Such is the subject of Innate Ideas generally; also the questions raised by Berkeley-namely, the Theory of Vision, and the doctrine of External Perception.

CHAPTER I.

RETENTIVENESS-LAW OF CONTIGUITY.

1. WITH few exceptions, the facts of Retentiveness may be comprehended under the principle called the Law of Contiguity, or Contiguous Adhesion.

Retentiveness is the comprehensive name for Memory, Habit, and the Acquired powers in general. The principle of Contiguity has been described under various names, as Hamilton's law of Redintegration;' the 'Association of Ideas,' including Order in Time, Order in Place, Cause and Effect. The principle may be stated thus :—

2. Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring together, or in close succession, tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way that when any of them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea.

The detail of examples will bring out the various circumstances regulating the rate of growth of the cohesive link. Generally, as is well known, a certain continuance, or repetition, is necessary to make a firm connexion.

MOVEMENTS.

We commence with the association of movements and states of muscular activity. Our acquisitions are known to comprehend a great many aggregates and sequences of movements, united with unfailing certainty. We shall see, however, that the chief aggregates of this kind include sensations also, and that the case of pure association of movement is not frequent, although both possible and occasionally realized.

3. It is likely that our Spontaneous and Instinctive actions are invigorated by exercise.

The various actions occurring in the round of Spontaneous discharges, are likely to become more vigorous, and more ready, after they have arisen a number of times; while Instinctive actions, as walking on all-fours, or sucking, &c., are also improved by repetition.

In the growth of the Will, which involves spontaneous actions, something is gained by the greater facility of beginning any movement after a certain frequency of occurrence. The hands, the voice, the tongue, the mouth, exercise their powers at first in mere aimless expenditure of force; by which they are prepared for starting forth to be linked with special feelings and occasions.

4. Movements, frequently Conjoined, become associated, or grouped, so as to arise in the aggregate, at one bidding.

Suppose the power of walking attained, and also the power of rotating the limbs. One may then be taught to combine the walking pace with the turning of the toes outward. Two volitions are at first requisite for this act; but, after a time, the rotation of the limb is combined with the act of walking, and unless we wish to dissociate the two, they go together as a matter of course; the one resolution brings on the combined

movement.

Children attempting to walk, must learn to keep their balance. This depends on properly aggregated movements; the lifting of the right foot has to be associated with the movements for making the whole body incline to the left, and obversely. The art of walking includes other aggregates; the lifting of one foot is accompanied with a rising upon the other, and with a bending forward of the whole body. The education in walking consists in making these aggregates so secure,

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that the one movement shall not fail to carry with it the collaterals.

Articulate speech largely exemplifies the aggregation of muscular movements and positions. A concurrence of the chest, larynx, tongue, and mouth, in a definite group of exertions, is requisite for each alphabetic letter. These groupings, at first impossible, are, after a time, cemented with all the firmness of the strongest instinct.

5. We acquire also Successions of Movements.

In all manual operations, there occur successions of movements so firmly associated, that when we will to do the first, the rest follow mechanically and unconsciously. In eating, the act of opening the mouth mechanically follows the raising of the morsel. In loading a gun, the sportsman does not need to put forth a distinct volition to each movement of the hands.

6. It is rare to find an association of movements as such, or without the intervention of sensations.

In most mechanical trains, the sense of the effect of one movement usually precedes the next, and makes a link in the association. Thus, in loading a gun, the feeling that the cartridge is sent home, precedes, as an essential link, the withdrawing of the ramrod. There is, in such instances, a complex train of feelings and movements.

A deaf person speaking would appear to illustrate the sequence of pure movement; but, even in that case, there is a feeling of muscular expenditure. Such a feeling can never be absent until the very last stage of habit is reached, the stage when the mind is entirely unconscious of the movements gone through. A great practical importance attaches to this final consummation. It is the point where actions take place, with the least effort or expenditure of the forces of the brain. The class of actions so performed have been named secondary automatic, as resembling the automatic or reflex actionsbreathing, &c.

Although the learning of successions of movements nearly always involves the medium of sensation, in the first instance, yet we must assume that there is a power, in the system, for associating together movements as such, and that special circumstances favour this acquisition.

the pace

of

7. There are certain conditions that govern acquisition generally. These are (1) Repetition or Con

tinuance, (2) Concentration of Mind, and (3) the Natural Adhesiveness of the individual constitution.

(1) In order to every acquisition, a certain Continuance, repetition, or practice is needed, varying according to circumstances. By repetition, we make up for natural weakness or other defects, as in the extra drill of the awkward squad.

(2) Mental concentration will make a great difference in the pace of acquisition. When the whole of the attention is given to the work in hand, the cohesive growth is comparatively rapid. Distraction, diversion, remission are hostile to progress.

Concentration, as a voluntary act, depends on the motives. If the work is pleasant in act or in prospect, and if no other pleasure interferes, the whole mind is gained. This is concentration from the side of Pleasure. Whatever we have a strong liking for, we learn with ease. Our Tastes are thus a leading element in our acquisitions.

But concentration may be determined by Pain. The work itself being distasteful in comparison of something else, the mind revolts from it, until some strong pain is set up in the path; the lesson may not be liked, but the consequences of engaging the mind elsewhere may be sufficiently painful to neutralize the pleasure.

Another influence of pain is as mere Excitement, which intensifies the mental processes, and impresses on the memory whatever objects are present to the mind, giving to things disagreeable a persistence in opposition to the will.

(3) All the facts show that constitutions differ as to power of Adhesiveness, under exactly the same circumstances. In every class of learners, on every subject, there are the greatest inequalities. This Natural Adhesiveness usually shows itself in special departments-aptitude for languages, for science, for music, &c.; but it also shows itself in a more general form, or as applied to things generally. Hence part of it may be attributed to an endowment of the system, as a whole; while part depends on local endowments, as, for example, the musical ear.

8. The circumstances favouring the adhesion of movements in particular may be supposed to be (1) Muscular vigour, (2) The Active Temperament, and (3) Muscular Delicacy.

(1) Mere muscular vigour, by favouring the performance

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of mechanical exercises, or the energy and persistence of muscular practice, cannot but contribute to progress in the mechanical arts.

(2) Of equal, if not of greater importance is the nervous peculiarity that prompts to muscular activity, determining a profuse and various spontaneity of the bodily movements.

(3) In the muscular system, as in the special senses, there may be degrees of delicacy, shown in nicety of muscular discrimination. This may be hypothetically connected with a higher organization of the ganglia of the active side of the brain-the motor centres whence the motor nerves immediately emanate. Whenever the test of discrimination shows superior muscular endowment, we are entitled to presume a greater degree of muscular retentiveness. The analogy of the senses is strong on this point, and will be referred to afterwards; the best case being the ear for music.

9. Acquirement in every form demands a certain Physical Vigour.

The freshness and vigour of the general system may be looked upon as essential to the plastic operation. Fatigue, exhaustion, indifferent nourishment, derogate from the powers of the learner. The greater physical vigour of early years is one, among other reasons, why youth is the season of improvement.

The mental concentration, or exercise of the Attention, necessary to new acquirements, is costly and exhausting.

IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT.-THE SEAT OF IDEAS.

10. The Ideas of Movement may be associated together. We may have ideas, or recollections and imaginations, of our various activities. We may rehearse, in the thoughts, the movements of a dance, or the manipulation of a sailing

boat.

11. In regard to Ideas generally, it is probable, if not certain, that the renewed feeling, or idea, occupies the same parts, and in the same manner, as the original or actual feeling.

It was vaguely surmised, in former times, that the memory of things consisted in storing up images in a certain part of the brain, distinct from the places originally affected; that, in actually seeing a building, one portion of the brain is exercised,