to copious muscular activity. This must be regarded as a property, not of the muscular tissue, but of the nerve-centres on the active side of the brain. Hence there is a likelihood, if not a certainty, that the endowment is accompanied with a greater facility in the association of movements. Observation accords with the view. It is usually men of abounding natural activity that make adroit mechanics, good sportsmen, and able combatants. (3.) Of still greater importance is Muscular Delicacy, or Discrimination, which is not necessarily involved in either of the foregoing heads, although more allied to the second. The power of discriminating nice shades of muscular movement is at the foundation of muscular expertness in every mode. We have abundant proof that, wherever delicacy of discrimination exists, there exists also a special retentiveness of that class of impressions. The physical groundwork of the property is the abundance of the nerve elements-fibres and corpuscles-out of which also must spring the capacity for varied groupings and fixed associations. Physical vigour in general, and those modes of it that are the counterparts of mental vigour in particular, must be reckoned among the conditions of Retentiveness. Other things being the same, acquisition is most rapid in health, and in the nourished and fresh condition of all the organs. When the forces of the system run strongly to the nervous system in general, there is a natural exuberance of all the mental manifestations; and energy of mind is then compatible with much. bodily feebleness, yet not with any circumstances that restrict the nourishment of the brain. IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 6. The continuance and revival of feelings of movement without movement itself-that is, ideal feelings as opposed to the feelings accompanying actual movement-are a new and distinct case of the associating principle; a case, too, of great interest, as introducing us into the sphere of Thought. This transition from the external to the internal, from. THE SEAT OR EMBODIMENT OF IDEAS. 337 the Reality to the Idea—the greatest leap that can be taken within the compass of our subject-needs, in accordance with the principle of our whole Exposition, to be prefaced by a consideration of the question, What is the probable seat, or local embodiment, of a sensation, or a mechanical feeling, when persisting after the fact, or when revived without the reality? The discussion of this question will interrupt, for a few pages, the exemplification of the law of Contiguous adhesiveness. 7. All the Muscular feelings can be sustained for some time after the physical cause has ceased. All the Sensations of the senses can be sustained in like manner, some more and some less easily; and they can afterwards be revived as ideas by means of the associating forces. What, then, is the mode of existence of those feelings bereft of their outward support and first cause? In what particular form do they possess or occupy the mental and cerebral system? This question admits of two different answers or assumptions, the one old and widely prevalent, the other new but better founded. The old notion supposes that the brain is a sort of receptacle of the impressions of sense, where they lie stored up in a chamber quite apart from the recipient apparatus, to be manifested again to the mind when the occasion calls. But the modern theory of the brain, already developed (see Introduction), suggests a totally different view. We have seen that the brain is only one part of the course of nervous action; that the completed circles take in the nerves and the extremities of the body; that nervous action supposes currents passing through these completed circles, or to and fro between the central ganglia and the organs of sense and motion; and that, short of a completed course, no nervous action exists. The idea of a cerebral closet shut-off is quite incompatible with the real manner of the working of nerve. Since, then, a sensation, in the first instance, diffuses nerve currents through the interior of the brain outwards to the organs of expression and movement,-the persistence of that sensation, after the outward exciting cause is withdrawn, can be but a continuance of the same diffusive currents, perhaps less intense, but not otherwise different. The shock remaining in the ear and in the brain, after the sound of thunder, must pass through the same circles, and operate in the same way, as during the actual sound. We can have no reason for believing that, in this self-sustaining condition, the impression changes its seat, or passes into some new circles that have the special property of retaining it. Every part actuated after the shock must have been actuated by the shock, only more powerfully. With this single difference of intensity, the mode of existence of a sensation persisting after the fact is essentially the same as its mode of existence during the fact; the same organs are occupied, the same current action goes on. We see in the continuance of the attitude and expression the identical outward appearances, and these appearances are produced by the course of power being still by the same routes. Moreover, the identity in the mode of consciousness implies that the manner of action within the brain is unaltered. 8. Now, if this be the case with impressions persisting when the cause has ceased, what view are we to adopt concerning impressions reproduced by mental causes alone, or without the aid of the original, as in ordinary recollection? What is the manner of occupation of the brain with a resuscitated feeling of resistance, a smell, or a sound? There is only one answer that seems admissible. The renewed feeling occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner, as the original feeling, and no other parts, nor in any other assignable manner. I imagine that if our present knowledge of the brain had been present to the earliest speculators, this is the only hypothesis that would have occurred to them. For where should a past feeling be reembodied, if not in the same organs as the feeling when present? It is only in this way that its identity can be preserved; a feeling differently embodied would be a different feeling. It is possible, however, to adduce facts that set in a still EMBODIMENT OF MUSCULAR IDEAS. 339 clearer light this re-occupation of the sentient circles with recovered impressions and feelings. Take first the memory of feelings of energetic action, as when reviving the exploits or exertions of yesterday. It is a notorious circumstance that, if there be much excitement attending the recollection of these, we can only with great difficulty prevent ourselves from getting up to repeat them. The rush of feeling has gone on the old tracks, and seizes the same muscles; and would go the length of actually stimulating them to a repetition. A child cannot describe anything that it was engaged in, without acting it out to the full length that the circumstances will permit. A dog dreaming sets his feet a-going, and sometimes barks. The suppression of the full stage of perfect resuscitation needs an express effort of volition, and we are often even incapable of the effort. If the recollection were carried on in a separate chamber of the brain, it would not press in this way upon the bodily organs engaged in the actual. transaction. The fact can only be, that the train of feeling is re-instated on the same parts as first vibrated to the original stimulus, and that our recollection is merely a repetition that does not usually go quite the same length, or stops short of actual execution. No better example could be furnished than the vocal recollections. When we recall the impression of a word or a sentence, if we do not speak it out, we feel the twitter of the organs just about to come to that point. The articulating parts,—the larynx, the tongue, the lips,—are all sensibly excited; a suppressed articulation is in fact the material of our recollection, the intellectual manifestation, the idea of speech. Some persons of weak or incontinent nerves can hardly think without muttering-they talk to themselves. The excitement of the parts may be very slight; it may not go the length of perceptibly affecting the muscles, but in the brain and communicating nerves it still passes the same rounds, however enfeebled in degree. The purposes of intellect can be served, even after this extreme enfeeblement of the currents, but their nature and their seat have not changed. They have not abandoned the walks of living articulation because they no longer speak out fully; they have not taken refuge in new chambers of the brain. We feel at any moment how easy it is to convert the ideas into utterances; it is only like making a whisper audible,-the mere addition of mechanical power. The tendency of the idea of an action. to produce the fact, shows that the idea is already the fact in a weaker form. Thinking is restrained speaking or acting. If the disposition to yawning exists, the idea, anywise brought up, will excite the action. The suppressive effort usually accompanying ideas of action, which renders them ideas and not movements, is too feeble in this case, and the idea is therefore a repetition to the full of the reality. 9. Although at present engaged in preparing the way for the association of muscular feelings, yet the doctrine in hand being general for all states of mind, I must add some parallel instances from passive Sensation. Müller has furnished several in point. He says:-'The mere idea of a nauseous taste can excite the sensation even to the production of vomiting. The quality of the sensation is the property of the sensitive nerve, which is here excited without any external agent. The mere sight of a person about to pass a sharp instrument over glass or porcelain is sufficient, as Darwin remarks, to excite the well-known sensation in the teeth. The mere thinking of objects capable, when present, of exciting shuddering, is sufficient to produce that sensation of the surface in persons of irritable habits. The special properties of the higher senses, sight and hearing, are rarely thus excited in the waking state, but very frequently in sleep and dreams; for, that the images of dreams are really seen (under opium, images are actually seen), and not merely present in the imagination, any one may satisfy himself in his own person, by accustoming himself regularly to open his eyes when waking after a dream. The images seen in the dream are then sometimes still visible, and can be observed to disappear gradually. This was remarked by Spinoza, and I have convinced myself of it in my own person.'-p. 945. As another striking example, we may adduce the fact that the sight of food |