a taste or smell is identified in its mixtures with other tastes or smells. But the substances were classed together, without men knowing whether it was that many different liquors had the same action on the human body, or that there was one substance pervading many compounds, to which the influence was solely owing. It was a generalization of a common internal feeling or attribute, not of a common external object.

Another example akin to the foregoing is furnished by the Pungent Odours. The influence of the various kinds of snuff upon the nose is so well marked, that we readily identify it notwithstanding differences of aroma or flavour. Upon this similarity, we group all the different varieties together, and make a class of bodies, any one of which may be used for any other when the common effect of pungency is desired. The kinds of snuff would doubtless also be identified on the ground of their common origin, the tobacco plant, like wines by the grape. But looking at the subjective sensation of the snuffs, we find that this assimilates itself to a like sensation produced from other bodies; thus, the odour of smelling salts may by similarity recall the odour of snuffs, and the two different substances will hence be brought together in the mind. If we have at any time acquired the impression of hartshorn, this impression also might be recalled in virtue of its resemblance to these others; we should then have three distinct experiences summoned up from different times and circumstances of our past history, these experiences presenting three different substances lying quite remote from one another in nature, but now brought together under the view of the mind, through exerting on it a common influence. If our acquaintance with pungent odours had been still greater, others would be recalled to join the group already formed, and we should have amassed, from far or near, a multitude of recollections strung upon one common thread of resemblance, and these recollections would thenceforth be held together as a group in the mind, forming what we term a class, a genus, or a generalization of agreeing objects.

In this instance, there is no external element common

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to all the bodies producing the pungent effect; the classification is based purely on the common sensation of smell. The smelling salts and hartshorn are identical, inasmuch as both yield ammonia; but the effluvium of snuff is not ammonia, although found to bear a resemblance to it in chemical constitution.

These various identifications put to the test the force of similarity in different individuals. While seized by some minds, they are wholly missed by others; and the reason for their being missed usually resolves itself into deficiency in one or more of the five conditions already recounted-natural delicacy of the sense itself, previous familiarity, acquired delicacy, low susceptibility to the points of difference, and general power of Similarity. Moreover, there may never have been any motive or desire to strike out identities in the department.

18. The illustration of Similarity in Touch might be very copious.

The intellectual sensations of Touch comprise the feelings of Temperature, of Plurality of points, and of Muscularity in conjunction with touch proper. Everything handled for the purpose of discerning its tactile properties affects all these sensibilities; and there may be the greatest variety in their conjunctions, and a corresponding scope for detecting likeness coupled with unlikeness. We identify the soft, warm contact of wool; the cold, hard smoothness of polished stone; the roughness of a file-in the midst of diversity of shape, size, and weight. We identify degrees of weight without much difficulty, unless distracted by some very acute accompanying sensibility, as cold or heat. We recognize tactile shape in variety of surface, material, weight, and size. Our discrimination of distinct properties becomes knowledge only when supplemented by our sense of agreement; a present high temperature is distinguished from a recent lower, and identified with previous experiences of the same intense degree; by which means our notion of that quality is complete. We are thus in possession of classes of things based

upon each recurring attribute that we are able to identify in the midst of diverse accompaniments.

19. To take next the sense of Hearing. The analysis of sounds has shown us the complexity of the characters attaching to any one individual sound, and to what extent identity in some of these may be disguised by differences in others. For example, the pitch of a note may be readily identified when sounded on some voice or instrument familiar to us; but, on a strange instrument, we are less able to make out the identity. The change of quality in the note, the greater or less emphasis, the different duration of the sound, as in comparing a piano note with an organ, all tend to disguise the pitch, and to render a more delicate or a more cultivated ear necessary for its discernment. If the same note be played feebly on the violin and thundered on the organ, the great disparity of emphasis will confound the obtuse ear, and stifle the feeling of identity.

The illustration takes a wider sweep, when we suppose a continuous flow of a sound, as in a musical performance or a consecutive address. The effects on the ear being more varied, there is greater scope for tracing similarities, and more opportunity for the obstruction arising from diversity. We can commonly identify an air that we have once known, on all varieties of instruments, and with or without harmonies. But it will happen to persons, little accomplished in music, to miss a known air when played on a full band, while they could readily identify it on a single instrument. Musicians can also identify the key of a piece, although this point of identity must be enveloped in the widest differences as regards everything else. We are also accustomed to ascribe a common emotion to many compositions; we classify airs as martial, gay, solemn, sacred, melancholy, &c. In so far as there is any reality in these distinctions, they are made out by the force of similarity, recalling past and scattered examples of an effect felt at the present moment. A more substantial agreement is that commonly found in the compositions of the same master.

The property of articulateness of sound is very apt to be disguised, by strange accompaniments, beyond the reach of identity. Our ear for articulation is formed in the first instance on the voices around us; we identify with ease a letter or a word as pronounced by those; in fact, the casual peculiarities of their manner become, as it were, fused with our sense of the articulations themselves. A child born in Yorkshire acquires an ear for the vowels and consonants of the alphabet as sounded in Yorkshire. If we pass into Middlesex, the articulations correspond without being identical; and we may or may not identify the old words under the new utterance. The experiment would show whether the ear is good as respects the essential quality of articulate form, just as the trials above alluded to show the degree of delicacy as regards the pitch of a note. Some ears are but faintly susceptible to the distinctiveness of the articulations, or to the essential difference between one vowel and another, and between one consonant and those closely allied to it. If such ears happen to be acutely sensible to the qualities of different voices, and to differences of emphasis, or stress, they will be more strongly acted on by the disagreements than by the agreements.

Pronunciation, accent or brogue, cadence and elocution generally, form a large part of the collective impression of articulate utterance: to which we must add gesticulation and manner as apparent to the eye. Taking all these sources of diversity in connexion with the one main feature of articulate utterance, we may derive an unlimited fund of examples of re-instatement made difficult by unlike accompaniments. Voice, pronunciation, accent, cadence, and gesticulation, are inseparable from articulation; and we become accustomed to the sound of words as beset with a particular mode of each of these effects. Often indeed we take up a meaning from manner alone. Accordingly, when we come to listen to strangers, to the people of another province, to foreigners, we experience the difficulty of identifying the articulation in the midst of unusual combinations. The goodness of the ear for

articulation proper is submitted to a trying ordeal, as the ear for pitch is tested by the sound of a strange instrument. The trial is greatest of all when we are endeavouring to acquire a foreign language. Here the one effect of the articulation of vowels and consonants, needs to make itself felt amid the distraction of a manifold variety of other effects. Nothing proves so decisively the goodness of the articulate sensibility of the ear, as the readiness to follow a foreigner speaking his own language. The power of identifying the essentials of the articulation in the diversity of all else, is in such circumstances conspicuously manifested. It will happen, however, that a person is more than usually sensitive to some of the accompaniments that do not concern the conveyance of the meaning; an ear strongly impressed with the accent and cadence, and permitting itself to be much engrossed with the different turns of the emphasis and modulation, is by that circumstance rendered more obtuse to the articulate character or to the meaning of the words. The thunder of a diverse and unaccustomed cadence drowns the still small voice of expressive utterance. An acute ear for oratory is thus a great obstruction to the acquirement of languages; so is an eye unduly impressed with gesticulate display. In listening to our own language, spoken in the style that we are accustomed to, the sensitiveness to those accompaniments is in our favour, and brings home the meaning all the more powerfully; but when they are totally changed in character, as when we listen to a Frenchman, we are just as much put out, in identifying the articulation, as in the other case we were assisted.

20. The ear, as formerly remarked, is the principal matrix for embodying our recollections of language. A speech heard is, in great part, remembered as a connected series of auditory impressions. Our recollections of this class are liable to be recalled by similarity, under circumstances of diversity. We can scarcely listen to any address, without being reminded of many past addresses, through occurring phrases, tones, and peculiarities that lead us into some formerly experienced