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A STUDY IN HUMAN NATURE.

will always produce the same effect; every artist depends upon it when he mixes his colors, certain that the same mixture will produce the same shade, and the same touch of the brush on the canvas will cause the same effect; every orator assumes it, consciously or unconsciously, when by the utterance of his own emotions he strives to awaken the emotions of his hearers, or by the process of reasoning he expects to win the assent of their judgment to his own conclusions. It is, indeed, one of the master powers of man's mind, but it is not the master power; and when men attempt to make it do the work of the supersensuous faculty, when they ignore the power given them to perceive directly and immediately the invisible world, and attempt in lieu of exercising that faithpower with which they are endowed to arrive at the truth respecting the invisible world by employing the logical faculty upon observed phenomena, the result is always a rationalism, which, whether its conclusions be orthodox or heterodox, those of a Bishop Butler or those of a John Stuart Mill, is far removed from that spiritual religion which is founded on experience, not on deduction, and which says not, I conclude, I think, or I believe, but I know.

2. But while the relation of cause and effect is the relation which binds phenomena together, there are other relations than those of cause and effect which the mind must perceive in order that it may classify phenomena, and truly apprehend their meaning and value. The phrenologist calls this faculty comparison, a name which seems to give to it too limited a scope; and yet it is not easy to suggest for popular use a better title. By this power, called by whatever name, man perceives both differences and resemblances. He perceives the vital difference between a whale and other citizens of the ocean, and discovers that a whale is not a fish; he perceives the resemblance between the spark of electricity and the thunder-bolt, and out of this perception grows all electrical science; he perceives the resemblance between the fall of

an apple and the movement of the earth, and out of this perception grows the whole science of modern astronomy; he perceives the resemblance between man and the animal, and out of this perception grows comparative physiology. All science is based on this power; all eminent scientists possess it in an eminent degree, and employ it continuously, and often almost unconsciously.

But this is by no means its only, perhaps not even its chief, scope. It traces resemblances between the outer and the inner world, the visible and the invisible. It is the poet's brush and the orator's, whereby they cast upon their canvas a thousand tropes and figures and metaphors. All language of the inward life employs unconsciously this subtle power of perceiving analogies. "He is frozen with horror; ""he is full of wrath; " "he is struck with an idea: these and kindred phrases in our daily conversation are all based upon the possession of a power in man to see the subtle analogies between spiritual experience and external phenomena. These analogies make all life a parable; this power makes every man in some measure a poet and a prophet. It enters largely into all imagination, which is sometimes indeed the direct perception of invisible realities, but which is sometimes also the construction of new images by the power which perceives relations before unperceived, and brings together objects familar in forms and combinations before unknown. The ancient centaur may be fairly taken to illustrate both types of imagination. By his supersensuous faculty, his faith-power, the poet saw in the soul of man the strange amalgam between the bestial and the divine; this was no visible disclosure, no logical deduction; it was a spiritual perception. To embody it to the senses of others, he combined the head and breast of a man with the body of a horse, an unreal combination of real things, to illustrate a real but invisible combination. The faculty which perceived the invisible amalgam was one, the faith faculty. The faculty which framed the

visible combination was another, the faculty of comparison. The product of the two we call the product of the imagination.

This same faculty lies at the basis of all wit and humor. Two of the most difficult problems of mental science are: What is the secret of the beautiful? What is the secret of the humorous? I shall not enter here into these old problems, still less attempt to solve them. It is enough to say that by a general, if not universal, consent the foundation of both wit and humor is a sudden and unexpected discovery of either a disparity or a resemblance. Other elements enter into it. Not every such unexpected and sudden discovery produces a tendency to laugh. But it may safely be said that the faculty of comparison is always called into play in every ebullition of wit and humor, and that those whose faculty of comparison is either feeble or slow to act are never quick to take a joke, and rarely greatly enjoy it.

CHAPTER XI.

ATTENTION, MEMORY, WILL.

THERE are three other mental powers which are sometimes treated as separate faculties, attention, memory, and will. do not so treat them here for the same reason that I have not treated hope and firmness as separate motive powers. Attention and memory are rather mental habits than mental faculties, and will is the power which reigns over all the faculties; it is the personality, the individuality, which, so to speak, administers the whole kingdom.

1. Attention is a habit or power of concentration, which may characterize one faculty or another, or all combined. It is, however, usually a concentration for the time of all the soul's powers upon a single faculty, and is generally proportioned to earnestness of desire. The merchant finds no difficulty in concentrating attention upon the business of his counting-room; he does it without conscious effort; but when he has returned home in the evening, it is with the greatest difficulty that he concentrates it upon a book, and sometimes reads a page before he discovers that his mind has been upon the business of the day, not upon the Shakespeare in his hand. So a college boy easily puts his whole mind upon a ball game, but requires a vigorous act of the will to fasten it upon his Cicero or his Homer. The secret of attention is interest, and when the faculty is aroused by a strong motive all the power of the soul is concentrated on the problem before it instantly and instinctively and without an effort. The mother who is praying for the recovery of her sick child does not find herself troubled by the wandering thoughts in prayer which have been the bane of her public worship so frequently in church.

2. As attention is the concentration of the faculties upon a subject, induced by strong interest in it, so memory is the retroactive action of each faculty. It is not a separate faculty, as though the powers of the mind gathered truth and the memory received and stored it. It is generally proportioned both to the strength of the particular faculty and the interest in the particular subject. A man who has a welldeveloped faculty of numbers will remember dates; a man who has a well-developed faculty of color will remember the picture which another has forgotten. One mind will remember facts and principles, another words and localities. Mr. Maurice mentions as extraordinary the memory of his sister for the fragrance of a particular flower inhaled in her childhood; but his memory for principles is evident on every page of his published works. Joseph Cook will repeat with almost verbal accuracy a paragraph read months, perhaps years, before. It is said of Henry Ward Beecher that, during the revival of 1856-7, at a prayer-meeting in Burton's Old Theater, he declined to lead the congregation in the Lord's Prayer, because he dared not trust himself to repeat it without the book. For myself, I am never able to cite an author, or quote a text of Scripture, or a verse of a familiar poem, with any assurance of accuracy; but I can go to my library, take down the book where I have seen or read the sentence I wish to quote, and turn to it, generally at once, though years have elapsed since I saw it. In another edition, differently paged, I might search for it in vain. This simple illustration may suffice to make clear my meaning, if not to demonstrate its accuracy, that memory is simply the power of a faculty to retain what it has once acquired, or repeat what it has once done; a power which depends usually, if not always, upon the degree of interest which attached to the first acquisition, or upon the force which attached to the first action.

3. Into the question, the most hotly debated of all ques