existence of a plurality of weak resemblances will be the equivalent of a single stronger one.

On this view, I might exemplify the workings of composite similarities from the various classes of examples gone over in the preceding chapter. In all very complicated conjunctions, as, for example, a landscape, there may be a multiplication of likenesses unable to strike singly, but by their concurrence suggesting a parallel scene. Hence, in eudeavouring to gain from the past a scene resembling some one present, we may proceed, as in Contiguity, by hunting out new collaterals for the chance of increasing the amount of similitude and with that the attractive power of the present for the absent. If I am endeavouring to recal to mind some historic parallel to a present political situation, supposing one to exist and to have been at some former time impressed on my mind, there may be a want of any single salient likeness, such as we admit to be the most effective medium of reinstatement, and I must therefore go over in my mind all the minute features of the present to enhance in this way the force of the attraction of similitude for the forgotten parallel.

8. The case noticed at the conclusion of the preceding head, namely, the combination of language with subject-matter in a mixed recollection, is favourable to the occurrence of compound similarity. If an orator has before his mind a certain subject, the conduct of an individual, for example, which he wishes to denounce by a cutting simile, his invention may be aided by some similarity in the phrases descriptive of the case as well as in the features of the case itself. If one who has at a former time read the play of Edipus, now commences to read Lear, the similarity is not at first apparent, but long before the conclusion there will be a sufficient accumulation of features of similitude, in dramatic situation and in language, to bring Edipus to mind without any very powerful stretch of intellectual force. So in scientific invention; a fact described in language has a double power of suggestion; and if, by good luck, both the fact and the description have a resemblance

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to some other fact, and to the language that accompanied this other when formerly present to the mind, there is so much the more chance of the revival taking place.

MIXED CONTIGUITY AND SIMILARITY.

9. Under this head several important groups of instances might be noted.

If any one in describing a storm bring in the phrase ‘a war of elements,' the metaphor has been brought to mind partly by similitude, but partly also by contiguity, seeing that the comparison has already been used in conjunction with the picture of a storm. The person that first used the phrase came upon it by similarity; he that used it next had contiguity to assist him; and after frequent usage the bond of contiguity might come to be so well confirmed, that the force of similarity is at last entirely superseded. In this way many things that were originally strokes of genius end in being efforts of mere adhesive recollection; while, for a time previous to this final consummation, a mixed effort of the two suggesting forces is displayed. Hence Johnson's remark on the poet Ogilvie, that his poem contained what was once imagination, but in him had come to be memory.*

In all regions of intellectual exertion, in industry, science, art, literature, there is a kind of ability displayed in taking up great and original ideas and combinations, before they have been made easy by iteration. Minds unable for the highest efforts of origination may yet be equal to this second degree of genius, wherein a considerable force of similarity

*On Tuesday the 5th July (1763), I again visited Johnson. He told me he had now looked into the poems of a pretty voluminous writer, Mr. (now Dr.) John Ogilvie, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland, which had lately come out, but could find nothing in them.

BOSWELL. Is there not imagination in them, Sir?'

JOHNSON. Why, Sir, there is in them, what was imagination, but it is no more imagination in him, than sound is sound in the echo. And his diction, too, is not his own. We have long ago seen white-robed innocence, and flower-bespangled meads.''

is assisted by a small thread of contiguity. To master a large multitude of the discoveries of identification, a power of similarity somewhat short of the original force that gave birth to them is aided by the contiguous bond that has grown up during the few repetitions of each that there has been opportunity for making.

10. A second case is furnished when a similarity is struck for the first time in circumstances that brought the absent object into near proximity in some contiguous train. Thus a poet falls upon a beautiful metaphor while dwelling in the region or neighbourhood where the material of the simile In the country, rural comparisons are most easily made, on ship-board nautical metaphors are naturally abundant. There is a real effort of similarity in giving birth to new comparisons, but the things compared may chance to stand so near that notwithstanding the faintness or disguise the embrace of identity comes on.

occurs.

If we chance to be studying by turns two different sciences that throw much light on each other, we are in a good way for easily deriving the benefit of the comparison. Should we know the most likely source of fertile similitudes for some difficult problem, we naturally keep near that source in order that we may be struck with the faintest gleam of likeness through the help of proximity. A historian of the ancient republics keeps his mind familiar with all the living instances of the republican system, as well as with those of the middle ages that have been fully recorded. At a time when physical science is largely indebted to mathematical handling as during the age of Newton, the scientific man spends half his time in mathematical studies. In such cases, it is not safe to trust to an acquisition of old date, however pertinacious the mind may be in retaining the subject in question. The great discoveries of identification that astonish the world and open up new vistas of knowledge, may have often required a help from the accidental proximity of the things made to flash together. For illustration's sake, we might suppose Newton in the act of meditating upon the planetary attraction, at the time

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that the celebrated apple fell to the ground before his eyes; a proximity so very close would powerfully aid in bringing on the stroke of identification.

THE ELEMENT OF EMOTION.

11. We have already seen under Contiguity that associations grow up between objects and emotional states, whereby the one can recal the other, the object reviving the emotion, and the emotion the object. Anything, for example, that has been strongly associated with a disgust, is apt to recal the feeling at a future time.

This link may now be noted as entering into composite associations. In remembering some past object that has been linked in the mind with a certain emotion, the presence of the emotion will contribute to the recal. Although perhaps insufficient of itself this bond will often be found co-operating with others to effect the revival of an old recollection. While luxuriating in a state of agreeable warmth, we are very easily reminded of former situations and circumstances that have had this accompaniment.

When the mind is immersed in any of the special emotions, as Terror, Anger, Tenderness, Beauty, objects connected with the emotion are favoured, while all others are repelled. In moods of tenderness objects of affection rise by preference; this link co-operating with any other that may be present makes the restoration of such objects more certain. If the mind is disposed to indulge in the irascible emotion, objects of anger and hatred find an easy opening, while others are repelled even although strongly suggested by other links of association. Something occurs to remind a person of a good deed performed to him by the object of his wrath; but the recollection is refused admittance. When an emotion possesses the mind in anything like fury, nothing that discords with it can find a place though ever so powerfully suggested, while the feeblest link of connexion is sufficient to recal circumstances in harmony with the dominant state.

12. Hence in minds very susceptible to emotion, the more purely intellectual bonds of association are continually combined and modified by connexions with feeling. The entire current of thought and recollection is thus impressed with a character derived from emotion. Where tender affection is indulged as a dominant feeling, the objects that rise from the past, no less than those engaging the attention in the present, are for the most part tinged with this feeling. A joyous temperament has its genial recollections; melancholy opens the door to a totally different class. The egotist is eager for any suggestions that connect themselves with self, and a slight bond of adhesion otherwise will suffice to make these present. Poetic emotion gaining possession of the mind gives a select character to the images that recur from the past. A strong natural feeling of reverence accumulates a store of ideas of things venerable, and gives them precedence in the resurrections of thought.

This peculiarity has often arrested attention, and has been adopted as a theme both by poets and by philosophers. It is the character of an intellectual and cultivated nature to maintain the ascendancy of the intellectual associations over the suggestions of emotion. This is one of the forms of the dominion of reason in the mind.

When a particular emotion is excessive in the character, not only can we readily predict the actions, we can almost read the thoughts of the individual. The anecdote of Burke's divination of the thoughts of Goldsmith, when passing a crowd collected by the feats of a mountebank, can scarcely be called extravagant as an illustration of this point.

INFLUENCE OF VOLITION.

13. In many cases our recollection of the past is promoted by Volition; that is, we have some purpose or end in view, which stimulates the activity of the system to bring about the recovery. I want to recal the name of an object before me, to remember where I last saw a given person, to find a principle applicable to a case in hand. For a time I fail in my