or association between feeling and imagery gives rise to a number of interesting phenomena, some of which may be introduced here as presenting a new case of the associating

process.

In the pleasures and pains derived through the various senses and through the moving organs, associations spring up with collateral things, the causes or frequent accompaniments of those feelings. Thus we connect the pleasures of repose with an easy chair, a sofa, or a bed, and the pleasure of riding with a horse and carriage. The sight of food recals a certain part of the pleasure of eating. The preparation of meals and the catering for the table are interesting avocations through a reference to the end they serve. The representation to the eye of fragrant flowers in a painting has power to revive some

a smart blow, the cheek is at least as sensitive as any portion of the skin whatever; but it is certainly not the least discriminating in Weber's scale. In fact it stands high in the scale, being equal to the palm of the hand and the extremity of the great toe, and inferior only to the tongue, lips, and fingers. In this case, therefore, the inverse ratio of sensibility and discrimination does not subsist.

Taking the cheek and the back of the hand as compared with the palm of the hand, one would be disposed to say that the sensitiveness to pain varied with the structure of the cuticle, while the discrimination depends solely on the supply of nerves. Let the cuticle be thickened as in the hand and foot; the parts are rendered obtuse to a blow. But where the cuticle is thin, the skin is correspondingly tender or susceptible to painful or pleasurable irritation. This is a popular belief, whether scientifically true or not. Any one keenly alive to a smart or an attack is said to be thinskinned. In addition to this, I am disposed to believe that the parts nearest the brain are in consequence more sensitive than remote parts. The agonies of tooth-ache, face-ache, pains of the nose and ear, appear to be more intense than would arise from similar irritations in the lower extremities. If this be a general rule, the skin of the face would be more sensitive than the skin of the arm or the hand, and these more than the leg or foot.

In so far as the differences of sensibility and discrimination depend on the mind, Sir W. Hamilton's theory of inverse relation is more strictly applicable. It is to me quite evident that if the whole mind and attention be concentrated on the sensation as a feeling, as giving pleasure or pain, there will be a lack of attention to the intellectual quality. But then it is possible that the mind should be awake to both qualities, and to the one for the sake of the other. Thus if I am exceedingly annoyed with the bitterness of a taste, I am also impressed with its character as distinguished from other bitters; the intensity of my dislike will impress upon me the discriminating character of the substance among other substances, an effect strictly intellectual.

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of the pleasures that we derive from the reality through the sense of smell. The pleasures of music in so far as they can be enjoyed in the retrospect are evoked purely by association.

We have seen that it is a quality of some emotions to be more recoverable in idea than others; for example, the pleasures of music and spectacle are recovered from the past more completely than the pleasures of exercise, repose, warmth, or repletion. In those higher emotions, the association restores very nearly the actual experience of the reality; in the inferior sensations, the occasion of the pleasure or pain is remembered, but very little of the actual tone of the feeling.

47. Another fact respecting remembered emotions must now be added to the foregoing, and that is, that these are very often perverted in their character through some influence of the mind that comes to bear upon them at the moment of their being revived. This influence is most usually the temper or other emotion prevailing at the time; which temper may happen to be unfavourable to the spreading out of the past emotion in the accurate colouring of the original. Thus in remembering a period of joy and carousal, if the present temper is sour and melancholy, the recollection will be unfaithful and perverted as regards the emotion: we shall almost certainly underrate the feelings that we then experienced. If, on the other hand, the remembrance of a day passed in pleasure is brought forward at a time of high elation, the chance is that there will be a total omission of the shades of the original, and that the recollection will be too highly coloured. This is an exceedingly important consideration as regards practical life; for these remembered emotions are the data for governing our present actions; and any inaccuracy in the record of past feelings will be the cause of mistakes and disappointments as regards the future. Desire and hope, which are based upon remembered emotion, are liable to be perverted by false remembrance, and it becomes every one's interest to take precautions for preserving a sound estimate of the joys and pains that are past. There is a logic of emo

tional experience as well as of other experience; and in this search after truthfulness of feeling, natural temper and the momentary dispositions are the great sources of fallacy.

Accurate recollection of past emotional states is most easy in the more recoverable emotions; that is to say, the pleasure of a spectacle will be more closely reproduced than the pleasure of a repast. Next to this consideration we must rank, as a ruling circumstance, the goodness of the associating bond either in consequence of much repetition or on account of the natural force of contiguous adhesiveness inherent in the character. In other words, we shall remember most accurately what we have experienced oftenest; and an intellectual and retentive mind will have a chance to be faithful in the recollection of pleasures and pains; a fact which is very much in favour of the sound guidance of the intellectual man's life. Then, too, there is to be taken into the account the habit of attending to one's states of mind; when this habit exists we make at each important epoch of our feelings a sort of estimate for future purposes, likely to be much more accurate than the recollection would be apart from such an estimate. There are occasions when a person should write down their feelings in order to preserve the most faithful record that can be had of them, just as a scientific observer distrusts recollection in the details of complicated facts. Such an occasion for carefully recording the feelings at the moment is furnished when one is making the experiment of new pleasures and new modes of life; for with many minds the memory of such feelings after a time, or in an altered situation, would be most treacherous. The difference between a faithful and a perverted recollection of past emotions, is the difference between reason and imagination as applied to present conduct.

48. It will not be out of place to select a few examples of the association of the deeper emotions of the mind with the notions that we have of outward things, by which connexion these emotions also can be made present in the absence of their proper stimulus. The emotions of tenderness, self-complacency, irascibility, terror, &c., when stimulated repeatedly in the presence of some one object, enter into mental partner

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397

ship with that object, and the two individuals of the couple are thenceforth able to revive each other, the object recalling the emotion, and the emotion restoring the object.

The emotion of natural tenderness is brought out chiefly towards sentient beings, and comes after a time to flow habitually in connexion with certain persons or living creatures, who are then said to be objects of affection or attachment. The feeling, moreover, overflows upon places and things, stimulating a tender regard towards inanimate nature. The associations with home, with one's native spot; with the tokens of friendship and the relics of the departed, are made powerful by all the causes that give force to the contiguous bond. The natural abundance of the emotion in the character, repetition, a good natural adhesiveness, the disposition to cultivate this peculiar region of associations, all contribute to strengthen the link that enables persons or things to diffuse tender feeling over the mind. There are some mental constitutions that have a natural retentiveness for special emotions, just as there are intellects retentive of visible pictures, music, or language; this retentiveness is not at all identical with the power of being moved by the full reality of an emotion. Such persons are peculiarly qualified to cultivate associated feeling, to derive pleasure from the relics and the memory of affection, and to make this pleasure an object of pursuit in life. All their actions that have reference to objects of special emotion become imbued with derived or associated feeling.

The illustration for objects of hatred and aversion, and for all the outgoings of the irascible passion, would be almost parallel to the above. This passion connects itself with persons, with places, things, events, &c., and may be revived by objects that of themselves have no natural power to stir it up. We are apt to feel an aversion to places where we have suffered deep injuries, and to the unwitting instruments of calamity and wrong. There is a certain moral effort sometimes needed to prevent the passion of hatred from spreading too widely over collateral and indifferent things. Minds at once irascible and weak have generally an excessive amount of associated dislikes.

Egotistic and selfish emotion diffuses itself over all matters related to self; and the objects that a man surrounds himself with come to reflect the sense of his dignity and importance. According as this feeling is indulged, associations grow up between it and a great variety of things. Possessions, office, the fruits of one's labour, the symbols of rank, are all overgrown with this connexion, and radiate the feelings of selfcomplacency and importance to the mind. The members of one's family are objects not simply of tender affection, but of affection and egotism combined. So with friends, and with all the objects of our habitual admiration. It is impossible to be in the constant practice of loving or admiring anything, without coming at last to connect the object with self; the disinterested regard that first attracts us to persons, becomes, by indulgence, interested affection.

The pleasure of money is a remarkable instance of associated emotion. The sum total of purchasable enjoyments becomes linked in the mind with the universal medium of purchase, and this medium grows into an end of pursuit. In the first instance, we are stimulated by these other pleasures, but an affection is often generated at last for money itself. This transfer is brought about when we allow ourselves to be so engrossed with the pursuit of wealth, that we rarely advert to the remote ends or the purchasable pleasures; the mind dwelling solely on the one object that measures the success of our endeavours. A moderate pursuit of gain, that leaves the mind free to dwell upon the pleasures and advantages that money is to bring, does not generate that intense affection for gold as an end which constitutes the extreme form of sordid avarice.

49. Alisonian Theory of Beauty.-This celebrated doctrine precisely exemplifies the case of contiguous association now in hand, in so far as we are disposed to admit the applications that its author makes of it. That he has carried his theory of associated pleasure too far might, I think, be shown in numerous instances. We have already seen that all the senses yield us sensations that are in themselves pleasurable without reference to any associated effect. There are fragrant odours,