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flexibility are good. A child will learn to imitate singing according as, of its own accord, it falls into musical notes. Its own native song must come first: the goodness of that will be a condition of its acquiring the song of others. In whatever department any individual shows spontaneous and unprompted facility, in that department will the same individual be imitative or acquisitive. This makes the connexion between native parts and high acquirements in everything,— mechanical skill, fine art, business, science.

(6.) Imitation progresses with the acquired habits. In learning to dance, the deficiency of the association between the pupil's movements and the sight of the master's, renders the first steps difficult to acquire. The desired movements are not naturally performed at the outset. Some movements are made; sufficient voluntary command of the limbs and body has been acquired, in other shapes, to set a-going action of some kind; but the first actions are seen to be quite wrong; there is a manifest want of coincidence, which originates a new attempt, and that failing, another is made, until at last we see that the posture is hit. The grand process of trial and error brings on the first coincidence between a movement and the appearance of that movement in another person; while repetition of the coincidence leads to a cohesion sufficient to render the imitation perfectly easy. Upon this acquisition other new acquisitions of the same kind are based, and the improvement is accelerating. Thus it is that we pass through an alphabet of imitation in all arts; the fixing of the association, in the case of the first links, is the most difficult part of the process.

(7.) It is in harmony with all that has now been advanced, that imitation depends likewise on the delicacy of the sense that perceives the effect. A fine and retentive musical ear is one of the essentials of musical imitation; the natural or spontaneous production of musical tones being the other essential. The delicacy of the ear means its discriminative power; the retentiveness includes the power of forming associations with the voice, or any other mechanical effort. A delicate appreciation of the positions of the fugleman, and a

tenacious retention of that class of impressions, helps the recruit forward in his imitative exercises.

This is not the place to exhaust the subject of Imitation in particular, or of the acquisitions that enter into volition in general. It is enough, for the present, to show that the associative principle is an indispensable requisite here as elsewhere. All the conditions already specified, as affecting the rate of adhesiveness in other acquirements, might be exemplified likewise in these. The great peculiarity in their case arises from the circumstances of their commencement. Being the starting point of every other branch of education, they must find their own way through struggles and accidents, trials and failures. Reposing upon the great fundamental link between consciousness and present action,— between pleasure or pain, and the activity happening at the time, they come at last to supply definite connexions between our feelings and exertions, so as to enable us not merely to control a movement at work, but to call dormant actions into being at the instance of our reigning emotion.

Of the various circumstances affecting the progress of these volitional associations, the engagement of the cerebral energy or concentrated attention is of signal consequence. This condition, necessary at any age, seems the all-important one in the early months of our existence. The moment of an acquisition seems generally to turn upon some happy concurrence of aroused attention or mental engrossment with the action: an impression not detained for a time by the influence of some feeling is void of effect. When the child hits upon an exercise that gives it pleasure, and is thereby led to repeat the act, earnestly and intently, the occasion is sure to be a good one for a sensible advance in fixing the whole connected train. The first discovery of being able to blow with the mouth, and set light objects in motion, would be an instance of what I mean.

NATURAL OBJECTS-AGGREGATES OF NATURAL QUALITIES.

53. One of the principal forms of human intelligence consists in a permanent hold of the external world as it strikes the senses. The more perfectly we can anticipate the appearances of nature while they are yet out of sight, the better able are we to calculate our way and regulate our actions.

External objects usually affect us through a plurality of senses. The pebble on the sea shore is pictured on the eye as form and colour. We take it up in the hand and repeat the impression of form, with the additional feeling of touch. Knock two together, and there is a characteristic sound. To preserve the impression of an object of this kind, there must be an association of all these different effects. Such association, when matured and firm, is our idea, our intellectual grasp of the pebble.

Passing to the organic world, and plucking a rose, we have the same effects of form to the eye and hand, colour and touch, with the new effects of odour and taste. A certain time is requisite for the coherence of all these qualities in one aggregate, so as to give us for all purposes the enduring image of the rose. When fully acquired any one of the characteristic impressions will revive the others; the odour, the sight, the feeling of the thorny stalk,-each of these by itself will hoist the entire impression into the view. Should we go to work and dissect the flower botanically, we shall obtain new impressions to enter into the common aggregate.

The rapid association of these qualities, the quick adhesion of the sensations of sight, touch, &c., into an intellectual product, enables us to acquire a large stock of impressions corresponding to mineral and vegetable bodies. This is the gift of the naturalist, who, having to retain in his mind many hundreds or thousands of distinct notions, must not put off time in the work of acquisition. In him the sensations of sight and touch must be vigorous and enduring. Mere colour and its varieties must make an abiding impression; unmeaning shapes also must be easily remembered. The persistence of

visual and tangible impressions must be high, and the force of adhesiveness naturally good in his case. He cannot afford a high tension of mind upon each object, owing to the great variety of things to be attended to, and hence the force of contiguity must be considerable in the absence of any stimulus beyond a quiet interest in the subject. What is called good observing faculties must belong to the character of the naturalist; which means a high activity in the organs of sense, a persistent energy in the centres that sustain the movements of the eye, the hand, and the locomotive powers. To keep up the activity of these organs for a long stretch of time demands a peculiar nervous organization. When the tendency of the mental force is in this direction, the examination of sensible objects-minerals, plants, animals, &c., is a spontaneous and enduring effort, and this of itself would cause a rapid and extensive acquisition of the impressions of outward things. The observation ever fresh and buoyant, the firmness of the visible and tactile sensations, mark, not the naturalist mind only, but also the minds of all classes that have much to do with the external world in its fulness, among whom we may rank the man of industry, the military commander, and the poet. In an article of food,-an orange, a piece of bread, water, wine,—we have an additional susceptibility which commands a strong interest and attention, rendering the impression easily retained. This gives these objects an advantage over the objects of the world in general; they are, so to speak, less disinterested, and do not put the plastic retentiveness of the mind so well to the test. Again, if the objects have that more than common interest that we call artistic or poetic, the interest of beauty and taste, they attract a greater amount of mental regard, and are for that reason sooner brought to the point of coherence and easy retentiveness. This, too, gives a select class of objects a special superiority in the power of engraining themselves in the recollection; and in minds strongly alive to beauty, these objects start forward into prominence and endurance, while others are unheeded and forgotten. The naturalist must be above all such partialities; to him every natural object must possess a moderate interest,

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and no class more than a fair share; it is only by this moderation that he can keep his mind equal to the multitude and variety of nature. The same character of vigorous and persistent observation and ready adhesiveness at a moderate tension of mind must belong to all minds that have to deal with a great variety of objects, as, for example, the geographer and the verbal scholar. Some objects excite the senses in a vivid and excessive manner, and thus engross mental attention in their favour. Thus it is that we have clear impressions of flame, of ice, of a bell, a piece of sugar, &c.

54. From the objects of the world thus apprehended as they strike the immediate sense, we pass to a higher group of aggregates, things with properties not always present to the view. For example, a cup in its completeness must be conceived as containing something, as serving this purpose or use. We have to associate with the permanent sensible qualities this other quality of usefulness for an end, which has a special interest in it to quicken our retentiveness of the entire total. Furniture and tools and implements of every description have this superadded quality, which, however, instead of burdening the memory, rather lightens it by the spur of a special interest. All related objects are more easily fixed in the mind than those that are unrelated, particularly if the relation be an interesting one. A monarch is more impressive than a man ; a millstone is more firmly remembered than a useless block on a moor. Where the interest in industrial production is naturally high in an individual, every kind of machine arrests the regards and takes time to impress itself. We have here another example of that select or special attention which concentrates the mind upon some things to the neglect of others, and is also in strong contrast with the catholic tendencies of the naturalist character. Not only is there a restriction as regards the objects in the narrow point of view, but the properties attended to are more limited. If a tool has a good edge, its specific gravity is a matter of indifference; if a quarry yields. good building stone, the owner leaves it to others to determine its mineral composition and geological era.