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eye for arbitrary visible forms, as in alphabetical or written composition. 4th, General Retentiveness, or power of contiguous adhesion on the whole. An acquisition so multitudinous cannot prosper unless the general power is well developed 5th, A certain enjoyment of the exercises of speaking, hearing, and reading, apart from the further ends served by these; this circumstance inspires and sustains the exercise of those lingual functions. To these positive peculiarities, may be added a negative aid, namely, comparative indifference or insensibility to subject-matter. This is the only thing wanted to enable the Faculty of Language to run riot, as we occasionally find it in our experience of men and

women.

The artistic forms are a class distinct from both the inathematical and the symbolical. In them the identity is partly in the literal outline, as traced upon the eye, and partly in the effect of it on the mind, as an object of beauty or grace. The last requisite, being the essential feature, must rule the mind in summoning resemblances from the past. Thus, in the drapery of a statue, we identify some effect that we have formerly been impressed with, and the stroke of similarity brings up the former objects to the recollection; on which we find that there is by no means a literal coincidence of lines, and curves, and folds; but the aesthetic similarity has broken through these and other differences, and has reproduced an instructive array of artistic parallels. A deep feeling of literal or mathematical form would be repugnant to the aims of the artist.

The identification of one Scene of Nature with another may present all degrees of difficulty, according to the predominance of agreement or of difference, and according to the tendency of the mind to be impressed with the one or the other. If the sameness is in form and outline-in the arrangement of mountain, valley, and river-the reviving stroke of similarity turns on the attraction of the mind for unsymmetrical shapes and groupings, one of the features in the catholic susceptibility of the naturalist's mind. If the

resemblance to certain other scenes lies in richness, massiveness of colouring, and strength of contrasts, the chord to be struck is of a different kind; and such scenes will be revived in a mind alive to these effects, notwithstanding, perhaps, very great differences in the groupings, or formal arrangements of the component parts.

The same observations are applicable to any other mixed objects of sight or spectacle. When one dress or uniform recalls others; when the mise en scène of a dramatic representation suggests parallels from our former experience in those things; when one face recalls another by similarity; or even when a picture revives the original;-in all such cases, the interest, for our present theme, lies in remarking what are the agreeing particulars, and what are the points of discord; whence we can assign the quality of mind that will experience the recall upon any given attribute.

The General power of Similarity would operate alike on all kinds of forms and on all varieties of objects, reviving with equal readiness the similar in colour and in shape. But this general power is modified by the acuteness of the sense, as well as by special education, which deepens the hold that we have of some one class of impressions, and makes us all the more ready to fall into that particular set. Hence it never happens that any individual is equally prone to restore likeness in colour, in geometrical form, in cypher and symbol, and in æsthetic effect.

The last class of objects coming under sensations of Sight are visible movements. Among those agreeing in one or more points, classes are made up, and names given indicating the agreement. The flight of projectiles, with considerable disparity, has a common character. In like manner, we have circular movements, elliptic movements, rectilineal movements, uniform movements, accelerated movements, rotation on an axle, pendulums, waves, zig-zag movements, waterfalls explosions, &c. Under all these, we may have great diversity in the range and the speed, as well as in the thing moved. The movements of animals afford many other

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varieties; in quadrupeds, the walk, trot, canter, gallop, shamble; in birds, numerous characteristic modes of flight; the darting of the bat, the frog's leap, the serpent's undulation, the crawl of the sluggish snail. By the stroke of Similarity, we bring together in classes a great many instances isolated in their occurrence, and keep hold of them by class-names. We thus generalize the grand varieties of swimming, flying, two-footed locomotion, &c.; and, within each of these, we have a number of minor classes formed on still closer likenesses. In the flexible and various action of a human being, we have characteristic types of movement and display. The gait in walking, the action in speaking, the mode of performing any work or operation, the movements on the stage, are so many objects that excite our notice, and sink into our minds as permanent recollections. The collective movements of multitudes, either in orderly array and disciplined precision, or in inorganic tumult and confusion, impress themselves upon the view, and spring up as memories in after times. The moving life, over the face of the globe, and in the habitations of men, is more interesting to us than the still life; it contains more matter of emotion and excitement, and is consequently more dwelt upon, both in present reality, and in idea

Here, therefore, the force of similarity has a wide arena to perform in. The recurrence of sameness in the midst of greater or less diversity in all these various movements, leads to identification more or less easy. We identify a style of acting on the stage, a dance, a gait, although the circumstances are very different from the examples lying in the memory. If the agreement is not literal, but in a certain general spirit and effect, a strong sense of the literal will be a bar to the recovery of the resembling cases in the past. If we are very sensitive to the stirring effects of movement in general, we are not so likely to identify the special mode. Movements may be divided in a manner parallel to the three-fold division of forms; mathematical or regular movements, as rectilinear, circular, elliptical, &c., comprising all

the continuous movements of machinery, and all movements that can be numerically calculated or geometrically traced; symbolical movements, or those used for arbitrary signs, such as the gesticulation accompanying directions, commands, instruction, and the like, telegraphic signals, the alphabet of the deaf and dumb, the characteristic gait and movements whereby we discriminate persons and animals; lastly, asthetic movements, or all those that touch the sense of beauty and the interesting emotions. Different minds are variously susceptible to these three kinds, and identify one sort by preference over the others. The æsthetic sense leads to a revival on that point of resemblance, and obstructs the disposition to classify movements according to their mathematical character, or their arbitrary meaning. The most literal and disinterested susceptibility is that manifested to the symbolical and arbitrary, where neither calculable regularity nor artistic beauty imparts any attractions. The signals of a telegraph, the motions of a fugleman, the signs used in converse with the deaf, may be ranked with cyphers and alphabetic letters: they give scope for pure intellectual identity and discrimination; they require to be closely observed and literally compared with those previously known; the differences are arbitrary, and so are the agreements. Their easy recognition farther depends on a good adhesiveness for visible forms, and on the absence of emotional preferences.

22. There is some interest attaching to the attributes common to Sensations of Different Senses. Impressions, reaching the mind through different avenues of sense, are yet found to have a sameness in the mental feeling or the emotion, this sameness being necessarily accompanied with the difference due to the diverse entries whereby they reach the brain. For example, many tastes and smells have the character that we call sweet; but there are also effects on the ear, and on the eye, with so much of the same character, that we apply to them the same epithet. So, the character of 'pungency' is common to sensations of all the senses; under

SENSATIONS OF DIFFERENT SENSES IDENTIFIED.

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taste, we have it in peppered meats; in smell, we have sal volatile; in touch, a scalding warmth; in hearing, drum and fife music; in sight, intense illumination. The amount of sameness in these various sensations is such that one often recalls the others. The identity has long since been struck in such instances; and is clenched and handed down by the use of a common term, as in the above case of 'sweetness.' The opposite quality, bitter,' primarily applied to the sense of taste, has been extended to the emotions, as when we speak of the bitterness of disappointment or of remorse. The quality that we call 'delicate' has original reference to Touch, but through similarity, it is looked upon as a mode of sensation in all the other senses. Comparisons are instituted between sights and sounds; and the phraseology of the two arts-music and painting, is made interchangeable. A picture is said to have a certain tone; and a piece of music is, by a less common figure, spoken of as richly coloured. The feeling of warmth' is identified as belonging to effects that have no connexion with heat; we hear of warm colours, and warm affections. Notwithstanding the great disparity there is between an actual sensation of heat, and a colour or a tender affection, there is a degree of sameness sufficient to break through the discordance in other respects, and to cause the stroke of identification. The designation of one class of sensations as pains, and of another as pleasures, is also the identifying of a common character in the midst of great diversity; but these qualities are usually so well marked in the mind, being, in fact, the prime movers of our actions, that no amount of diversity can prevent us from recognizing either the one or the other; indeed, a pain not identified as such, that is, not recalling our former painful experiences, would really be no pain.

These generalizations among the feelings of our different senses teach us the existence of common mental effects arising out of very different outward causes, and are, in fact, so many discoveries regarding our mental nature. They also serve as illustrations, one of another, in our descriptions of