THE HUMAN MIND. 



of our knowledge has been constituted into an 

 idea, image, recollection, or item of knowledge, by 

 this adhesive operation taking place between the 

 concurring impressions. 



The things about us that maintain fixed places 

 and relations, become connected in idea as they 

 are in reality, and the mind thus takes on a phan- 

 tasmagoric representation of our habitual environ- 

 ment. The house we live in, with its furniture 

 and fittings, the street, town, or rural scene that 

 we encounter daily, by their incessant iteration, 

 cohere into abiding recollections, and any one 

 part easily brings all the rest into view. These 

 familiar haunts exemplify the highest degree of 

 pictorial adhesion that we can ever attain to, 

 being impressed by countless repetitions and 

 strong natural interest. We likewise associate a 

 number of human beings with their abodes, 

 dresses, avocations, and all other constant accom- 

 paniments. 



The Successions of nature make a capital part 

 of our knowledge, and are associated in the mind 

 through their frequent recurrence. Some succes- 

 sions run in a cycle, as the seasons ; others go 

 through a process of evolution or development, 

 as the history of a living being ; a third class, of 

 great interest, includes Cause and Effect. In pro- 

 portion as we repeat the observation of those 

 various sequences, they become impressed on our 

 recollection, and we are enabled from the appear- 

 ance of one of the steps to anticipate what is to 

 follow. 



All our mental acquisitions whatsoever, whether 

 mechanical or intellectual, Languages, Sciences, 

 professional aptitude of every kind, proceed upon 

 this cohesive force of the mind, and are more or 

 less developed according to the degree or strength 

 of it in the individual mind. There is a natural 

 force of adhesiveness, specific to each constitution, 

 and distinguishing one person from another. 

 Next to original endowment, the grand requisite 

 is repetition, or continuance of the impressions. 

 It is possible to make up for natural weakness by 

 iteration, as in the case of children who are slow 

 at their lessons. An important favouring circum- 

 stance is the interest felt in the subject. By this, 

 the attention is kept directed upon the exercise, 

 and the nervous energy is thus concentrated, so 

 as to build up the requisite adhesion with great 

 rapidity. Distraction or pre-occupation effectually 

 checks our progress in any attempt ; the motions 

 may be made, but for want of a strong nervous 

 current, the coherence is feeble. 



LAW OF SIMILARITY. 



This law is stated thus : 



PRESENT Actions, Sensations, Thoughts, or 

 Emotions, tend to revive their LIKE among PRE- 

 VIOUS Impressions. 



Contiguity joins together things that are natu- 

 rally connected, or that are, by any circumstance, 

 presented to the mind at the same time, as when 

 we associate heat with light, or a falling body 

 with a concussion. But in addition to this link 

 of reproductive connection, we find that one thing 

 will, by virtue of similarity, recall another separ- 

 ated from it in time ; as when on visiting a place 

 we are reminded of our previous visits to the same 

 neighbourhood. 



Many of the most important operations of the 



human intellect imply the operation of this prin- 

 ciple of like recalling like through remoteness of 

 time and place, and amid alteration of circum- 

 stances and accompaniments. Not only must an 

 impression of to-day bring up the same of yester- 

 day, and add its confirming force to that in the 

 process of acquisition, but we must be able to 

 recover likeness imbedded in unlikeness. The 

 similarity in things that are really alike may be 

 clouded to the mind by two causes Faintness, 

 and Diversity in the accompaniments. There 

 are cases where a new impression is too feeble to 

 strike into the old-established track of the same 

 impression and make it alive again, as when we 

 are unable to identify the taste of a very weak 

 solution, or to make out an object in twilight 

 dimness. The most numerous and interesting 

 cases come under the other head of Diversity, 

 or mingled likeness and unlikeness as when we 

 meet an old acquaintance in a new dress or in an 

 unexpected place, or trace similarity of institutions 

 in nations widely removed. 



In the numerous and various trains of articulate 

 action constituting our education in Language, 

 there are many instances of likeness recurring in 

 the midst of unlikeness, leading to the revival of 

 the past by the present. We are constantly liable 

 to be reminded of past sayings of our own and of 

 other people by hitting on catch-words or identical 

 phrases, at a time when perhaps our thoughts are 

 running in some quite different channel. The 

 single word ' frenzy,' uttered with emphasis, will 

 recall, in a mind previously impressed with the 

 passage, ' The poet s eye in a fine frenzy rolling ; ' 

 the principal epithet being enough to reinstate the 

 entire connected train. By the suggestion of 

 common words, we can thus leap from one pass- 

 age to another, by remote fetches, through an 

 endless succession of recollections. The character 

 of the mind will determine the prevailing character 

 of the revived sayings : in one, they will be poeti- 

 cal and ornate ; in another, prose melody will 

 have the preference ; in a third, epigram and wit ; 

 in a fourth, matters of information and science. 



In the Sensations, likeness in diversity is quite 

 a usual case. The same state of organic discom- 

 fort may arise in totally different circumstances, 

 and yet the mind, through the similarity of sensa- 

 tion, pass from the one present to all the previous 

 experiences. An identical taste is discovered 

 through a wide range of substances different in 

 other respects, as in the case of sugary sweetness, 

 or the vinous flavour. By recognising the same 

 sensation in many different bodies, we form these 

 into a class, and describe them by a common 

 name ; this is the process termed ' generalisa- 

 tion,' and it proceeds entirely on the discovery 

 of likeness in the midst of difference. So in 

 smell, we discern a common effect, such as ' fra- 

 grance,' or ' pungency,' through many connections, 

 and the things thus discovered to agree are 

 classed together, and described as like, notwith- 

 standing the points of unlikeness. The ear dis- 

 cerns sameness of accent in different voices, or 

 the composition of a particular master through 

 various pieces of music. We can identify colours 

 in spite of difference of shade, and so be struck 

 with a common form in many varieties of colour, 

 size, and situation. Common features are dis- 

 covered in landscapes which are far from being 

 identical throughout. 



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