THE HUMAN MIND. 



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 Dr Johnson's remark on the Scotch poet 

 Ogilvie, that his poem contained what was once 

 imagination, but in him had come to be memory. 



The aiding of recollection or revival by a plu- 

 rality of bonds implies also the opposite effect, or 

 what may be termed Obstructive Association. We 

 are often prevented from remembering a thing by 

 being possessed of some different thing that will 

 not let what we want appear. This is exemplified 

 on a large scale in the characteristics of individual 

 minds. When there are two opposite modes of 

 viewing the same class of objects, as, for example, 

 the poetical and the practical points of view, an 

 intellect strongly occupied with the one is by that 

 very circumstance prevented from easily entertain- 

 ing the other. 



The associating principle of Contrast or Con- 

 trariety, enumerated by Aristotle, along with 

 Similarity and Co-adjacency, as a simple law 

 of mental reproduction, is reducible to Conti- 

 guity aided by favouring circumstances. All the 

 commoner contrasts have become so habitually 

 coupled in phraseology, that it is only an effort 

 of verbal recollection for the most part to pass 

 from the one to the other ; as in such things as 

 black and white, high and low, up and down, old 

 and young, life and death. It is, moreover, a 

 tendency of the mind to pass from one strongly 

 marked situation to a contrasting one, as when 

 surveying a state of glittering prosperity, we are 

 led to think of the downfall that so often follows 

 high fortunes. 



Constructive Association. 



By means of association, the mind has the power 

 to form combinations or aggregates different from 

 any that have been presented to it in the course of 

 experience. 



In the exposition of the previous laws, we have 

 had in view the literal resuscitation, revival, or 

 re-instatement, of former sensations, images, emo- 

 tions, and trains of thought. No special reference 

 has been made to the operations known by such 

 names as Imagination, Creation, Constructiveness, 

 Origination ; under which we are supposed to put 

 together new forms, or to construct images, con- 

 ceptions, pictures, and modes of working such as 

 we have never before had any experience of. No 

 doubt, the force of similarity, by bringing an idea 

 into a new connection, leads to a new and instruc- 

 tive combination of ideas, as when Franklin iden- 

 tified the thunder-storm with a discharge of elec- 

 tricity. But there are discoveries different from 

 this, seeming to be nothing short of absolute 

 creations, as, for example, the whole science of 

 Mathematics. So a Gothic cathedral, or the Para- 

 dise Lost, is far from a repetition of experienced 

 objects, even with all the power of extension that 

 the highest reach of the identifying faculty can 

 impart 



To take the case of constructing the pictorial 

 images of sight. Light and shade, colour, size, or 

 dimensions, shape, distance, position, are the con- 

 stituents that concur in the complex perceptions 

 of sight ; and it is possible to vary any one picture 

 by putting out and taking in elements at will. I 

 see or remember a line of houses : I can imagine 



it prolonged to double or triple the length ; or I 

 can transform the whole line by the addition of a 

 story to the height. Or to take Hobbes's example 

 of Constructiveness : I have the idea of a moun- 

 tain and the idea of gold, and by superimposing 

 the one idea upon the other, I can evoke the 

 image of a mountain of gold. The facility of 

 fusing two different notions into a third, depends 

 on the perfect and easy command that the mind 

 has of the separate ideas, owing to their having a 

 good hold of the memory or conception. The 

 combination takes place of its own accord, if the 

 elements are once properly brought together, and 

 kept in contact for a sufficient length of time. It 

 is one of the attributes of the Will to be able to 

 hold together such conceptions as will form a 

 whole, and when the elements are sufficiently 

 vivid to keep steadily in the view for a little 

 time, the combination emerges spontaneously. 



The conditions of Constructiveness, therefore, 

 are, first, a volition or determination to form some 

 new product ; and, secondly, the presence in the 

 mind of the elements necessary for the purpose. 

 The main difficulty usually is the absence of one 

 or more of these constituting elements, which 

 leads to devices for recalling them to view by the 

 help of the associating forces. A mechanical 

 inventor like James Watt has usually a vast deal 

 of groping and trial before he get the parts that 

 will fit together in a machine ; the scientific man 

 has often to wait long for the fitting suggestions 

 that will construct a great constructive generalisa- 

 tion, such as was the Law of Refraction, dis- 

 covered by Snell. The result depends partly on 

 the resources of the mind from its past experience 

 and education, and partly on the energy of the 

 forces of intellectual recovery already described. 



Imagination properly means such constructions 

 as those of the Fine Arts, where some emotion 

 rules the mind in forming the creation. Any one 

 carried away by feeling, as by hatred and revenge, 

 is apt to construct harmonising pictures of the 

 object, the suggesting element being the emotion. 

 This is the difference, frequently overlooked, be- 

 tween artistic Imagination and Originality or 

 invention in science and practice. The artist 

 has in his view before all other things to produce 

 a certain effect of the beautiful, grand, pictur- 

 esque, &c. ; and the images that rise up to his 

 view must have this peculiarity, otherwise he has 

 to reject them. He may not despise or set aside 

 truth, or practical utility ; but these alone would 

 not constitute what is demanded from his art. 

 (For the full illustration of the Laws of Associa- 

 tion, see Bain on the Senses and the Intellect?) 



THE EMOTIONS. 



The Sensations have been already passed in 

 review, thus anticipating one large and well- 

 marked class of our emotions. In completing the 

 detail in this division, we have also to advert 

 more particularly to the properties of Emotion, 

 Feeling or Consciousness, considered as one of 

 three departments of the mind. 



OF EMOTION IN GENERAL. 



Emotion, or consciousness, is a fact distinct and 

 peculiar ; we cannot resolve it into any other 

 more general fact or property. Every being that 



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