EQUILIBRATION. 517 



That is to say, the wave of nervous energy each instant gen- 

 erated, propagates itself throughout body and brain, along 

 those channels which the conditions at the instant render 

 lines of least resistance; and spreading widely in proportion 

 to its amount, ends only when it is equilibrated by the resist- 

 ances it everywhere meets. If we contemplate men- 

 tal actions as extending over hours and days, we discover 

 equilibrations analogous to those hourly and daily estab- 

 lished among the bodily functions. In the one case as in 

 the other, there are rhythms which exhibit a balancing of 

 opposing forces at each extreme, and the maintenance of a 

 certain general balance. This is seen in the daily alterna- 

 tion of mental activity and mental rest — the forces expend- 

 ed during the one being compensated by the forces ac- 

 quired during the other. It is also seen in the recurring 

 rise and fall of each desire: each desire reaching a certain 

 intensity, is equilibrated either by expenditure of the force 

 it embodies, in the desired actions, or, less completely, in the 

 imagination of such actions: the process ending in that sa- 

 tiety, or that comparative quiescence, forming the opposite 

 limit of the rhythm. And it is further manifest under a two- 

 fold form, on occasions of intense joy or grief: each parox- 

 ysm of passion, expressing itself in vehement bodily actions, 

 presently reaches an extreme whence the counteracting 

 forces produce a return to a condition of moderate excite- 

 ment; and the successive paroxysms finally diminishing in 

 intensity, end in a mental equilibrium either like that be- 

 fore existing, or partially differing from it in its medium 

 state. But the species of mental equilibration to be 

 more especially noted, is that shown in the establishment of 

 a correspondence between relations among our states of con- 

 sciousness and relations in the external world. Each outer 

 connection of phenomena which we are capable of perceiv- 

 ing, generates, through accumulated experiences, an inner 

 connection of mental state; and the result towards which 

 this process tends, is the formation of a mental connection 



