THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 187 



organisms at all instants of their waking lives rela- 

 tions which are absolutely constant and universal 

 there will be established answering internal relations, 

 that are absolutely constant and universal. Such rela- 

 tions we have in those of Space and Time. As the 

 substratum of all other relations of the Non-Ego, they 

 must be responded to by conceptions that are the sub- 

 strata of all other relations in the Ego. Being the 

 constant and infinitely repeated elements of thought, 

 they must become the automatic elements of thought 

 the elements of thought which it is impossible to get 

 rid of the " forms of intuition." ' 



Throughout this application and extension of 

 Hartley's and Mill's ' Law of Inseparable Association,' 

 Mr. Spencer stands upon his own ground, invoking, 

 instead of the experiences of the individual, the 

 registered experiences of the race. His overthrow of 

 the restriction of experience to the individual is, I 

 think, complete. That restriction ignores the power 

 of organising experience, furnished at the outset to 

 each individual; it ignores the different degrees of 

 this power possessed by different races, and by different 

 individuals of the same race. Were there not in the 

 human brain a potency antecedent to all experience, 

 a 'dog or a cat ought to be as capable of education as 

 a man. These predetermined internal relations are 

 independent of the experiences of the individual. The 

 human brain is the ' organised register of infinitely 

 numerous experiences received during the evolution 

 of life, or rather during the evolution of that series of 

 organisms through which the human organism has been 

 reached. The effects of the most uniform and frequent 

 of these experiences have been successively bequeathed, 

 principal and interest, and have slowly mounted to that 

 high intelligence which lies latent in the brain of the 

 42 



