LAWS OF MIND. 595 



but these organic differences, we must remember, will render the pleasura- 

 ble sensation itself more intense in one of these persons than in the other ; 

 so that the idea of the pleasure will also be an intenser feeling, and will, by 

 the operation of mere mental laws, excite an intenser desire, without its 

 being necessary to suppose that the desire itself is directly influenced by 

 the physical peculiarity. As in this, so in many cases, such differences in 

 the kind or in the intensity of the physical sensations as must necessarily 

 result from differences of bodily organization, will of themselves account 

 for many differences not only in the degree, but even in the kind, of the 

 other mental phenomena. So true is this, that even different qualities of 

 mind, different types of mental character, will naturally be produced by 

 mere differences of intensity in the sensations generally; as is well pointed 

 out in the able essay on Dr. Priestley, by Mr. ]\lartineau, mentioned in a 

 former chapter : 



" The sensations which form the elements of all knowledge are received 

 either simultaneously or successively : when several are received simulta- 

 neously, as the smell, the taste, the color, the form, etc., of a fruit, their as- 

 sociation together constitutes our idea of an object; when received succes- 

 sively, their association makes up the idea of an evetit. Any thing, then, 

 which favors the associations of synchronous ideas will tend to produce a 

 knowledge of objects, a perception of qualities ; while any thing which fa- 

 vors association in the successive order, will tend to produce a knowledge 

 of events, of the order of occurrences, and of the connection of cause and 

 effect; in other words, in the one case a perceptive mind, with a discrimi- 

 nate feeling of the pleasurable and painful properties of things, a sense of 

 the grand and the beautiful will be the result : in the other, a mind atten- 

 tive to the movements and phenomena, a ratiocinative and philosophic in- 

 tellect. Now it is an acknowledged principle, that all sensations experi- 

 enced during the presence of any vivid impression become strongly asso- 

 ciated with it, and Avith each other; and does it not follow that tlie syn- 

 chronous feelings of a sensitive constitution {i. e., the one which has vivid 

 impressions) will be more intimately blended than in a differently formed 

 mind? If this suggestion has any foundation in truth, it leads to an infer- 

 ence not unimportant; that where nature has endowed an individual with 

 great original susceptibility, he will probably be distinguished by fondness 

 for natural history, a relish .for the beautiful and great, and moral enthusi- 

 asm; where there is but a mediocrity of sensibility, a love of science, of ab- 

 stract truth, with a deficiency of taste and of fervor, is likely to be the re- 

 sult." 



We see from this example, that when the general laws of mind are more 

 accurately known, and, above all, more skillfully applied to the detailed ex- 

 planation of mental peculiarities, they will account for many more of those 

 peculiarities than is ordinarily supposed. Unfortunately the reaction of 

 the last and present generation against the philosophy of the eighteenth 

 century has produced a very general neglect of this great department of 

 analytical inquiry ; of which, consequently, the recent progress has been by 

 no means proportional to its early promise. The majority of those who 

 speculate on human natui-e prefer dogmatically to assume that the mental 

 differences which they perceive, or think they perceive, among human be- 

 ings, are ultimate facts, incapable of being either explained or altered, rath- 

 er than take the ti'ouble of fitting themselves, by the requisite processes of 

 thought, for referring those mental differences to the outward causes by 

 which they are for the most part produced, and on the removal of which 



