Atril 10, 1SS5.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



313 



they become engraved, as it were, in the mechanism of the nervous 

 system, and are rendered capable of hereditarj- transmission to 

 offspring, who exhibit tliem as original, innate, automatic, or in- 

 stinctive capacities of action or habit. Young pointers, for instance, 

 on being taken out into the field for the first time, have been ob- 

 served to point, without previous training or experience. A series 

 of individuals in the same caste or otherwise, labouring for years 

 or for generations at any panieuhir industrial ai't, gradually improve 

 thereat, and acquire a marvellous dexterity and adroitness. And it 

 must be carefully borne in mind that it is actions tliat are thus 

 guided by the association of ideas or by physiological association, 

 that, by the influence of special talent and of habit in the individual 

 or in saccesaive generations, are alone capable of becoming stereo- 

 typed, as it were, into permanent instincts. Actions directed by 

 definite general notions possess no such hereditary or transmissible 

 property. 



The guidance of actions by (2) the general or abstract notion is 

 possible to man, and to man alone, and it constitutes what is 

 called "reason."' By this important characteristic ho can execute 

 works in materials altogether external to his own body, and under 

 novel, infinitely varied, and totally dissimilar circumstances of 

 time, place, subject, &c. ; be can, as it were, imprint on matter 

 aaequivocal evidences of design. Ilis mind, illumined and con- 

 stantly impressed by the general idea, can wield power over all 

 Nature. The wondrous mechanical contrivances in the industrial 

 arts, the arts founded on science, and the theoretic knowledge 

 generated by art, are all brought within the compass of liuman 

 attainment. These conscious, definite, and persistent general 

 or abstract ideas of the end to bo attained guide and 

 light the way for thejmeans towards its accomplishment. They 

 enable the human judgment to decide beforehand what particul^ 

 means are requisite, or are the most etBcient enginerv, for the 

 accomplishment of those ends. These various plans and methods 

 are invented by the imagination, wliose operation is, however, 

 rendered possible only bj- the power of abstraction and generalisa- 

 tion, assisted by that of voluntary reminiscence, whereby the idea, 

 once generated, is kept before the mind, so as to be duly rellected 

 upon and considered on all sides. A man, for instance, may go to 

 consult an unknown doctor, being guided to him by the general 

 notion of a " good doctor ; " or a boat-buLlder modelling and con- 

 structing a new boat is actuated by all his previous intellectual 

 knowledge, i.e., his general notions anent the proper lines, breadth 

 of beam, Ac. These notions determine his work, because their c 

 relations to the means he adopts are incessantly before his mind. 

 It is, we believe, the presence, predominance, and superintendence 

 of these intellectual images or generalised notions that occasion 

 actions guided thereby to be utterly independent of exterior 

 cirenmstances. The ideal generally and non-cognisance of parti- 

 cular objects involved in the general notion are transferred or 

 transfused into the actions which it dictates. Hence actions of 

 this kind are only possible to human beings; hence they never 

 become organic or deteriorate into instinct ; they do not descend 

 hereditarily to the offspring, and they are entirely beyond the sway 

 and compass of natural selection. 



Some profound cogitators opine that it is impossible to draw a 

 line of exclusive distinction between reason and instinct. This 

 opinion is probably correct if the acts only of these faculties be 

 regarded, and not the nature and functions thereof. But if, as we 

 liave essayed to show, bodily action is influenced by the intellect in 

 a twofold manner, we shall perhaps find in that distinction a 

 ground of difference Eufficiently precise and perspicuous. To 

 endeavour to explain instinct by physiological action, by natural 

 selection, by lapsed intelligence, and so forth, is scarcely sufficient. 

 ^ye must also strive to explain this wondrous, unconscious adapta- 

 tion of means to ends by an innate faculty, original or derived, 

 commonly termed instinct. P. Q. Kega.v, LL.D. 



UOGARTH'S LINE OF BEAUTY. 



[16fi6"i— George Eliot's Tcm Tnlliver " could throw a stone right 

 into the centre of a given ripple, . . . and could draw almost 

 perfect squares on his slate without measurement. But ... he 

 was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration 

 that two given triangles must bo equal, though he could discern 

 with great promptitude and certainty the fact that they were 

 equal." (See " The Mill on the Floss," book II., chap, i.) 



Suppose that Euclid's Book I., Prop. 4, has been here implied. 

 The method of demonstration seems to mean such coalescence of 

 the two triangles, A A, that their enumeration as "two" is no 

 longer valid. Yet the drawing is bj' no means a dissolving view, 

 and so the duality to the outer eye is unimpaired. Let the number 

 of triangles be increased to a dozen, B B, <ic., and here the civilised 

 man over the savage, the schoolmaster over Tom TuUiver, may feel 

 distinct superiority in faculty of enumeration. Again, lengthen the 



line and diminish the size till the triangles are dots, and innumer- 

 able, C C ; then Tom Tullivor's intellect, set at liberty from com- 

 paring two triangles, may exert itself in comparing two parts of 

 the one straight lino, and discerning that they are both alike 

 straight. 



But which two parts ? Take a ruler a foot long, and it will - 

 accurately gaiige the straightncss of some part of a straight lino 

 whoso whole may be either a yard long or a furlong or a niilo. The 

 sensation by sight or touch of an inch of straight line, a foot, or a 

 yard, repeats a cuckoo cry. Inch to inch, or inch to foot, foot to 

 foot, or foot to yard, have analogy to each other. The multipli- 

 cation of analogies produces vividness of conception, as a multi- 

 plication of musical strings sounding in unison produces a forcible 

 tone. The straight lino has tyrannical predomiuauco over other 

 forms. The action to which mental curiosity urges the eyeball, 

 instead of being the smoothly rolling motion of looking at a land- 

 scajre, becomes turned to the rapid pistoustroke-liko action of 

 ranging backwards and forwards, or up and down. The physical 

 distress of this is illustrated when the student of books early 

 resorts to the use of spectacles. Regarding the corresponding 

 mental distress, the pedestrian may compare the feelings on 

 plodding along a few miles of modern road, and on rambling along 

 an old winding lane. 



The principle is again illustrated when a boy — Tom TuUiver, or 

 some other — iustoail of pursuing a perfectly safe footpath, deviates 

 to the top of the steep bauk which borders it, and makes his way 



AAAAAAZ\AAAAA 



BBB3BBDDDBBB 



along that precarious footing. The distressing generalisation of a 

 long length, is now opposed to the partionlarisation of every 

 slippery footstep; — which is pleasanter? 



Hogarth's beau-ideal of a line of beauty is " represented by a 

 fine wire properly twisted round the elegant and varied figure of a 

 cone."* If we take two very small lengths, he, dc, of the spu-al 

 line Y Z, we find them so approximately similar as to coalesce into 

 unity. But so soon as they become aggregated into a longer length, 

 hcde, the discernment of the difference in curvature between 

 this and some other aggregation, efg, comes into play; and so we 

 are provided with the pleasure of an incipient generalisation, 

 without the distress of its speedy completion into barren, stagnant 

 totality. 



An OtD DE.IUGHTSMAN. 



WILLIAMSON AND TARLETON'S "DYNAMICS." 



[1667] — Amongst the "Letters Received" in your number of 



the week before last, "W. G. W." finds fault with the equations 



W — T W — W 

 / = . 1 and/= . g, and asks what is the meamng 



of V,'g and Vf'g. 



Both equations are perfectly correct. 



I presume " W. G. W." will not dispute the truth of the funda- 



• Hogarth's " Analysis of Beauty," Chap. VII., " Of Lines." 



