Dominant Ideas. 787 



expression of the force of the lu-nt there is in it. The sensitive flame 

 in a tube dances up and down in obedience to aerial vibrations of a cer- 

 tain kind. A flame of a gas jet under heavy pressure, blazing up two 

 feet high, fell a foot at the sound of a chirp at the farther end of the 

 room. It danced in time to a waltz pla}'ed by a musical box. It kept 

 time to the ticking of a watch, trembled and contracted at the rattling 

 of a bunch of keys, and cowered down to almost nothing at the sound 

 of a hiss. But it could not be moved by the vowels o, u, or the labials. * 



The telephone, telegraph, printing press, locomotive, water-wheel, 

 wheat roller, cotton gin, and every other tool and machine contrived by 

 human ingenuity, is competent to be moved by some application of ex- 

 ternal force, which force continuing through the machine in modified ex- 

 pression in the turn of each wheel and the glide of each band, presents, 

 in its last expression, the desired movement to which all the rest are pre- 

 liminary. 



Amongst natural objects the form taken by the crystal as the result 

 of the operation of the polar forces that build it up, is a sort of expres- 

 sion in posture, or the position the parts are left in when the forces are 

 through with their action; as the posture of defense, or the posture of 

 humility, is the position a man is left in after motives of defiance or 

 abasement have gone through him. The growth of a crystal and of any 

 organism is an expression of the activity of forces, and we ascertain by 

 observation the sort of forces associated with such and such expressions, 

 and give the latter names to suit. Growth in a crystal is expressive of 

 polar action ; in an organism, of polar vital action. 



CHAPTER LXXII. 



DOMINANT IDEAS. 



All ideas, if they ever contribute to motor action, are, for the time 

 being, Dominant, whether the actions set up by them are upon the in- 

 ternal organs, as the heart, stomach, glands, &c. , or the muscles 

 of the limbs, &c. All ideas are never dominant at the same 

 time ; some very seldom are, while some are exceedingly prominent, 

 and for a longer or shorter period, or, perhaps, for a whole lifetime 

 give color to the most of the actions. An Idea may be defined, in 

 this connection, to be the sensation of a relationship between two or 

 more cerebral memories, or the composite sensation of such mem- 

 ories, mingled together, forming the sensation of relationship. Thus, 

 a man has an idea that whiskey drinking is injurious. He gets it 

 from the memory of whiskey drinking in association with a memory 

 of misery, the association of the two in the objective environment, be- 



1 Warner's Physical Expression. 



