THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. l8l 



of the loss of past steps in the symbolizing ot thought through lack 

 of having them fixed in memory by repetition. 



The law of adequate means implies that the motive must be 

 provided with such external accompaniments as will supply suitable 

 means or characters for the symbolizing of the idea. 



Examining the claims of sensuous feelings by these standards, 

 we shall find : 



1. That being individual and anti-social, they violate the law 

 of sufficient motive. 



2. That if the circumstances of the primitive races were such 

 as to cause a sufficiently frequent recurrence ot these bodily wants, 

 it would be impossible for such a people long to maintain existence 

 against such circumstances. 



3. Being confined to single organs they do not cause that 

 diffusion of feeling necessary to idea interpretation. 



Passing to a consideration of intellectual feelings, we find : 



1. Since they imply a universal interest in the external, they 

 are social in their nature and therefore furnish a sufficient motive. 



2. Being accompanied with a 'wave of excitement' which spreads 

 over the whole organism and leads to bodily movement, they 

 consequently supply adequate means of symbolization. The fact 

 that they ' arise more slowly and subside more gradually ' than 

 sensuous feeling is another cause for the same. 



3. Nothing, I think, need be said of the law of frequent 

 recurrence when we consider the effect of a wide world of undis- 

 covered relations on the void but plastic mind. 



And now two further questions naturally present themselves to 

 to the mind : ist. What objects in nature likely awakened these 

 emotional states in primitive man ? 2nd. What symbols were likely 

 made use of for their representation ? These two questions we 

 shall now consider, 



THE FACTS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



Having seen that language arose from an intellectual source, it 

 Avill follow that such objects as are likely to awaken intellectual ac- 

 tivity would be the first to be represented, symbolically. These we 

 affirm to have been acting things, or objects of perception in a state 

 of motion. This is proven both by experience and by reason ; by 

 experience through observation of the first signs of attention in 

 children and in savage races, in both of which loud noises, bright 



