1885.] The Relations of Mind and Matter. 1069 
has been the seat of similar impressions. It is as if, in seeking 
entrance to the mind, it found its easiest channel at the point 
where impressions of some degree of similarity had already en- 
tered. Thus impressions of similar character become vertically 
in contact or in close contiguity. 
This idea certainly offers some explanation of the phenomena 
of recollection, or the recall of memories. Consciousness is a 
resultant of the immediate relations of the cerebrum with the 
surface conditions of the mental organism. It has little or no 
penetrative power in itself. To receive an impression on a fixed 
mental locality does not of itself cause disturbance of the impres- 
sions which may lie below that locality. But when an impression 
is added to a vertical series of similar impressions, consciousness 
seems to make its way downward and to arouse the whole or any 
Specially harmonious part of the series. And on thus reaching 
any mental lamina it may spread itself widely over that lamina 
and arouse to our attention a broad sheet of its impressions, 
Such seems the character of conscious association. No memory 
is recalled except through direct or indirect links of association 
with some present phase of surface activity. And no memory 
remote in time reappears until consciousness first establishes a 
rapport between some present impress or idea and a somewhat 
similar one received at that period of time. 
The conditions thus impressed on the mental organism from 
without never remain separate conceptions, like the successive 
Pictures in an album. They combine with each other and es- 
tablish relations resembling those that exist between the originals. 
All we perceive are forms, qualities or conditions, and motions. 
Any deeper knowledge of nature must be attained through the 
innate operations of the mind. The received motor conditions do 
not lie passive in the mind, but spread under the influence of 
Consciousness, or the energy which consciousness represents. 
They gradually exercise their native affinities and establish con- 
nections and relations similar to those which they possessed 
externally. The forces and principles which exist between ex- 
ternal forms and conditions become evident between their mental 
counterparts as memories combine into ideas, and these forces 
and principles become in their turn objects of conscious concep- 
tion. The universe tends to repeat itself fully in the mind. 
But mental activity does not stop here. Forms and forces also 
