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short periods, sometimes in consequence of good or ill health, or of happy or adverse fortune, and sometimes for causes which cannot be easily explained. So that our mental states will be found to follow each other with a succession, varying not only with the general character of our temper and dispositions, but with the transitory emotions of the day or hour.

All the laws of association may properly be given here in a condensed view. The PRIMARY or general laws, are RESEMBLANCE, CONTRAST, CONTIGUITY in time and place, and CAUSE and EFFECT. Those circumstances which are found particularly to modify and control the action of these are termed SECONDARY laws, and are as follows: Lapse of time, Repetition or habit, Coexistent feeling, and Constitutional difference in mental character.

231. Of associations caused by present objects of perception.

There remains another point of view in which it seems proper that the subject of association should be contemplated before we leave it.-Associated thoughts and emotions, when made to pass through the mind by some sound which the ear has caught, by some object which has met the eye, or any present object of perception whatever, are peculiarly vivid and strong. Associations which do not admit any of our present perceptions as a part of the associated train, cannot but impress us as being in some measure airy and unsubstantial, however distinct. We deeply feel that they are part of the experiences of departed days, and which, in departing from us, have become almost as if they had never been. But let them partake of our present experience, of what we now feel and know to exist, and they seem to gain new strength; the remembrances are not only distinct, but what was airy and unsubstantial fades away, and they have life, and power, and form.

How often, in the wanderings of life, are we led, by some apparently accidental train of thought, to the recollection of the residence of our early years and of the incidents which then occurred! The associations are interesting, but we find it difficult to make them permanent, and they are comparatively faint. But let there be con

nected with the train of thought the present sound of some musical instrument which we then used to hear, and of our favourite tune, and it will be found that the reality of the tune blends itself with the airy conceptions of the mind, and, while we kindle with an illusive rapture, the whole seems to be real. Some illustrations may tend to nake these statements more clear, and to confirm them.

It is related in one of the published Lectures of Dr. Rush, that an old native African was permitted by his master, a number of years since, to go from home in order to see a lion that was conducted as a show through the State of New-Jersey. He no sooner saw him, than he was so transported with joy as to express his emotions by jumping, dancing, and loud acclamations, notwithstanding the torpid habits of mind and body superinduced by half a century of slavery. He had known that animal when a boy in his native country, and the sight of him suddenly revived the memory of his early enjoyments, his native land, his home, his associates, and his freedom.

There is in the same writer another interesting instance of the power of association, in which he himself had a part, and which will be given in his own words."During the time I passed at a country-school in Cecil county, in Maryland, I often went on a holyday with my schoolmates to see an eagle's nest, upon the summit of a dead tree in the neighbourhood of the school, during the time of the incubation of that bird. The daughter of the farmer in whose field this tree stood, and with whom I became acquainted, married, and settled in this city about forty years ago. In our occasional interviews, we now and then spoke of the innocent haunts and rural pleasures of our youth, and, among other things, of the eagle's nest in her father's field. A few years ago I was called to visit this woman when she was in the lowest stage of a typhus fever. Upon entering her room, I caught her eye, and, with a cheerful tone of voice, said only, The eagle's nest.' She seized my hand, without being able to speak, and discovered strong emotions of pleasure in her countenance, probably from a.sudden association of all her early domestic connexions and enjoyment with the words BB 2

I had uttered.* From that time she began to recover She is now living, and seldom fails, when we meet, to salute me with the echo of the eagle's nest.'

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232. Causes of increased vividness in these instances.

From such illustrations it would seem to be sufficiently clear that, whenever associated thoughts and emotions are connected with any present perceptions, they are peculiarly strong and vivid. They steal into all the secret chambers of the soul, and, seemingly by some magic power, impart a deep intensity to its feelings, and give to the fleeting world of memory the stability of real existence. There are two causes why such associated feelings should possess more than ordinary strength and vividness.

(1.) The particular train of thought and feeling which is excited in the mind continues longer than in other cases, in consequence of the greater permanency and fixedness of the present objects of perception, which either suggested the train or make a part of it. So long as the lion was permitted to remain in the sight of the aged African, so long without interruption was the series of delightful thoughts kept up within him. The bright images which threw him into such raptures, and awoke stupidity itself, were not fleeting away with every breath, but remained permanent.-The sick lady of Philadelphia saw the physician with whom she had been acquainted in the early part of life. By the mention of the eagle's nest he vividly recalled the scenes of those young days. But it was the presence of the person whose observation had given rise to the train of association which contributed chiefly to keep it so long in her thoughts. Had it occurred merely from some accident l direction of her own mind, without any present object which had made a part of it, no doubt her sufferings or other circumstances would soon have banished it.

(2.) The second cause of the increased vividness of associations, suggested by a presem object of perception or combined with it, is this, viz.: The reality of the thing perceived (we do not profess to assert precisely in what

* Rush's Introductory Lectures. u

CASUAL ASSOCIATIONS.

(1.) INTELLECTUAL.

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manner it is done) is communicated, in the illusions of the moment, to the thing suggested.-The trees of the desert were the hiding-place of the lion when the African saw him in early life; and now, after the lapse of so many years, he imagines that, in the quickened eye of his mind, he beholds the forests of his native soil, because he has before him the proud and powerful animal that crouched under their shade. And the presence of the monarch of the forest gives a reality not only to woods and deserts, but, by a communication of that which exists to that which is merely suggested, the whole group of his early experiences, of whatever kind, so far as they are recalled, virtually acquire a like truth and reality.

CHAPTER VII.

CASUAL ASSOCIATIONS. (1.) INTELLECTUAL.

233. Association sometimes misleads our judgments.

It seems to be important, in this portion of the history of the mind, to illustrate still further the operations of the great principle of Association. There are some cases where the power of association so misleads us that we cannot easily form a correct judgment of the true nature of things. Every object of thought, in order to be fully understood, ought to be so much in our power, that we may examine it separately from all other objects. Whenever, therefore, it happens, from any circumstances, that the power of association so combines one object of thought with another that the object cannot readily be looked at and examined by itself, it so far has the effect to perplex and hinder correct judgment.

It will be found, when we look into our minds, that there exist a few associations or combinations of thought of this kind which are obstinate and almost invincible. To explain the origin, and to correct the erroneous tendencies of all such connexions of thought, although the number of such as we have now in view cannot be large,

would occupy us too long. The examination of a few somewhat striking instances will not only throw light on the philosophy of the mind in general, but will be of some practical benefit.-Other instances of CASUAL AssoCIATION, which have a more intimate connexion with the Sensibilities than with the Intellect, will be more appropriately considered under that head.

234. Casual association in respect to the place of sensation.

One of the casual associations of that extreme kind which we have now especial reference to, concerns the place, or, rather, the supposed place of sensation.-Ali sensation, it will not be forgotten, is in the mind. Whatever is inanimate or material can of course have no feeling. Nevertheless, if a wound be inflicted on the hand or foot, we seem to experience the sensation of pain in that particular place. When we merely bring the hand in contact with a warm or cold body, we even then assign a local habitation to the subsequent feeling, and it clearly seems to be not in the mind, but in the hand.

This reference of the sensation to the outward organ and place, instead of thinking of it as existing in the soul, is the result of an early and strong association. As the wound in the hand, for instance, is the cause of the painful feeling, the consequence is, that the sensation, and the place whence it arose, constantly go together in our thoughts. The result of this connexion, which has been repeated and continued from our youth up, is, that we find it extremely difficult in later life to separate them, even with the greatest effort. So difficult is it, that a soldier whose arm or leg has been amputated, still speaks of feeling pain in those limbs, though they are now, perhaps, buried in the earth or the depths of the sea.-Count Segur, in giving an account of the great battle of Borodino, observes of a certain wounded soldier, that he complained of suffering in the limbs which he no longer possessed. And he immediately adds (and there is no question probably as to the fact), that this is a common case with mutilated persons.

Although we are liable in these cases to be led into a mistake, if we do not guard against it with care, it is, per

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