simple suggestion, as readily as they arose in like manner in accordance with some train of thought in the mind of their original authors, had but risen by the suggestion of analogy, as they now arise by the suggestion of former proximity, what we call memory, which is, in truth, only the same suggestion in different circumstances, would have been fancy or genius; and his country and age would have had another name to transmit to the reverence and the emulation of the ages that are to follow. It is the same with inventive genius in the sciences and the severer arts, which does not depend on the mere knowledge of all the phenomena previously observed, or of all the applications of them that have been made to purposes of art, but chiefly on the peculiar tendency of the mind to suggest certain analogous ideas, in successions, different from those ordinary succesHe may, persions of grosser contiguity, which occur to common minds. haps, be called a philosopher, who knows accurately what others know, and produces with the same means which others employ, the same effects which they produce. But he alone has philosophic genius, to whose speculations analogous effects suggest analogous causes, and who contrives practically, by the suggestions of analogy, to produce new effects or to produce the same effects by new and simpler means. The primary laws of association, then, it appears, as far as they operate in our intellectual exertions, are greatly modified by original constitutional diversities. They are not less modified by constitutional diversities of another kind. These are the diversities of what is called temper, or disposition. It is thus we speak of one person of a gloomy, and another of a cheerful disposition; and we avoid the one, and seek the company of the other, as if with perfect confidence, that the trains of thought which rise by spontaneous suggestion to the minds of each will be different, and will be in accordance with that variety of character which we have supposed. To the cheerful, almost every object which they perceive is cheerful as themselves. In the very darkness of the storm, the cloud which hides the sunshine from their eye, does not hide it from their heart while, to the sullen, no sky is bright, and no scene is fair. There are future fogs, which to their eyes, pollute and darken the purest airs of spring; and spring itself is known to them less as the season which follows and repairs the desolation of winter that is past, than as the season which announces its approaching return, The next secondary law of suggestion to which I proceed, is one akin to the last which we have considered. The primary laws are modified, not by constitutional and permanent differences only, but by differences which occur in the same individual, according to the varying emotion of the hour. from As there are persons, whose general character is gloomy or cheerful, we have, in like manner, our peculiar days or moments in which we pass one of these characters to the other, and in which our trains of thought are tinctured with the corresponding varieties. A mere change of fortune is often sufficient to alter the whole cast of sentiment. Those who are in possession of public station, and power and affluence, are accustomed to represent affairs in a favourable light: the disappointed competitors for place to represent them in the most gloomy light; and though much of this difference may, unquestionably, be ascribed to wilful mis-statement in both cases, much of it is, as unquestionably, referable to that difference of colouring in which objects appear to the successful and the unsuccessful. "Ask men's opinions;-Scoto now shall tell And Britain, if not Europe, is undone."* The same remark may be applied to the different periods of life, to the happy thoughtlessness of youth, and to the cautious, calculating sadness of old age. The comparative gaiety of our earlier years is not merely a cause, but an effect also, of the tendency of the mind, at that period, to suggest images of hope and pleasure, on almost every occasion. If even a slight momentary feeling of joy or sorrow have the power of modifying our suggestions, in accordance with it, emotions of a stronger and lasting kind must influence the trains of thought still more ;-the meditations of every day rendering stronger the habitual connexions of such thoughts as accord with the peculiar frame of mind. It is in this way that every passion, which has one fixed object,—such as love, jealousy, revenge, derives nourishment from itself, suggesting images that give it, in return, new force and liveliness. We see, in every thing, what we feel in ourselves; and the thoughts which external things seem to suggest, are thus, in part at least, suggested by the permanent emotion within. When Eloisa, in Pope's celebrated Epistle, thinks of the invention of letters, the only uses which her train of thought suggests, are those which are analogous to the circumstances of her own passion. "Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires The temporary diversities of state, that give rise to varieties of suggestion, are not mental only, but corporeal; and this difference of bodily state furnishes another secondary law, in modification of the primary. I need not refer to the extreme cases of intoxication or actual delirium,-to the copious flow of follies, which a little wine, or a few grains of opium, may extract from the proudest reasoner. In circumstances less striking, how different are the trains of thought in health and in sickness,-after a temperate meal and after a luxurious excess! It is not to the animal powers only, that the burthen of digestion may become oppressive, but to the intellectual also; and often to the intellectual powers even more than to the animal. In that most delightful of all states, when the bodily frame has recovered from disease, and when in the first walk beneath the open sunshine, amid the blossoms and balmy air of summer, there is a mixture of corporeal and mental enjoyment, in which it is not easy to discriminate what images of pleasure arise from every object, that, in other states of health, might have excited no thought or emotion whatever. "See the wretch, that long has toss'd On the thorny bed of pain, At length repair his vigour lost, * Pope's Moral Essays, Ep. I. v. 158–161. + V. 51-58 The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise.' There is yet another principle which modifies the primary laws of suggestion with very powerful influence. This is the principle of habit. I do not speak of its influence in suggesting images which have been already frequently suggested in a certain order, for it would then be simpler to reduce the habit itself to the mere power of association. I speak of cases, in which the images suggested may have been of recent acquisition, but are suggested more readily in consequence of general tendencies produced by prior habits. When men of different professions observe the same circumstances, listen to the same story, or peruse the same work, their subsequent suggestions are far from being the same; and could the future differences of the associate feelings that are to rise, be foreseen by us at the time, we should probably be able to trace many of them to former professional peculiarities, which are thus always unfortunately apt to be more and more aggravated by the very suggestions to which they have themselves given rise. The most striking example, however, of the power of habit in modifying suggestion, is in the command which it gives to the orator, who has long been practised in extemporary elocution; a command not of words merely, but of thoughts and judgments, which, at the very moment of their sudden inspiration, appear like the long-weighed calculations of deliberative reflection. The whole divisions of his subject start before him at once; image after image as he proceeds, arises to illustrate it; and proper words in proper places are all the while embodying his sentiments, as if without the slightest effort of his own. In addition then, to the primary laws of suggestion, which are founded on the mere relations of the objects or feelings to each other, it appears that there is another set of laws, the operation of which is indispensable to account for the variety in the effects of the former. To these I have given the name of secondary laws of suggestion;-and we have seen, accordingly, that the suggestions are various as the original feelings have been, 1st, Of longer or shorter continuance; 2dly, More or less lively; 3dly, More or less frequently present; 4thly, More or less recent; 5thly, More or less pure, if I may so express it, from the mixture of other feelings; 6thly, That they vary according to differences of original constitution; 7thly, According to differences of temporary emotion; 8thly, According to changes produced in the state of the body; and 9thly, According to general tendencies produced by prior habits. The first four laws, which relate rather to the momentary feelings themselves than to the particular frame of mind of the individual, have, it must be remembered, a double operation. When the two associate feelings have both together, or in immediate succession, been of long continuance, very lively, frequently renewed in the same order, and that recently, the tendency to suggest each other is most powerful. But the greater tendency, though then most remarkably exhibited,-is not confined to cases in which these laws are applicable to both the associate feelings. It is much increased, even when they apply only to that one which is second in the succession. The sight of an object which is altogether new to us, and which, therefore, could not have formed a stronger connexion with one set of objects than with "Gray's Ode, On the Pleasures arising from Vicissitude, Stanza vi. 48 VOL. I. another, will more readily recall to us, by its resemblance or other relation, such objects as have been long familiar to us, than others which may have passed frequently before us, but with which we are little acquainted. The sailor sees every where some near or distant similarity to the parts of his own ship; and the phraseology, so rich in nautical metaphors, which he uses, and applies, with most rhetorical exactness, even to objects perceived by him for the first time, is a proof that, for readiness of suggestion, it is not necessary that the secondary laws of suggestion should, in every particular case, have been applicable to both the suggesting and the suggested idea. Even one of these secondary laws, alone, may be sufficient to change completely the suggestion, which would otherwise have arisen from the operation of the primary laws; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that when many of them, as they usually do, concur in one joint effect, the result in different individuals should be so various. Of the whole audience of a crowded theatre, who witness together the representation of the same piece, there are probably no two individuals, who carry away the same images, though the resemblances, contiguities, contrasts, and in general what I have called the primary, in opposition to the secondary laws of suggestion, may have been the same to both. Some will perhaps think afterwards of the plot, and general developement of the drama; some, of the merits of the performers; some will remember little more than that they were in a great crowd, and were very happy; a gay and dissipated young man will perhaps think only of the charms of some fascinating actress; and a young beauty will as probably carry away no remembrance so strong, as that of the eyes which were most frequently fixed upon hers. By the consideration of these secondary laws of suggestion, then, the difficulty, which the consideration of the primary laws left unexplained, is at once removed. We see now, how one suggestion takes place rather than another, when, by the operation of the mere primary laws, many suggestions might arise equally; the influence of the secondary laws modifying this general tendency, and modifying it, of course, variously, as themselves are various. LECTURE XXXVIII. THE DEGREE OF LIVELINESS OF THE SUGGESTING FEELINGS INFLUENCES GREATLY THAT OF THE FEELINGS SUGGESTED. My last Lecture, gentlemen, was employed in an inquiry, which very naturally arises from the consideration of the various relations according to which suggestion may take place ;-why, if the same object, as either perceived or imagined by us, is capable, by its almost innumerable relations, of suggesting the conception of various other objects, it suggests, at any paticular time, one of these, rather than another? To say, that certain objects suggest certain other objects which are similar to them, opposite to them i quality, or formerly proximate in place or time, is to say nothing in explana tion of this difficulty, but only to state the very difficulty itself; since it is to state various relations, according to which various conceptions may indifferently arise. It is evident, therefore, that whatever may be the num-. ber of these primary laws of suggestion, or general circumstances of relation, according to which the parts of our trains of thought may suggest each other, there must be other circumstances, which modify and direct the operation of the primary laws. To these modifying circumstances I gave the name of secondary laws of suggestion; the classification of which,though not less interesting or important than the classification of the general circumstances which constitute the primary laws,-has been altogether neglected, even by those philosophers who have endeavoured to arrange the primary relations. The chief part of my last lecture was employed, accordingly, in inquiring into the general circumstances which constitute the secondary laws of suggestion; those circumstances by which it happens, that one suggestion takes place rather than another, when according to the mere primary laws either suggestion might equally occur. To repeat then, briefly, that enumeration which was the result of our inquiry, the occasional suggestions that flow from the primary laws, on which our trains of thought depend, are various, as the original feelings have been, 1st, Of longer or shorter continuance; 2dly, More or less lively; 3dly, Of more or less frequent occurrence; 4thly, More or less recent; 5thly, More or less pure from the occasional and varying mixture of other feelings; 6thly, They vary according to differences of original constitution; 7thly, According to differences of temporary emotion; Sthly, According to changes produced in the state of the body; and, 9thly, According to general tendencies produced by prior habits. Many of these differences, it is evident, may concur; but even a single difference in any one of these respects may be sufficient to account for the particular varying suggestion of the moment. The next inquiry to which I would direct your attention, is to the difference of the liveliness of the feeling which forms a part of a train of thought, according as that which suggested it may have been itself more or less lively. The conception of an object may, it is evident, be suggested in two ways, -by the perception of some other object really existing without; or by some other conception, previously existing in a train of internal thought. But, though it may be suggested in either way, it is by no means indifferent, with respect to it, in which of the two ways the suggestion has taken place. "The influence of perceptible objects," says Mr. Stewart, "in reviving former thoughts and former feelings, is more particularly remarkable. After time has, in some degree, reconciled us to the death of a friend, how wonderfully are we affected the first time we enter the house where he lived! Every thing we see, the apartment where he studied,—the chair upon which he sat, recall to us the happiness we have enjoyed together; and we should feel it a sort of violation of that respect we owe to his memory, to engage in any light or indifferent discourse when such objects are before us. In the case, too, of those remarkable scenes, which interest the curiosity from the memorable persons or transactions which we have been accustomed to connect with them in the course of our studies, the fancy is more awakened by the actual perception of the scene itself, than by the mere conception or imagination of it. Hence the pleasure we enjoy in visiting classical ground; in beholding the retreats which inspired the genius of |