notion or general term summing up a great number of varied phenomena into an actual entity, and thenceforth allowed it to tyrannize over the thoughts. It is a great and mischievous error to suppose that an idea of the same object or event has always a uniform quantitative and qualitative value; and the way in which it is the custom to speak of certain abstract ideas, as if they were constant entities admitting of no variation, nor of the shadow of a change, is a remarkable example of that self-deception by which man fondly fools himself "with many words making nothing understood." An idea may be definite, clear, and adequate, or it may be indefinite, obscure, and inadequate ; it by no means follows, therefore, that because the same name is given to an idea in two persons, it has the same value in each/ Certain ideas will always have a different value in persons at a different stage of cultivation; and when the well-meaning traveller, or the ardent missionary thinks to find in the miserable savage the idea of a god, he should take heed that he is not erroneously interpreting the savage mind by the text of his own. The ideas of virtue and vice, for which the Australian savage confessedly has no words in his language, cannot be implanted or organized in his mind, until, by cultivation continued through generations, he has been humanized and civilized. (3)

To acquire those so-called fundamental ideas, universal intuitions, or categories of the understanding, of which some metaphysicians make so much, as constant elements, though they differ greatly in value in different people, there is no other need but, using Hobbes' words, "to be born a man, and live with the use of his five senses." (3) Because all men have a common nature, and because the nature by which all men are surrounded is the same, therefore are developed certain ideas which have a universal application, but they are nowise independent of experience; on the contrary, the universality of their character is owing to the very fact that in every experience they are implicitly suggested or involved, so that they finally become fixed as endowments in the acquired nature or organization of the nervous centres; /conscious acquisition becoming here, as elsewhere, unconscious faculty, by virtue of an organic process/ But their absolute truth, as expressions of certain fundamental relations between man and nature, is only guaranteed by the assumption of an

unchanging persistence of these relations; a new sense conferred upon him would entirely change the aspect of things, and render necessary a new order of fundamental ideas.* (*)

Having said thus much concerning the manner in which our ideas are acquired, I proceed to indicate the different ways in which the reaction of an idea, when active, may be displayed: having considered idea as statical, it now remains to consider it in actual energy.

(a) The reflex action or reaction of an ideational nerve-cellmay be downwards upon the motor centres, and may thus give rise to what has been called ideomotor movement.t (5) The energy may be exerted either upon the involuntary or upon the voluntary muscles; and in the latter case, it takes place either with consciousness or without consciousness, The idea that the bowels will act may notably sometimes so affect their involuntary peristaltic movements as to produce evacuation of them; the idea that vomiting must take place, when a qualmish feeling exists, will certainly hasten vomiting; the idea of a nervous man that he cannot effect sexual intercourse assuredly may render him incapable of it; and there is a very remarkable instance told in the l'hilosophical Transactions of a man who could for a time stop the motions of his heart. These are

"We can conceive ourselves as endowed with smelling and not enjoying any other faulty. In that case, we should have no idea of objects as secable, as hearable, as touchable, or tasteable. We should have a train of smells; the smell at one time of the rose, at another of the violet, at another of carrion, and so on. Our life would be a train of smells."—J. MILL, Analysis of the Human Mind.

"To prove that Ideas, as well as Sensations, are the cause of muscular actions, it is necessary to make choice of cases in which the idea is in no danger of being confounded with that state of mind called the Will. And hardly any case will answer this condition, except some of those which are held to be involuntary, for the Idea itself never can be very clearly distinguished from the Will. "—J. MILL, op. cil. p. 265. He instances yawning on seeing some one yawn, the infectious power of convulsions, laughter, sobbing, the swallowing of saliva, if assured that you cannot. It seems, therefore, to be established induction, that muscular actions follow ideas, as invariable anteced sequent, in other words, as cause and effect; that, whenever we have obtained a command over the ideas, we have also obtained a command over the motions; and that we cannot perform associate contractions of several muscles, '..l we have established, by repetition, the ready association of the ideas."—Ibid. p. 274.

a simple
and con

"There is an instance told in the Philosophical Transactions of man who could for a time stop the motions of his heart when he pleased; and Mr. D. has

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examples of the influence of idea upon the involuntary muscles, and they are conformable to what has been previously said of the subordination of the organic nerve centres to the cerebrospinal system. Some people even are able, through a vivid idea of shuddering, or of something creeping over their skin, to produce a cutis anserina, or goose's skin: the immediate effect of the idea in this case, however, is probably to excite the appropriate sensation which thereupon gives rise to the sequent phenomena. Examples of the action of idea upon our voluntary muscles are witnessed in every hour of our waking life. Very few, in fact, of the familiar acts of a day call the will into action: when not sensori-motor they are mostly prompted by ideas. But the point on which I would lay stress here is, that such ideomotor movements may take place, not only without any intervention of the will, but also without consciousness; they are automatically accomplished, like the actions of the sleepwalker, in obedience to an idea or a series of ideas, of which there is no active consciousness. It may seem paradoxical to assert, not merely that ideas may exist in the mind without any consciousness of them-which every one admits in their dormant, latent, or statical condition they may-but that an idea, or a train of associated ideas, may be quickened into action, and instigate movements, without themselves being attended to. But it is unquestionably so: a great part of the chain of our waking thoughts, and of the series of our daily actions, actually never is attended to: at first consciously acquired, these have now become automatic. Persons who have a habit of talking to themselves are generally unaware that they are talking, and yet they are performing both associated ideas and associated

movements.

It is surprising how uncomfortable any one may be made by the obscure notion of something which he ought to have said or done on some occasion, but did not say or do, and which he cannot for the life of him now remember. There is a dim feeling of some impulse unsatisfied, an effort, as it were, of the lost idea to get into consciousness; this activity is not sufficient to

often told me he could so far increase the peristaltic motion of his bowels by voluntary efforts as to produce an evacuation by a stool at any time in half-anhour."-Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 39.

excite consciousness, but sufficient to react upon the unconscious mental life, and to produce a feeling of discomfort or vague unrest, which is relieved directly the idea bursts into consciousness. Then, again, when an active idea has once taken firm possession of consciousness, how hard a matter it is to dismiss it! Some weak-minded persons cannot do so until they have expended its force in suitable action: let a hysterical woman get a vivid idea of some action that she must do the idea becomes a fate which she must sooner or later obey, not otherwise than as in electro-biology or hypnotism the patient is governed by the idea which the operator suggests. Let a quicktempered man conceive a great insult suddenly done to him: in a moment, without any intervention of the will, the idea reacts upon the muscles of his body, and produces more or less general tension of them. Let a man engaged in a fight get the idea that he will be beaten: his muscular energy is weakened, and he is already half conquered.

(b) The reflex action of an ideational nerve-cell may operate downwards not only upon the motor nuclei, but also upon the sensory ganglia. As the idea is excited into activity by the impression on the senses, so it may in turn react downwards upon the sensory centres, giving rise even under certain circumstances to illusions and hallucinations. The idea of a nauseous taste may excite the sensation to such a degree as to produce vomiting; the sight of a person about to run a sharp instrument over glass will set the teeth on edge; the images of dreams are sometimes, as Spinoza has remarked, really visible for a while after the eyes are open. The celebrated Baron von Swieten, says Dr. Darwin, who illustrates this kind of ideational action by many instances, "was present when the putrid carcase of a dead dog exploded with prodigious stench; and, some years afterwards, accidentally riding along the same road, he was thrown into the same sickness and vomiting by the idea of the stench, as he had before experienced from the perception of it." The action of idea upon our sensory ganglia is a regular part of our mental life; for the co-operation of sensory activity is nothing less than necessary to clear conception and represent.tion. In order to form a distinct and definite conception of whit is not present to sense, we are compelled to form some sort of

image of it in the mind; the sense of sight, which anatomically is in most extensive connexion with the cerebral ganglia, affording us the greatest assistance in this regard. Men differ much in the power which they have of thus rendering an idea sensible. Goethe could call up an image at will, and make it undergo various transformations, as it were, before his eyes; Shelley appears to have been, on one occasion at least, the victim of positive hallucinations generated by his ideas. But the most remarkable instance of a habit of seeing his own ideas as actual images was afforded by the engraver, William Blake. "You have only to work up imagination to the state of vision, and the thing is done," was his own account of the genesis of his visions.* To render definite the creations of the imagination, and to give fit expressions to them, they must be accompanied by some sensorial representation. The great writers whose vivid descriptions of scenery or events hold our attention and stir our feelings, have this power in high degree; they create for themselves a world of sense by the influence of idea, and then strive to present vividly to us what they have thus represented to their own minds. Natural endowments being equal, those writers who have the greatest number of residua stored up in consequence of much and varied experience, are best qualified to call up vivid images, and best qualified to call up such as are truly representative of nature; whilst those who are wanting in experience, or who

"Dr. Ferriar mentions of himself that, when at the age of fourteen, if he had been viewing any interesting object in the course of the day, as a romantic ruin, a fine seat, or a review of troops, as soon as evening came the whole scene was brought before him with a brilliancy equal to what it possessed in daylight, and remained visible for some minutes."-ABERCROMBIE, On the Intellectual Powers. Sir I. Newton could recall an ocular spectrum of the sun when he went into the dark and directed his mind intensely, "as when a man looks earnestly to see a thing which is difficult to be seen.' From these recollected images of objects of sense, which the reason duly distinguishes from the realities around, we meet with examples narking a gradual transition to those spectral images or illusions which cannot be distinguished from realities, which, in fact, compel belief and excite emotions and actions in accordance with their character. Abercrombie mentions a patient who had the power of creating the illusion by an effort of will, but had no power of removing it. A step farther, and there is neither the power of calling up an illusion at will—for it rises in spite of the will— nor of distinguishing it from realities, nor of dismissing it at will. It is excited by some morbid cause, confounds itself with realities, compels belief, and dominates the conduct.