that our thoughts and feelings, under certain circumstances, appear together and keep each other company. We do not undertake to explain why it is that association, in the circumstances appropriate to its manifestation, has an existence. We know the simple fact; and if it be an ultimate principle in our mental constitution, as we have no reason to doubt that it is, we can know nothing more. Association, as thus understood, has its laws. By the Laws of association we mean no other than the general designation of those circumstances under which the regular consecution of mental states which has been mentioned occurs. The following may be named as among the Primary or more important of those laws, although it is not necessary to take upon us to assert either that the enumeration is complete, or that some better arrangement of them might not be proposed, viz., RESEMBLANCE, CONTRAST, CONTIGUITY in time and place, and CAUSE and

EFFECT.

§ 142. Resemblance the first general law of association.

A

New trains of ideas and new emotions are occasioned by Resemblance; but when we say that they are occasioned in this way, all that is meant is, that there is a new state of mind immediately subsequent to the perception of the resembling object. Of the efficient cause of this new state of mind under these circumstances, we can only say, the Creator of the soul has seen fit to appoint this connexion in its operations, without our being able, or deeming it necessary, to give any further explanation. traveller, wandering in a foreign land, finds himself, in the course of his sojournings, in the midst of aspects of nature not unlike those where he has formerly resided, and the fact of this resemblance becomes the antecedent to new states of mind. There is distinctly brought before him the scenery which he has left, his own woods, his waters, and his home. The enterprising Lander, in giving an account of one of his excursions in Africa, expresses himself thus. "The foliage exhibited every variety and tint of green, from the sombre shade of the melancholy yew to the lively verdure of the poplar and young oak. For myself, I was delighted with the agreeable ramble; and

imagined that I could distinguish among the notes of the songsters of the grove, the swelling strains of the English skylark and thrush, and the more gentle warbling of the finch and linnet. It was indeed a brilliant morning, teeming with life and beauty; and recalled to my memory a thousand affecting associations of sanguine boyhood, when I was thoughtless and happy."

The result is the same in any other case, whenever there is a resemblance between what we now experience and what we have previously experienced. We have been acquainted, for instance, at some former period, with a person whose features appeared to us to possess some peculiarity; a breadth and openness of the forehead, an uncommon expression of the eye, or some other striking mark; to-day we meet a stranger in the crowd by which we are surrounded, whose features are of a somewhat similar cast, and the resemblance at once vividly suggests the likeness of our old acquaintance.

Nor is the association which is based upon resemblance limited to objects of sight. Objects which are addressed to the sense of hearing are recalled in the same way.

"How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear.

With easy force it opens all the cells

Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard

A kindred melody, the scene recurs,

And with it all its pleasures and its pains."

§ 143. Of resemblance in the effects produced.

Resemblance operates, as an associating principle, not only when there is a likeness or similarity in the things themselves, but also when there is a resemblance in the effects which are produced upon the mind. The ocean, for instance, when greatly agitated by the winds, and threatening every moment to overwhelm us, produces in the mind an emotion similar to that which is caused by the presence of an angry man who is able to do us harm. Ard, in consequence of this similarity in the effects produced, it is sometimes the case that they reciprocally bring each other to our recollection.

Dark woods, hanging over the brow of a mountain,

cause in us a feeling of awe and wonder, like that which we feel when we behold approaching us some aged person, whose form is venerable for his years, and whose name is renowned for wisdom and justice. It is in reference to this view of the principle on which we are remarking, that the following comparison is introduced in Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination:

"Mark the sable woods,

That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow,
With what religious awe the solemn scene
Commands your steps! As if the reverend form
Of Minos or of Numa should forsake

The Elysian seats, and down the embowering glade
Move to your pausing eye."

As we are so constituted that all nature produces in us certain effects, causes certain emotions similar to those which are caused in us in our intercourse with our fellowbeings, it so happens that, in virtue of this fact, the nat ural world becomes living, animated, operative. The ocean is in anger; the sky smiles; the cliff frowns; the aged woods are venerable; the earth and its productions are no longer a dead mass, but have an existence, a soul, an agency. We see here, in part, the foundation of metaphorical language; and it is here that we are to look for the principles by which we are to determine the propriety or impropriety of its use.

144. Contrast the second general or primary law.

CONTRAST is another law or principle by which our successive mental states are suggested; or, in other terms, when there are two objects, or events, or situations of a character precisely opposite, the idea or conception of one is immediately followed by that of the other. When the discourse is of the palace of the king, how often are we reminded in the same breath of the cottage of the peasant! And thus it is that wealth and poverty, the cradle and the grave, and hope and despair, are found, in public speeches and in writings, so frequently going together, and keeping each other company. The truth is, they are connected together in our thoughts by a distinct and operative principle; they accompany each other, certainly not because there is any resemblance in the things thus

associated, but in consequence of their very marked contrariety. Darkness reminds of light, heat of cold, friendship of enmity; the sight of the conqueror is associated with the memory of the conquered, and, when beholding men of deformed and dwarfish appearance, we are at once led to think of those of erect figure or of Patagonian size. Contrast, then, is no less a principle or law of association than resemblance itself.

Count Lemaistre's touching story, entitled, from the scene of its incidents, THE LEPER OF AOST, illustrates the effects of the principle of association now under consideration. Like all persons infected with the leprosy, the subject of the disease is represented as an object of dread no less than of pity to others, and, while he is an outcast from the society of men, he is a loathsome spectacle even to himself. But what is the condition of his mind? What are the subjects of his thoughts? The tendencies of his intellectual nature prevent his thinking of wretchedness alone. His extreme misery aggravates itself by suggesting scenes of ideal happiness, and his mind revels in a paradise of delights merely to give greater intensity to his actual woes by contrasting them with imaginary bliss "I represent to myself continually," says the Leper, "societies of sincere and virtuous friends; families blessed with health, fortune, and harmony. I imagine I see them walk in groves greener and fresher than these, the shade of which makes my poor happiness; brightened by a sun more brilliant than that which sheds its beams on me; and their destiny seems to me as much more worthy of envy in proportion as my own is the more miserable" Association by CONTRAST is the foundation of the rhe torical figure of Antithesis. In one of the tragedies of Southern we find the following antithetic expressions · "Could I forget

What I have been, I might the better bear

What I am destined to. am not the first
That have been wretched;
I have been happier."

but to think how much

Here the present is placed in opposition with the past, and happiness is contrasted with misery; not by a cold and strained artifice, as one might be led to suppose, but

by the natural impulses of the mind, which is led to associate together things that are the reverse of each other

(145. Contiguity the third general or primary law.

Those thoughts and feelings which have been connected together by nearness of time and place, are readily suggested by each other; and, consequently, contiguity in those respects is rightly reckoned as another and third primary law of our mental associations. When we think of Palestine, for instance, we very readily and naturally think of the Jewish nation, of the patriarchs, of the prophets, of the Saviour, and of the apostles, because Palestine was their place of residence and the theatre of their actions. So that this is evidently an instance where the suggestions are chiefly regulated by proximity of place. When a variety of acts and events have happened nearly at the same period, whether in the same place or not, one is not thought of without the other being closely associated with it, owing to proximity of time. If, therefore, the particular event of the crucifixion of the Saviour be mentioned, we are necessarily led to think of various other events which occurred about the same period, such as the treacherous conspiracy of Judas, the denial of Peter, the conduct of the Roman soldiery, the rending of the vail of the temple, and the temporary obscuration of the

sun.

The mention of Egypt suggests the Nile, the Pyramids, the monuments of the Thebais, the follies and misfortunes of Cleopatra, the battle of Aboukir. The mention of. Greece is associated with Thermopyla and Salamis, the Hill of Mars, and the Vale of Tempe, Ilissus, the steeps of Delphi, Lyceum, and the "olive shades of Academus." These, it will be noticed, are associations on the principle of contiguity in PLACE. But if a particular event of great interest is mentioned, other events and renowned names, which attracted notice at the same period, will eagerly cluster around it. The naming of the AMERICAN REVOLUTION, for instance, immediately fills the mind with recollections of Washington, Franklin, Morris, Greene, Jay, and many of their associates, whose fortune it was to enlist their exertions in support of constitutional rights, not