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 nct because there is any resemblance in the things thus

associated, but in consequence of their very marked con trariety. 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 suggest. ing scenes of ideal happiness, and his mind revels in a paradise of delights merely to give greater intensity te his actual woes by contrasting them with imaginary bliss "I represent to myself continually," says the Lepe 66 societies of sincere and virtuous friends; families bless ed 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. I am not the first

That have been wretched; but to think how much
I have been happier."

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

Dy 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.

30+

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 AMEF CAN REVOLU TION, 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 O

merely in the same country, (for that circumstance alone might not have been sufficient to have recalled tnem,) but at the same period of time.

It is generally supposed, and not without reason for it. that the third primary law of mental association is more extensive in its influence than any others. It has been remarked with truth, that proximity in time and place forms the basis of the whole calendar of the great mass of mankind. They pay but little attention to the arbitrary eras of chronology; but date events by each other, and speak of what happened at the time of some dark day, of some destructive overflow of waters, of some great eclipse, of some period of drought and famine, of some war or revolution.

146. Cause and effect the fourth primary law.

There are certain facts or events which hold to each other the relation of invariable antecedence and sequence. That fact or event to which some other one sustains the relation of constant antecedence, is, in general, called an effect. And that fact or event to which some other one holds the relation of invariable sequence, has, in general, the name of a cause. Now there may be no resemblance in the things which reciprocally bear this relation; there may be no contrariety; and it is by no means necessary that there should be contiguity in time or place, as the meaning of the term contiguity is commonly understood. There may be CAUSE and EFFECT without any one or all of these circumstances. But it is a fact which is known to every one's experience, that, when we think of the cause in any particular instance, we naturally think of the effect, and, on the contrary, the knowledge or recollection of the effect brings to mind the cause. And in view of this well-known and general experience, there is good reason for reckoning CAUSE and EFFECT among the primary principles of our mental associations. What we here understand by principles or laws will be recollected, viz., The general designation of those circumstances under which the regular consecution of mental states occurs.

It is on the principle of Cause and Effect, that, when we see a surgical instrument, or any engine of torture, we