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its utility. Ideas are attached to sounds, and these no sooner strike upon the ear, than the ideas are recalled to the mind with the vividness of first impressions The faculty of association,' says a modern writer, is interwoven in the texture of our minds; it is the parent habit, the fountain of all those pleasing sensations that spring from local causes and circumstances, and the companion cf all those feelings that constitute the rationality and felicity of man in the whole history of his progress. Each individual looks back with tender remembrance to the hours, the places, and the associates, where the world first dawned on his mental energies. In the world of life he seems to drag a lengthened chain from this innocent, this lovely region; to which the aged mind ever reverts with pleasure and complacency. The recollections of the playful sports of childhood solace the imagination and the memory in the evening of life, as if man, like a plant, was physically attached to the spot in which he blossomed'.'

Sometimes the association of particulars follows certain laws, at others it seems to be quite arbitrary. The most obvious of these laws are the relations of resemblance and analogy, of contrast and contiguity in time and place. To these may also be added those of cause and effect, of means and end, of premises and conclusion. These latter, however, require a much more active train of thought than the former.

We cannot illustrate the effects of this power either more pleasantly or more efficiently than by a few brief examples: Captain King met with an old halfworn pewter spoon in a miserable hut on the banks of the Awatska, with the word London stamped on it; an incident which he records in gratitude for the many pleasant thoughts, anxious hopes, and tender remembrances it excited.'

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Boyne's Remarks on the Physical and Moral History of the Human Species.

An elegant writer, in alluding to the emotions excited by viewing the relics of Rome, observes, 'It is ancient Rome that fills the imagination. It is the country of Cæsar, and Cicero, and Virgil, which is before him. It is the mistress of the world that he sees, and who seems to rise again from the tomb and give laws to the universe. All that the labours of his youth or the studies of his more mature age have acquired, with regard to the history of this great people, opens at once upon his imagination, and presents him with a field of high and solemn imagery, which can never be exhausted. Take from him these associations-conceal from him that it is Rome which he sees, and how different would be his emotions'.'

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Mr.

The love of our native country, or, perhaps, of that locality above alluded to, is so universal a feeling in the human bosom, that it pervades all ranks and all climates, and is capable of being excited by the most incidental and trivial circumstances. We shall not, therefore, hesitate to close our remarks on this head with one of the most simple and touching displays of association we recollect to have met with. Ives, when travelling from Persia to England, had passed the plains of Mesopotamia; and remarks, This day, for the first time since we left England, we saw a goldfinch, which settled on a thistle close to our hut. The sight of this little agreeable songster gave us exquisite pleasure, owing to the single consideration that birds of this kind were inhabitants of Britain. The thought set before our heated imaginations all those gilded scenes of delight that we supposed were to be found only in that happy region, and which, with wishes bordering on enthusiasm, we were now praying to enjoy. We panted for our mother country, that "Natale Solum" so pathetically described by the poets, and so sensibly felt in every human breast, after a long and painful separation. We could

Alison on Taste.

not help looking upon this tuneful goldfinch as a fellow citizen, who had kindly flown thus far to bid us welcome, to raise our drooping spirits, and signify to us that we were drawing nearer to our native country, that land of liberty, after which we had so long and so passionately sighed'.'

When our intellectual powers are employed in representing to the mind the objects of any of the other faculties, variously combined, the mental operation is expressed by the terms conception or imagination; for they are frequently used as synonymous. If we reflect upon the nature of any of our intellectual faculties, conception is then engaged upon an object of consciousness: if it be a taste, smell, or feeling that occupies our attention, conception is employed on an object of sensation. If the thoughts are engaged in contemplating some individual material body, conception is exercised on an object of perception; if it be a single quality or attribute, it is an object of abstraction; but if it be any combination which does not actually exist in nature, the subject of our conception is an object of association. The office of conception is merely to represent to the mind an idea of the object on which it is engaged, without expressing any judgment respecting it. Our conceptions may, therefore, be distinct or confused, strong or weak, vivid or languid; but they cannot with propriety be said to be either true or false, which are terms applicable to judgment alone. All these different states of this faculty daily exhibit themselves in the common intercourse of society, and must be familiar to him who observes passing circumstances with attention. In reference to this operation of the mind, Mr. Stewart says, A talent for lively description, at least in the case of sensible objects, depends chiefly on the degree in which the describer possess the power of conception. We may remark, even in common conver

'Ives's Journey from Persia to England.

sation, a striking difference among individuals in this respect. One man, in attempting to convey a notion of any object he has seen, seems to place it before him, and to paint from actual perception: another, although not deficient in a ready elocution, finds himself, in such a situation, confused and embarrassed among a number of particulars imperfectly apprehended, which crowd into his mind without any just order or connexion. Nor is it merely to the accuracy of our descriptions that this power is subservient; it contributes more than any thing else to render them striking and impressive to others, by guiding us to a selection of such circumstances as are most prominent and characteristical; insomuch that I think it may reasonably be doubted, if a person would not write a happier description of an object from the conception, than from the actual perception of it'.'

When our conceptions are vivid, and especially if accompanied by the exercise of abstraction or association, as they frequently are, they constitute what is more peculiarly termed imagination. The appropriate province of this power, according to Mr. Stewart, is to make a selection of qualities and of circumstances from a variety of different objects, and, by combining and disposing these, to form a new creation of its own.' Men obviously differ widely from each other in this respect. The ready formation of these combinations constitutes what is usually denominated genius; though this term implies a perfection of all or most of the intellectual faculties rather than of only one.

Though man, a passing breath exhaled by Sol's
Refulgent beam, or meteor seems, that shoots
Across the sky, then dips its flaming orb
In ocean's glistening tide, and disappears;
Yet o'er the wreck of time true GENIUS soars,
And with her lightning's blaze the world illumes.

1 Philosophy of the Human Mind.
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Nor checked by Art's frail mounds, nor warped by vain
Pursuits, her steady course she fearless holds
In Nature's varied paths; but brightest shines
In Virtue's glorious train.-Whether amidst
Ægean isles she takes her stand, and, in
Homeric strains, valour's stern form pourtrays,
Or dips her lyre in patriot zeal, and Troy's
Resistance sings; whether with wisdom's sons
In academic groves she walks, or in

The porch reclines; whether the Spartan mind
She nerves, his country's passion to controul,

Or tunes the Athenian's tongue, while list'ning crowds
Attentive stand, and words of thunder bend

A nation to his will, her march is still
Majestic. Yet illumed by Virtue's rays,
With nobler mien the Athenian marts she trod,
The list'ning youth in duty's path to guide;

Or 'midst the mental gloom that wrapped the world
In night's deep shades, the lamp of life she trimmed,
And conscience roused from her lethargic pause;
Else in Miltonic strains th' effects of vice
Pourtrays in all their deeds terrific, and

The soul to Virtue's lovely banner wins.

There is however a species of inferior or passive imagination which is far more prevalent, and which gives its possessors a ready conception of such combinations when presented to their attention, though they could never have produced them. This does not, indeed, constitute a man of genius, yet it forms the proper qualifications of a man of taste-since it enables him to appreciate works of genius, though neither to rival nor excel them. This state of the imagination does not, in fact, contribute less to the happiness of its possessors than that more active description which characterises genius; for the diminution of pleasure between contemplating works of genius and producing them, is more than counterbalanced by that acuteness, perhaps that morbid sensibility of feeling, with which great mental superiority is so frequently allied.

Imagination forms the basis of all the fine arts. It is upon this foundation that the painter and the poet rear their most fascinating superstructures, on

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