CONCENTRATION UNDER EXCITEMENT.

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the vague, scattered, and tumultuous mode-but this is not of avail for any set purpose; it may be counted rather as a distracting agency than as a means of calling forth and concentrating the attention upon an exercise. The true excitement for the purpose in view is what grows out of the very subject itself, embracing and adhering to that subject. Now, for this kind of excitement, the recipe is continuous application of the mind in perfect outside stillness. Restrain all other solicitation of the senses, keep the attention upon the one act to be learnt; and, by the law of nervous and mental persistence, the currents of the brain will become gradually stronger and stronger, until they have reached the point when they do no more good for the time. This is the ideal of concentration by neutral excitement.

The enemy of such happy neutrality is pleasure from without; and the youthful mind cannot resist the distraction of a present pleasure, or even the scent of a faroff pleasure. The schoolroom is purposely screened from the view of what is going on outside; while all internal incidents that hold out pleasurable diversion are carefully restrained, at least during the crisis of a difficult lesson. A touch of pain, or the apprehension of it, if only slight, is not unfavourable to the concentration.

An important point is still to be observed, namely, that relationship of Retention to Discrimination that was stated in introducing the function of Discrimination. The consideration of this relationship illustrates with still greater point the true character of the excitement that concentrates and does not either distract or dissipate the energies. The moment of a delicate discrimination is the moment when the intellectual force is dominant;

emotion spurns nice distinctions, and incapacitates the mind for feeling them. The quiescence and stillness of the emotions enables the mind to give its full energies to the intellectual processes generally; and of these, the fundamental is perception of difference. Now, the more mental force we can throw into the act of noting a difference, the better is that difference felt, and the better it is impressed. The same act that favours discrimination, favours retention. The two cannot be kept separate. No law of the intellect appears to be more certain than the law that connects our discriminating power with our retentive power. In whatever class of subjects our discrimination is great-colours, forms, tones, tastes-in that class our retention is great. Whenever the attention can be concentrated on a subject in such a way as to make us feel all its delicate lineaments, which is another way of stating the sense of differences, through that very circumstance a great impression is made on the memory; there is no more favourable moment for engraining a recollection.

The perfection of neutral excitement, therefore, is typified by the intense rousing of the forces in an act, or a series of acts, of discrimination. If by any means we can succeed in this, we are sure that the other intellectual consequences will follow. It is a rare and difficult attainment in childhood and early youth: the conditions, positive and negative, for its highest consummation cannot readily be had. Yet we should know what these conditions are; and the foregoing attempt has been made to seize and embody them.

Pleasure and pain, besides operating in their own character, that is, besides directing the voluntary actions,

SHARPNESS OF TRANSITION.

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have a power as mere excitement, or as wakening up the mental blaze, during which all mental acts, including the impressing of the memory, are more effective. The distinction must still be drawn between concentrated and diffused excitement, between excitement in, and excitement away from, the work to be done. Pleasure is the more favourable adjunct, if not too great. Pain is the more stimulating or exciting: under a painful smart the forces are very rapidly quickened for all purposes, until we reach the point of wasteful dissipation. This brings us round again to the Socratic position, the preparing of the learner's mind by the torpedo or the gad-fly.

The full compass of the operation of the painful stimulant is well shown in some of our most familiar

experiences as learners. In committing a lesson to memory, we con it a number of times by the book: we then try without the book. We fail utterly, and are slightly pained by the failure. We go back to the book, and once more we try without it. We still fail, but rack the memory to recover the lost trains. The pains of failure and the act of straining stimulate the forces; the attention is roused seriously and energetically. The next reference to the book finds us far more receptive of the impression to be made; the weak links are now reinforced with avidity, and the next trial shows the value of the discipline that has been undergone.

One remark more will close the view of the conditions of plasticity. It is, that Discrimination and Retentiveness have a common support in rapidity and sharpness of transition. A sharp and sudden change is commonly said to make a strong impression: the fact implied concerns discrimination and retention alike.

Vague, shadowy, ill-defined boundaries fail to be discriminated, and the subjects of them are not remembered. The educator finds great scope for his art in this consideration also.

SIMILARITY, OR AGREEMENT.

It is neither an inapt nor a strained comparison to call this power the Law of Gravitation of the intellectual world. As regards the Understanding, it has an importance co-equal with the plastic force that is expressed by Retentiveness or Memory. The methods to be pursued in attaining the commanding heights of General Knowledge are framed by the circumstances attending the detection of Like in the midst of Unlike.

With all the variety that there is in the world of our experience, a variety appealing to our consciousness of difference, there is also great Repetition, sameness or unity. There are many shades of colour, as distinguished by the discriminative sensibility of the eye; yet the same shade often recurs. There are many varieties of form the round, the square, the spiral, &c.--and we discriminate them when they are contrasted; while the same form starts up again and again. At first sight, this apparently means nothing at all; the great matter would seem to be to avoid confounding differencesblue with violet, a circle with an oval; when blue recurs, we simply treat it as we did at first.

The remark is too hasty, and overlooks a vital consideration. What raises the principle of Similarity to its position of command is the accompaniment of diversity. The round form first discerned in a ring or a

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halfpenny, recurs in the full moon, where the adjuncts are totally different and need to be felt as different. In spite of these disturbing accompaniments, it is important to feel the agreement on the single property called the round form.

When an impression made in one situation is repeated in an altered situation, the new experience reminds us of the old, notwithstanding the diversity; this reminder may be described as a novel kind of shock, or awakened consciousness, called the shock or flash of identity in the midst of difference. A piece of coal and a piece of wood differ, and are at first looked upon as differing. Put into the fire, they both blaze up, give heat, and are consumed. Here is a shock of agreement, which becomes an abiding impression in connection with these two things. Of such shocks is made up onehalf of what we term Knowledge.

Whenever there is a difference it should be felt by us; in like manner, whenever there is an agreement it should be felt. To overlook either one or the other is stupidity. Our education marches in both lines; and, in so far as we are helped by the schoolmaster, we should be helped in both. The artifices that promote discrimination, and the influences that thwart it, have been already considered; and many of the observations apply also to Agreement. In the identifying of like in the midst of unlike, there are cases that are easy, and there are cases that the unassisted mind fails to perceive.

1. We must repeat, with reference to the delicate perception of Agreements, the antithesis of the intellectual and the emotional outgoings. It is in the stillness of the emotions that the higher intellectual exercises