possible to listen to a narrative of the most simple event, by one of the common people, who are unaccustomed to pay much attention to events, but as they occur together, without being struck with a readiness of suggestion of innumerable petty circumstances, which might seem like superiority of memory, if we did not take into account the comparatively small number of their suggestions of a different class. They do not truly remember more than others, but their memory is different in quality from the memory of others. Suggestions arise in their minds, which do not arise in other minds; but there is at least an equal number of suggestions that arise in the minds. of others, of which their minds, in the same circumstances, would be wholly unsusceptible. Yet still, as I have said, to common observers, their memory will appear quick and retentive, in a peculiar and far surpassing degree. How many trifling facts, for example, does Mrs. Quickly heap together, to force upon Sir John Falstaff's remembrance, his promise of marriage. The passage is quoted by Lord Kames, as a very lively illustration of the species of recollections of a vulgar mind.

"In the minds of some persons, thoughts and circumstances crowd upon each other by the slightest connexions. I ascribe this to a bluntness in the discerning faculty; for a person who cannot accurately distinguish between a slight connexion and one that is more intimate, is equally affected by each; such a person must necessarily have a great flow of ideas, because they are introduced by any relation indifferently; and the slighter relations, being without number, furnish ideas without end. This doctrine is, in a lively manner, illustrated by Shakspeare:

Falstaff. What is the gross sum that I owe to thee?

'Hostess. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and thy money too. Thou didst swear to me on a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for likening him to a singing man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not Goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me Gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound. And didst not thou, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book oath, deny it, if thou canst.-Second Part, Henry IV. Act 2, Scene 2.'

"On the other hand, a man of accurate judgment cannot have a great flow of ideas; because the slighter relations making no figure in his mind, have no power to introduce ideas. And hence it is that accurate judgment is not friendly to declamation or copious eloquence. This reasoning is confirmed by experience; for it is a noted observation, That a great or comprehensive memory is seldom connected with a good judgment."*

It is not from any defect of memory, as Lord Kames thinks, that fewer of the ideas which prevail in common conversation, arise to a mind of accurate judgment; but, because the prevailing tendencies to suggestion, in such a mind, are of a species that have little relation to the dates, &c. of the occurrences that are the ordinary topics of familiar discourse. The memory

* Elements of Criticism, Chap. I.

differs in quality, not in quantity; or, at least, the defect of these ordinary topics is not itself a proof, that the general power of suggestion is less vigorous. In the case of extemporary eloquence, indeed, the flow of mere words may be more copious in him who is not accustomed to dwell on the permanent relations of objects, but on the slighter circumstances of perception and local connexion. Yet this is far from proving that the memory of such a person, which implies much more than the recurrence of verbal signs, is less comprehensive; on the contrary, there is every reason to suppose, that, unless probably in a few very extraordinary cases, which are as little to be taken into account, in a general estimate of this kind, as the form and functions of monsters in a physiological inquiry, the whole series of suggestions, of which a profound and discriminating mind is capable, is greater, upon the whole, than the number of those, which rise so readily to the mind of a superficial thinker. The great difference is, that the wealth of the one is composed merely of those smaller pieces, which are in continual request, and, therefore, brought more frequently to view,-while the abundance of the other consists chiefly in those more precious coins, which are rather deposited than carried about for current use, but which, when brought forward, exhibit a magnificence of wealth, to which the petty counters of the multitude are comparatively insignificant.

LECTURE XLII.

REDUCTION OF CERTAIN SUPPOSED MENTAL FACULTIES TO SIMPLE SUGGESTION,—III. IMAGINATION.

GENTLEMEN, the inquiries which have occupied us with respect to the phenomena of the principle of suggestion, have, I trust, shown you what that principle is, as distinguished from the other principles of our mental constitution. It becomes necessary, however, in justification of that simple arrangement which I ventured to propose to you, to consider this principle not merely in relation to the phenomena which I have included under it, but also in relation to other arrangements, and to show, that this one general tendency of the mind is sufficient to account for a variety of phenomena which have been referred to peculiar powers of the understanding. This I endeavoured to prove in my last Lecture, with respect to two of these supposed intellectual powers,-the powers, as they have been termed, of Conception and Memory.

In the first place, I showed, of conception, that, far from being distinguishable from suggestion, it is only a particular instance, or operation, of that very principle; what are called the laws of suggestion or association, in relation to our mere ideas, being nothing more than the general circumstances, according to which conceptions follow conceptions, in our trains of thought. A particular conception, indeed, as one state of mind, differs from that general tendency of suggestion, in consequence of which it arises; but it differs from it only in the same way as any other particular feeling differs from that

general mental susceptibility to which we trace it; as our sensation of a particular sound, or odour, for example, differs from the senses of smell and hearing, by which we are capable of perceiving all the varieties of sounds and odours. The power of suggestion is that capacity of the mind, by which conceptions arise; as the power of vision is that capacity of the mind, by which we are sensible of the varieties of light; and we might as well speak of a power of seeing a particular colour, distinct from vision, as of a power of conceiving the same particular colour, distinct from the influence of the general tendency of the mind that is termed by us suggestion. When I hear the sound of my friend's name, and the conception of my friend immediately arises, there is not, in the production of this one mental state, the operation both of a power of association or suggestion, and of a power of conception; but there is a developement of that single capacity or property of the mind, in consequence of which, certain conceptions arise, after certain other conceptions or perceptions. We may call this particular property either the capacity of conception, or the capacity of suggestion, as we please; the one term-conception-having more immediate reference to the object conceived, the other-suggestion-to the conceiving mind; but the feeling itself of which we speak, the particular conception suggested,-whether we regard it in reference to the mind in which it rises, or to the object which it seems to represent; and, by whatever word, or combination of words, we may choose to designate it, is still only one affection of the mind,—as a man is still the same individual being, whatever name we may give to him,— whether we call him simply a man, or speak of him by his own individual appellation, or in his different relations to other beings, like himself, a son, a brother, a father. The mistake which has led to this distinction of the power of conception from the power of suggestion, by which our conceptions arise, I showed to be that vague, but universal mistake, as to the nature of association, which supposes a certain mysterious union of the suggesting and suggested idea, to precede their mutual suggestion,-in which case, this supposed mysterious union, and the rise of the conception itself, occurring at different periods, might indeed be allowed to be indicative of different mental powers or properties.

After showing our conceptions to be only particular modifications or examples of the general power of suggestion,-which would be a word absolutely without meaning, if nothing were suggested,-I proceeded to consider our remembrances, analyzing these into two distinct parts, a particular conception of some object or feeling remembered, and the accompanying feeling of a certain relation of priority to our present consciousness. The simple conception which forms one of the elements of the remembrance, and differs in no respect from the conceptions that are unaccompanied with the notion of a relation of time, is of course reducible to the power of simple suggestion, to which all our conceptions are to be referred; the feeling of the relation of priority which forms its other element, is, like our feeling of every other relation, an effect of that general susceptibility of relation suggested, which we are to consider afterwards. The remembrance, therefore, being a complex feeling, is a proof of these two susceptibilities of the mind, to which we owe the constituent elementary feelings; but it is not a proof of any third power, more than the sight of a rose, combined with the perception of its fragrance, is a proof that we possess some third sense or power, distinct from those which give us the elementary sensations of colour

and odour, of which our complex sensation is formed. What we term memory, then, in distinction from mere conception, is not a new power, but merely a complex result of different mental capacities; as my complex feeling when I look at an extensive landscape, and regard the various contiguities, or other local relations, of the parts to each other, high or low, above or beneath, remote or near, is a proof, indeed, that I have a capacity of discerning relations, as well as a capacity of vision, but not a proof of any power distinct from both, and requiring, therefore, a separate place in our primary classifications of the intellectual functions. The relations of time, in this respect, do not differ from the relations of place; our conceptions may be combined with the one as much as with the other; and the remembrance, in every case, is a mere conception, like any other mere conception, combined with a certain feeling of relation, and nothing more.

Of the inestimable advantages which we receive from that composition of feelings which constitutes memory, I have already treated too fully, to need to recall them to your attention. You know it as that to which we are indebted for all the knowledge which we possess,-not merely for every thing which raises us above the ignorance and superstition of the vulgar, to the noble luxuries of science and enlightened belief, but for every thing which raises us above that state of unreflecting imbecility, compared with which, the dull glimpses of thought that determine the half-instinctive actions of the idiot, in avoiding danger, and seeking the gratification of his animal appetites, would be wisdom and philosophy. In the rich, and ever-ready stores of a well-cultivated mind, we have the only image, which we can in any way acquire, of the Omniscience of the Sovereign Intellect, of that BEING to whom omniscience, in all its infinity of comprehension of whatever is, and of whatever is to be, is the knowledge only of the wonders of His own creative power. We acquire our knowledge slowly, but we retrace it rapidly. The universe itself, when we have enriched our memory with the knowledge of its laws, may thus, in some measure, be said to be comprised in a single retrospective thought of man,-in a single thought of the frail and dependent creature, who, as an individual, is scarcely to be counted as any thing in that very infinity which he comprehends and measures :

"What wealth in Memory's firm record, Which, should it perish, could this world recall, In colours fresh originally bright

From the dark shadows of o'erwhelming years."

Young.

Nor is it only intellectual wealth which we thus acquire and preserve; it is by our remembrances that we are truly moral beings, because we owe to them the very conception of every thing which can be the object of morality. Without them there could be no esteem,-no gratification for kindness received-no compassion for those who are in sorrow-no love of what is honourable and benevolent. How many of our purest affections might we trace through a long series of reciprocal kindnesses, to the earliest years of our boyhood-to the field of our sports-to the nursery-to the very cradle in which our smile answered only still fonder smiles that hung ceaseless around it! The Greeks, in their Theogony, by a happy allegorical illustration of the importance of this principle, to all the exercises of fancy and the understanding, fabled the Muses to be Daughters of Memory. They might, with equal truth, have given the same parentage to the Virtues.

The next class of phenomena, ascribed erroneously to a peculiar intellectual power, which remains to be considered by us, is that which comprehends the phenomena of imagination. We not merely perceive objects, and conceive or remember them simply as they were, but we have the power of combining them in various new assemblages, of forming at our will, with a sort of delegated omnipotence, not a single universe merely, but a new and varied universe, with every succession of our thought. The materials of which we form them, are, indeed, materials that exist in every mind; but they exist in every mind only as the stones exist shapeless in the quarry, that require little more than mechanic labour to convert them into common dwellings, but that rise into palaces and temples only at the command of architectural genius.

"Indistinct,

In vulgar bosoms, and unnoticed, lie

These stores of secret wealth. But some there are

Conscious of Nature, and the rule which Man

O'er Nature holds; some who, within themselves
Retiring, from the trivial scenes of chance
And momentary passion, can at will
Call up these fair exemplars of the mind,
Review their features, scan the secret laws
Which bind them to each other, and display,
By forms, or sounds, or colours, to the sense
Their latent charms. The Bard, nor length, nor depth,
Nor place, nor form controls. To eyes, to ears,

To every organ of the copious mind,

He offereth all its treasures. Him the hours,

The seasons him obey; and changeful time
Sees him at will keep measure with his flight,
At will outstrip it. To enhance his toil,
He summoneth from the uttermost extent

Of things, which God hath taught him, every form
Auxiliar, every power; and all beside
Excludes imperious. His prevailing hand
Gives to corporeal essence life and sense,

And every stately function of the soul.
The soul itself to him obsequious lies

Like matter's passive heap; and, as he wills,
To reason and affection he assigns

Their just alliances, their just degrees;

Whence his peculiar honours; whence the race
Of men, who people his delightful world,
Transcend as far the uncertain sons of earth,
As earth itself to his delightful world
The palm of spotless beauty doth resign."*

But we must not con

Such are the sublime functions of imagination. ceive, merely because they are sublime, that they comprehend the whole office of imagination, or even its most important uses. It is of far more importance to mankind, as it operates in the common offices of life,-in those familiar feelings of every hour, which we never think of referring to any faculty, or of estimating their value in reference to other classes of feelings. * Pleasures of Imagination, second form of the poem, B. IV. v. 66—130,—with the substitution, in v. 68, of "Stores of secret wealth," instead of

66

Pleasing stores, unless the casual force

Of things external prompt the heedless mind

To recognise her wealth."

The addition after "sense," in v. 78, (or v. 11, as quoted) of "Their latent charms," in the next verse, the exclusion of the verses from 79 to "will," in v. 108, and the exclusion also of v. 127.