Intellectual Faculties
Part Second
The Representative Power
General Observations
Nature of this Power—Its various Forms.—It is in the mind’s power to conceive or represent to itself an object not at the time present to the senses. This may take place in several forms. There may be the simple reproduction in thought of the absent object of sense. There may be, along with the reproduction or recurrence of the object, the recognition of it as a former object of sensation or perception. There may be the reproduction of the object not as it is, or was, when formerly perceived, but with variations, the different elements arranged and combined not according to the actual and original, but according to the mind’s own ideals, and at its will. This latter form of conception is what is usually termed imagination—while the general term memory, as ordinarily employed, is made to include the two former. While using the term in this general sense, we may properly distinguish, however, between mental reproduction, and mental recognition, the latter being strictly the office of memory.
All these are but so many forms of the representative power. We may designate them respectively as the reproductive, recognitive, and creative faculties. The mind’s activity is essentially the same under each of these forms. The object is not given but thought, not presented to sense, but represented to the mind. The process is reflective rather than intuitive. It is a matter of understanding rather than of sense or of reason. It is a conception, not a perception or an intuition, and it is a simple conception of the object as it is or is conceived to be, in itself considered, and not in relation to other objects.
Chapter I
MEMORY.
§ I.—Mental Reproduction.
I. Nature of the Process.
General Character.—As now defined, this is that form of mental activity in which the mind’s former perceptions and sensations are reproduced in thought. The external objects are no longer present—the original sensations and perceptions have vanished—but by the mind’s own power are reproduced to thought, giving, as it were, a representation or image of the original.
Example.—Suppose, for instance, that I have seen Strasburg minster, or the cathedral of Milan. Months, perhaps years pass away. By-and-by, in some other and remote part of the world, something reminds me of that splendid structure; I see again its imposing front, its lofty towers, its airy pinnacles and turrets. The solemn pile rises complete, as by magic, to the mind’s eye, and, regardless of time or distance, the faculty of simple conception reproduces the object as it is.
Conceptions of Sound.—In like manner I form a conception, more or less distinct, of sounds once heard. The chanting of the evening service in the Church of the Madeleine at Paris, and the prolonged note of a shepherd’s horn among the Alps, are instances of musical sound that frequently recur with startling distinctness to the mind. The same is to some extent true of the sensations and perceptions derived from the other senses. With more or less vividness the objects of all such sensations and perceptions are capable of being reproduced in conception.
The Conceptions not of Necessity connected with the Recollection of Self as the Percipient.—In these cases there may or may not be a connection of the object, as it lies before our minds, with our own personal history as the former percipients of that object. The time, place, circumstance, of that perception may not be distinctly before us; even the fact that we have ourselves seen, heard, felt, what we now conceive, may not, at the moment, be an object of thought. These are the elements of memory or mental recognition, and are certainly very likely to stand associated in our minds with the conception of the object itself. But not always nor of necessity is it so. There may be simple conception of the object, mental reproduction, where there is, for the time being, no recognition of any thing further. The Strasburg minster, the chanting of the choir, the note of the mountain horn, the snowy peak of Jungfrau, may stand out by themselves before the mind, abstracted from all thought of the time, the place, the circumstances in which they were originally perceived, or even from all thought of the fact that we have at some former time actually perceived these very objects. They may present themselves as pure conceptions.
Conceptions vary in some Respects.—Our conceptions vary in respect to definiteness and clearness. The objects of some of the senses are more readily and also more distinctly conceived than those of others. The sense of sight is peculiar in this respect. A visible object is more easily and more distinctly conceived than a particular sound or taste. The sense of hearing is, perhaps, next to that of sight in this respect; while the sensations of taste and smell are so seldom the objects of distinct conception, that some have even denied the power of conceiving them. Dr. Wayland maintains this view. That we do form conceptions more or less distinct of the objects both of taste and smell, as, e. g. of the taste of a melon, or the smell of an orange, hardly admits of question; while, at the same time, it is doubtless true that we have less occasion to reproduce in thought the objects now referred to than those of sight and hearing, that they are recalled with less facility, and also with less distinctness.
Stewart’s Theory.—Dugald Stewart has ingeniously suggested that the reason why a sound or a taste is less readily conceived than an object of sight, may be that the former are single detached sensations, while visible objects are complex, presenting a series of connected points of observation, and our conception of them as a whole is the result of many single conceptions, a result to which the association of ideas largely contributes. We more readily conceive two things in connection than either of them separately. On the same principle a series of sounds in a strain of music is more readily conceived than a single detached note.
Importance of this Power.—The value of this power to the mind is inestimable. Without it, the passing moment, the impression or sensation of the instant, would be the sum total of our intellectual life, of our conscious being. The horizon of our mental vision would extend no further than our immediate present perceptions. The past would be a blank as dark and uncertain even as the future. Conception lights up the otherwise dreary waste of past existence, and reproducing the former scenes and objects, gives us mental possession of all that we have been, as well as of the present moment, and lays at our feet the objects of all former knowledge. The mind thus becomes in a measure independent of sense and the external world. What it has once seen, heard, felt, becomes its permanent acquisition, even when the original object of perception is for ever removed. I may have seen the grand and stately minster, or the snowy Alp but once in all my life, but ever after it dwells among my conceptions, and in after years, on other continents, and amid far other scenes, that vision of beauty and grandeur passes before me as an angelic vision; that succession of sweet sounds traverses again the silent chambers of the brain, with all the freshness of first reality. It is only a conception now, but who shall estimate the worth of that simple power of conception?
The Talent for Description as affected by this Power.—The following remarks of Mr. Stewart illustrate happily one of the many uses to which this power is subservient:
“A talent for lively description, at least in the case of sensible objects, depends chiefly on the degree in which the describer possesses the power of conception. We may remark, even in common conversation, 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 and connection. 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 expressive to others, by guiding us to a selection of such circumstances as are most prominent and characteristic; 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 perception of it. It has often been remarked, that the perfection of description does not consist in a minute specification of circumstances, but in a judicious selection of them and that the best rule for making the selection is to attend to the particulars that make the deepest impression on our own minds. When the object is actually before us, it is extremely difficult to compare the impressions which different circumstances produce; and the very thought of writing a description, would prevent the impressions which would otherwise take place. When we afterward conceive the object, the representation of it we form to ourselves, however lively, is merely an outline, and is made up of those circumstances which really struck us most at the moment, while others of less importance are obliterated.”
Conceptions often Complex.—It is to be further remarked respecting the power now under consideration, that the notion, or conception which we form of an object, by means of this faculty, is frequently complex. The particular perceptions and sensations formerly experienced, and now represented, are combined, forming thus a notion of the object as a whole. The figure, magnitude, color, and various other properties, of any object, as, e. g., a table, are objects each of distinct and separate cognition, and as such are mentally reproduced, distinctly, and separately; but when thus reproduced, are combined to form the complete conception of the table, as it lies in my mind. The notion or conception of the object as a whole being thus once formed, any single perception as, e. g., of color, figure, etc., is afterward sufficient to recall and represent the whole.
Often passes for Perception.—It was remarked, in treating of perception, that very much which passes under that name is in reality only conception. I hear, for example, a carriage passing in the street. All that I really perceive is the sound; but that single perception recalls at once the various perceptions that have formerly been associated with it, and so there is at once reproduced in my mind the conception of the passing carriage. Our conviction of the existence and reality of the object thus conceived, is hardly inferior to that produced by actual and complete perception.
Correctness of our Conceptions.—In general it may be remarked, that our conceptions are more or less adequate and correct representations of the objects to which they relate, according as they combine the reports of more or fewer different senses, respecting more or fewer different qualities, and as these reports are more or less clear and distinct.
II. Laws of Mental Reproduction.
Conceptions not uncaused.—It is evident that our conceptions arise not uncaused and at hap-hazard, but according to some law. There is a method about the phenomena of mental reproduction. There is a reason why any particular scene or event of former experience, any perception or sensation, is brought again to mind, when it is, and as it is, rather than some other in its place. A careful observation and study of the laws which regulate in general the succession of thought, will furnish the explanation and true philosophy of mental reproduction.
Principle of Suggestion.—Every thought which passes through the mind is directly or indirectly connected with, and suggested by something which preceded; and that something may be either a sensation, a perception, a conception, or an emotion. The precedence may be either immediate or remote. Some connection there always is between any given thought or feeling at any moment before the mind, and some preceding thought or feeling, which gives rise to, occasions, suggests, the latter. These suggestions follow certain general rules or laws, which are usually called the laws of association. These laws, so called, are only the different circumstances under which the suggestions take place, and are termed laws only to indicate the regularity and uniformity with which, under given circumstances given thoughts and feelings are awakened in the mind.
This the Basis of mental Reproduction.—It is to this general principle of suggestion or association that we are indebted for all mental reproduction. It is only as one idea or feeling is suggested by some other which has gone before, and with which it is in some way, and for some reason, associated in our minds, that any former thought or sensation is recalled, that any object which we have perceived or any scene through which we have passed, is mentally reproduced. It is thus that the sight of an object brings to mind occurrences connected with it in our history, that the same recalls the thing, that the words of a language bring to mind the ideas which they denote, or the characters on the musical staff, the tones which they represent.
Not a distinct Faculty.—It has been customary to speak of association of ideas as a distinct faculty of the mind. It is not properly so ranked. It is a law of the mind rather than a faculty of it—a rule or method of its action in certain cases; and the particular power of mind to which this rule applies is that form of simple conception which we term mental reproduction.
The Term Suggestion preferred by Brown.—In place of the term association, Dr. Brown would prefer the term suggestion as more correct. To speak of the association of ideas implies that they have previously coëxisted in the mind, and that the one now recalls the other in consequence of that previous coëxistence. That this is often the case is doubtless true, but it is also true that in many cases one idea suggests another with which it has not previously been associated in our minds. It is not necessary to the suggestion that there should be any prior association. An object seen for the first time suggests many relative conceptions. The sight of a giant suggests the idea of a friend of diminutive stature, not because the two ideas have previously been associated, or the two objects have coëxisted, either in perception or conception, but because it is a law of the mind that one conception shall suggest another, either as similar, or as opposite, or in some other way related to it. This may be as truly a law of the mind, independent of association, as that light falling on the retina shall produce vision. It may seem mysterious that this should be so. Is it not equally mysterious that ideas which have formerly coëxisted should recall each other? The real mystery is the recurrence in any mode, and from any source, of the idea, without the recurrence of the external producing cause. For these reasons, Dr. Brown prefers the term suggestion to association.
The Term Conception preferable to either.—As regards the activity of the mind itself, in the process of mental reproduction, the term conception seems to me to express more nearly the exact state of the case than either association or suggestion. An idea is suggested to the mind by some external object; the mind conceives the idea thus suggested. The flute which I perceive lying on the table in the room of my friend suggests at once to my mind the idea of that friend. The action of the mind in this case is simply an act of conception. All that the flute does—all that we mean when we say the flute suggests the idea of the friend—is simply to place the mind in such a state that the conception follows. Whether we speak then of the laws of association, laws of suggestion, or laws of mental conception, is immaterial, provided we bear in mind the real nature of the process as now defined.
Question stated.—But what are the laws of association, or suggestion, so-called—in other words, of mental conception? Under what circumstances is a given conception awakened in the mind by some preceding conception or perception? This is an important subject of inquiry, and one which has not escaped the attention of philosophers.
Primary Laws.—It has been usual to enumerate as primary laws of suggestion, the following: resemblance, contrast, contiguity in time or place; to which has sometimes been added cause and effect. There can be little doubt that these are important laws of suggestion; that given object of thought is likely to suggest to the mind that which is like itself, that which is unlike, that which is connected with itself in time and place, that of which it is the cause or the effect. Whether these principles are exhaustive, and whether they may not be reduced to some one general principle comprehensive of them all, may admit of question.
Law of Similars.—To begin with resemblance. It seems to be a law of our nature, that like shall remind us of like. The mountain, the forest, the river, that I see in my morning walk to-day, remind me of similar objects that were familiar to my childhood. Nor is it necessary that the resemblance should be complete. A single point of similarity is sufficient to awaken the conception of objects the most remote, and, in other respects, dissimilar. I pass in the street a person with blue eyes, or dark hair, or having some peculiarity of expression in the countenance, and am at once reminded of a very different person whom I knew years ago, or whom I met perhaps in another land; yet the two may be as unlike, except in the one point which attracts my attention, as any two persons in the world. An article of dress peculiar to the Elizabethan age, or to the court of Louis XIV. reminds us of the lordly dames and courtiers, or gallant warriors of those periods. A single feature in the landscape, perhaps a single tree, or projecting crag, on the mountain side, brings before us the picture of a scene widely different in most respects, but presenting only this one point of resemblance to the scene before us.
Not confined to Objects of Sight.—Nor is it the objects of sight alone that are suggestive of similar objects. The other senses follow the same law. Sounds suggest similar sounds; tastes, similar tastes; and along with the sounds, tastes, etc., thus recalled, are awakened conceptions of many things having no resemblance to the suggesting object, but associated in our previous perceptions with the object suggested. A certain succession of musical sounds, for example, recalls to the Swiss his native valley, and the mountains that shut it in, and brings back to his mind the scene of his childhood, and the peculiar customs of his father-land where he heard in former years that simple melody. With what a train of associations is a single name often fraught; what power of magic lies often in a single word!
Illustrations of other Laws.—Of the other principles of suggestion or association which have been named, it is not necessary to speak minutely. Their operation is obvious and indisputable. Illustrations will occur to every one. The palace of the king reminds us by contrast of the hovel of the peasant. The splendor of wealth and luxury suggests the wretchedness of poverty and want. The giant reminds us of the dwarf, and the dwarf of the giant. On the principle of contiguity in time and place, the sight of an object reminds us of events that have occurred in connection with it; the name Napoleon suggests Waterloo, and Wellington, and the marshals of the empire; St. Peter’s and the Vatican suggest Raphael and his Transfiguration; a book, casually lying on my table, reminds me of the volume that formerly stood by its side on the shelf, and so carries me back to other scenes, and other days.
In like manner, if it be not indeed the operation of the same principle, cause suggests the effect, and effect its cause. The wound reminds me of the instrument, and the instrument awakens the unpleasant conception of the wound which it once inflicted.
Why one Conception rather than another.—Inasmuch as any one conception may awaken in the mind a great variety of other conceptions—since a picture, for example, may recall the person whose likeness it is, or the artist who painted it, or the friend who possesses it, or the time and place in which it was sketched, or the room in which it formerly hung, or any circumstance or event connected with it—the question arises, why, in any given instance, is one of these conceptions awakened in the mind rather than any other in its stead? It is evident that the action of the associating principle is not uniform, sometimes one conception being awakened, sometimes another.
Secondary Laws.—In answer to this, Dr. Brown has shown that the action of these general and primary laws of suggestion, now named, is modified by a variety of circumstances, which may be called secondary laws of suggestion, and which will account for the variety in question. These modifying circumstances are: 1. Continuance of attention. 2. Vividness of feeling. 3. Frequency of repetition. 4. Lapse of time. 5. Exclusiveness of association. 6. Original constitutional differences. 7. State of mind at the time. 8. State of body. 9. Professional habits. Any one of these circumstances may so modify the action of the primary laws of suggestion, that one conception shall be awakened in the mind rather than another, by that which has preceded.
Correctness of this View.—There can be little doubt as to the correctness of this view. The attention, for example, which a given object or event excites at the time of its occurrence, and the strength and liveliness of feeling which it awakened in us, have very much to do, as every one knows, with our subsequent remembrance of that object or event. So also has the frequency with which the train of thought has been repeated—a fact illustrated in the process of committing to memory.
The more frequently two things come together before the mind, the more likely will it be, when one is again presented, to think of the other. In the process of learning a thing by rote, we repeat the lines over and over, until they become so associated, and linked together, that the suggestion of one recalls the whole. Frequently, however, we find it difficult to pass from one sentence to another, or from one stanza or paragraph to another, while we find no difficulty in completing the sentence or paragraph once commenced. The reason is, we have repeated each sentence or stanza by itself in the process of learning, and have not connected one with another. The last words of one sentence, and the first words of another, have not been repeatedly conjoined in the mind—have not frequently coëxisted.
Sometimes, however, a more than usual vividness of conception will make up for the want of this frequent coëxistence. When, for any reason, as excited feeling, or extraordinary interest in what we perceive, we grasp with peculiar clearness and force the idea presented, this vividness of mental conception will, of itself, insure the remembrance of the object contemplated. A man, on trial for his life, will be likely to recollect the faces and tones of each of the different witnesses on the stand, and the different judges and advocates, even if he never sees them afterward.
We all know, also, that the lapse of time weakens the impression of any object or event upon the mind, and so lessens the probability of its recurrence to the thoughts. We more readily recall places and objects seen in a recent tour, than those seen a year ago. The exclusiveness of the connection is also an important circumstance. An air of music, which I have heard played or sung only on one occasion, and by one musician only, is much more likely, when heard again, to bring to mind the former player, than if it had also been associated with other occasions and other performers. Much depends, moreover, on native differences of temperament, on the habitual joyousness, or habitual gloom, which may pervade the spirits, on the lights and shadows which passing events may cast, in quick succession, on the mind, as good or bad news, the arrival of a friend, the failure of an enterprise, a slight derangement of any of the bodily functions, or even the state of the atmosphere. All these circumstances have much to do with the question, whether one conception or another shall be awakened in the mind by any object presented to its thoughts.
These Laws distinguished as Objective and Subjective.—It will be observed that the primary laws of suggestion, so called, are such as arise from the relations which our thoughts sustain to each other, while the secondary are such as arise from the relations which they sustain to ourselves, the thinking subjects. Hence the former have been called objective, the latter, subjective laws.
Possibility of reducing the primary Laws to one comprehensive Principle.—I have already suggested that possibly the primary laws admit of being reduced to some one general and comprehensive principle. This is a point deserving attention. Were we required to name some one principle which should comprehend these several specific laws of association, it would be that of the prior existence in the mind of the suggesting and the suggested idea. The two conceptions have, for some reason, and at some time, stood together before the mind, and hence the one recalls the other. It seems to be a general law of thought, that whatever has been perceived or conceived in connection with some other object of perception or thought, is afterward suggestive of that other. The relation may be that of part to whole, of resemblance, of contiguity, or contrast, or cause; it may be a natural or an artificial relation; whatever it is that serves as the connecting link between one thought and another, as they come before the mind at first, that will also serve as the ground of subsequent connection, when either of these thoughts shall present itself again to the mind. The one will suggest the other.
Application of this Principle to the several Laws of Suggestion.—Why is it, for example, that things contiguous in time and place suggest each other? In consequence of that contiguity they were viewed by the mind in connection with each other; as, e. g., the handle, and the door to which it belongs, the book, and its neighbor on the shelf. It is because Napoleon and his marshals, Wellington and Waterloo, have been presented together to the thoughts, that one now recalls the other. For the same reason the light hair and blue eyes of the person passing in the street recall the friend of former years; that peculiarity of hair and of eyes has been, in my mind, previously connected with the conception of my friend. So also a part suggests the whole with which it has been ordinarily connected, as, for example, the crystal and the watch.
Further Application of the same Principle.—On the same principle cause and effect are naturally suggestive. We have been accustomed to observe the elision of a spark in connection with the forcible collision of flint and steel and whenever we have observed the application of fire to gunpowder, certain consequences have uniformly attracted our attention; hence the one of these things awakens immediately in our minds the conception of the other, with which it has previously coëxisted. For the same reason the instrument suggests the idea of the wound, and the wound of the instrument. The sight of a rose, and the sensation of fragrance, have usually coëxisted; hence either recalls the other.
The connection in this case is natural. Let us suppose a case in which it shall be arbitrary, or artificial. Suppose I happen to hold a rose in my hand, at the same moment a certain unusual noise is heard in the street, or at the moment when an eclipse of the sun becomes visible; on seeing the rose the next day I am instantly reminded of the noise, or of the eclipse, that was connected with it in my previous perception.
Application to the Law of Opposites.—On the same principle opposites also suggest each other. They sustain a certain relation to each other in our thoughts, and are in a sense necessary to each other in thought, as, e. g., white and black, crooked and straight, tall and short; which are relative ideas, neither of which is complete by itself without the other; the one the complement of the other; each, so to speak, the extreme term of a comparison. As such they stand together before the mind, in its ordinary perceptions, and hence the one almost of necessity recalls the other.
The same Principle suggested by Dr. Brown.—The possibility of reducing the laws of association to one common principle, as now attempted, namely that of prior coëxistence in the mind, has not altogether escaped the notice of philosophers. Dr. Brown, in more than one passage, advances the idea, that on a sufficiently minute analysis “all suggestion may be found to depend on prior coëxistence, or, at least, on such immediate proximity, as is itself, very probably, a modification of coëxistence.” In order to this nice reduction, however, he adds, we must take into account “the influence of emotions, and other feelings that are very different from ideas; as when an analogous object suggests an analogous object by the influence of an emotion or sentiment, which each separately may have produced before, and which is therefore common to both.” As illustrative of this, he refers, among others, to cases of remote resemblance; as when, “for example, the whiteness of untrodden snow brings to our mind the innocence of an unpolluted heart; or a fine morning of spring, the cheerful freshness of youth.” In such cases, he says, “though there may never have been in the mind any proximity of the very images compared, there may have been a proximity of each to an emotion of some sort, which, as common to both, might render each capable, indirectly, of suggesting the other.” The same principle he applies to suggestion by contrast, as when the sight of a person with a remarkably long nose brings to mind some one whom we have seen with a nose as remarkable for brevity; the common feeling in the two cases being that of surprise or wonder at the peculiarity of this feature of the countenance.
Theory of Mahan.—Mahan, in his Intellectual Philosophy, carries out the suggestion of Dr. Brown, and makes the emotion awakened in common by two or more objects, the sole law, or ground of association. One object recalls an other only by means of the feeling or state of mind common to both.
This View questionable.—That this is the philosophy of the suggesting principle in those cases in which two objects have not previously coëxisted in the mind—that is, in cases of suggestion, and not of association properly—I am disposed to admit, but that it is the philosophy of association, strictly speaking, that it is the reason why objects which have been viewed together by the mind should afterward recall each other, is to be questioned. It seems to be an established law of mental action that objects once viewed in connection by the mind, afterward retain that connection. This is a grand and simple law of thought. I doubt whether any explanation can make it more simple, whether any thing is gained by calling in the influence of emotion to account for it. The emotion may, or may not, be the cause why objects, once coëxistent in the mind, recall each other. It is enough that the simple law of previous coëxistence, as now stated, covers the whole ground, and accounts for all the phenomena of mental association.
The same Rule given by Aristotle.—Long before the days of Brown and his successors, this same law had suggested itself to one of the closest thinkers, and most acute observers of mental phenomena, whom the world has ever seen, as a principle comprehensive of all the specific laws of association. Aristotle—as quoted by Hamilton—expresses the rule in the following terms: Thoughts, which have at any time, recent or remote, stood to each other in the relation of coëxistence, or immediate consecution, do, when severally reproduced, tend to reproduce each other. Under this general law he includes the specific ones of similars, contraries, and coädjacents, as comprehending all the possible relations of things to each other.
Further Question.—View of Rosenkranz.—It may still be questioned whether the specific laws of association, as usually given, viz., resemblance, contrast, contiguity, and cause, are a complete and exhaustive list. Are there not relations of things to each other, and so relations of thought, which do not fall under any of the categories now named? A distinguished psychologist of the Hegelian school, Rosenkranz, denies even that there are any laws of association. Law is found, he says, where the manifoldness still evinces unity, to which the manifold and accidental are subject. But association is not subject to any such unity. It is a free process. There are indeed certain limitations or categories of thought, but these so-called laws of association are not to be confounded with those categories; they are not exhaustive of them. Why not also introduce the law by which we pass from quality to quantity, being to appearance, the universal to the particular, the end to the means, etc., etc.? In short, all metaphysical and logical categories lay claim to be included in the list of such laws. No one can calculate the possible connections of one conception with another. Each is, for us, the middle point of a universe from which we can go forth on all sides. What diverse trains of thought, for example, may the Strasburg minster awaken in my mind: the material of which it is built, the architect, the middle ages, the gothic style, etc., etc. There is, in a word, no law of association.
Objections to this View.—Such, in substance, is the view maintained by this able writer. We cannot altogether coincide with it. That the specific laws of Aristotle, Hume, and Brown, are not exhaustive, may very likely be true; that there is no law, no unity to which this manifoldness of conception is subject, is yet to be shown. Take the very case supposed. The gothic minster of Strasburg reminds me of the gothic style of architecture. What is that but an instance under the law of similarity? It reminds me of the middle ages. What is that but the operation of the law of contiguity in time? It brings to mind the architect. What is that but the relation of cause to effect? Or, if I think of the material of which the building is composed, the marble of this minster reminding me of the class, marble, does not that again fall under the relation of a part to the whole, which is comprehended under the general law of coadjacence, or contiguity in space? So quality and quantity, matter and form, being and appearance, as parts of a comprehensive whole, recall each other. The instances given, then, so far from proving that there is no law of association actually fall under the specific laws enumerated.
The Law of Contiguity includes what.—It is contended that this gives a wider extension to the law of contiguity in time and space than properly belongs to it. I reply, not wider than is intended by those who make use of this expression. Aristotle, the earliest writer who attempts any classification of the laws of suggestion, distinctly includes under the law of coadjacence whatever stand as parts of the same whole, as, e. g., parts of the same building, traits of the same character, species of the same genus, the sign and the thing signified, different wholes of the same part, correlate terms, as the abstract and concrete, etc., etc.
Reference to the subjective Laws.—If it still is asked why does the minster of Strasburg, or any given object, suggest one of these several conceptions, and not some other in its place? the reason for this must doubtless be sought in the state of the mind at the time; in other words, in those subjective or secondary laws of suggestion, of which we have already spoken, as given by Brown and others. Aristotle has more concisely answered the question in the important rule which he adds as supplementary of his general law; viz., that, of two thoughts, one tends to suggest the other, in proportion, 1. To its comparative importance; 2. Its comparative interest. For the first reason, the foot is more likely to suggest the head than the head the foot. For the second reason, the dog is more likely to suggest the master than the master the dog.
§ II—Mental Recognition, as Distinguished from Mental Reproduction.
I. General Character of this Process.
The Faculty as thus far considered.—Thus far we have considered the faculty of mental representation only under one of its forms, viz., as reproductive. By the operation of this power, the intuitions of sense are replaced before the mind, in the absence of the original objects; images, so to speak, of the former objects of perception are brought out from the dark background of the past, and thrown in relief upon the mental canvas. Picture after picture thus comes up, and passes away. The mind has the power of thus reproducing for itself, according to laws of suggestion already considered, the objects of its former perception. This it is constantly doing. No small part of our thinking is the simple reproduction of what has been already, in some form, before the mind.
An additional Element.—The intuitions of sense, thus replaced in the absence of the external objects, present themselves to the mind as mere conceptions, involving no reference to ourselves as the perceiving subject, nor to the time, place, and circumstances of the original perception. But suppose now this latter element to be superadded to the former; that along with the conception or recalling of the object, there is also the conception of ourselves as perceiving, and of the circumstances under which it was perceived; in a word, the recalling of the subjective along with the objective element of the original perception, and we have now that form of mental representation which we term recognitive, or mental recognition.
The two Forms compared and distinguished.—The two taken together, the reproduction, and the recognition, constitute what is ordinarily called memory, which involves, when closely considered, not only the reproduction, in thought, of the former object of perception, but also the consciousness of having ourselves perceived the same. The conception is given as before, but it is no longer mere conception in the abstract, standing by itself; it is connected now by links of time, place, and circumstance, with our own personal history. It is this subjective element that constitutes the essential characteristic of memory proper, or mental recognition, as distinguished from mere conception, or mental reproduction.
Specification of Time and Place.—It is not necessary that the specific time and place when and where we previously perceived the object, or received the impression, should be recalled along with the object or impression; this may or may not be. More frequently, perhaps, these do recur to the mind, and the object itself is recalled or suggested by means of these specific momenta; but this is not essential to the act of memory. It is enough that we recognize the representation or conception, now before the mind, as, in general, an object of former cognition, a previous possession of the mind, and not a new acquisition.
Not of necessity voluntary.—Nor is it necessary to the fact of memory, that this recurrence and recognition of former perceptions and sensations, as objects of thought, should be the result of special volition on our part. It may be quite involuntary. It may take place unbidden and unsought, the result of casual suggestion.
Distinction of Terms.—Memory is usually distinguished from remembrance, and also from recollection. Memory is, more properly, the power or faculty, remembrance the exercise of that power in respect to particular objects and events. When this exercise is voluntary—when we set ourselves to recall what has nearly or quite escaped us, to re-collect, as it were, the scattered materials of our former consciousness—we designate this voluntary process by the term recollection. We recollect only what is at the moment out of mind, and what we wish to recall.
Possibility of recalling.—But here the question arises how it is possible, by a voluntary effort, to recall what is once gone from the mind. Does not the very fact of a volition imply that we have already in mind the thing willed and wished for? How else could we will to recall it? This is a philosophical puzzle with which any one, who chooses, may amuse himself. I have forgotten, for instance, the name of a person: I seek to recall it; to recall what? you may ask. That name. What name? Now I do not know what name; if I did, I should have no occasion to recall it. And yet, in another sense, I do know what it is that I have forgotten. I know that it is a name, and I know whose name it is; the name, viz., of this particular person. And this is all I need to know in order to have a distinct, definite object of volition before my mind.
The Mode of Operation.—The process through which the mind passes in such a case, is, to dwell upon some circumstances not forgotten, that are intimately connected with the missing idea, and through these, as so many connecting links, to pass over, if possible, to the thing sought. I cannot, for example, recall the name, but I remember the names of other persons of the same family, class, or profession, or I remember that it begins with the letter B, and then think over all the names I know that begin with that letter; and, in this way, seek to recall, by association, the name that has escaped.
Memory not an immediate Knowledge.—It has been held by some that memory gives us an immediate knowledge of the past. This is the view of Dr. Reid. If, by immediate knowledge, we mean knowledge of a thing as existing, and as it is in itself—nothing intervening between it as a present reality, and our direct cognizance of it—then not in this sense is memory an immediate knowledge; for a past event is no longer existent, and cannot be known as such, or as it is in itself; it no longer is, but only was. Hence an immediate knowledge of it, is, as Sir William Hamilton affirms, a contradiction. Still, we may know the past as it was, not less really and positively than we know the present as it is. I as really know that I sat at this table yesterday as I know that I sit here now. I am conscious of being here now. I was conscious of being here then. That consciousness is not to be impeached in either case. If the senses deceived me yesterday, they may deceive me to-day. If consciousness testified falsely then, it may now. But if I was indeed here yesterday, and if I knew then that I was here, and that knowledge was certain and positive, then I know now that I was here yesterday, for memory recognizes what would otherwise be the mere conception of to-day, as identical with the positive knowledge of yesterday. Memory may possibly be mistaken as to the so-called positive knowledge of yesterday; and so sense may be mistaken as to the so-called positive knowledge of the present moment.
Belief attending Memory.—The remarks of Dr. Reid on this point are worthy of note. “Memory is always accompanied with the belief of that which we remember, as perception is accompanied with the belief of that which we perceive, and consciousness with the belief of that whereof we are conscious. Perhaps in infancy, or in disorder of mind, things remembered may be confounded with those which are merely imagined; but in mature years, and in a sound state of mind, every man feels that he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason for his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly; whereas, when he merely imagines a thing ever so distinctly he has no belief of it upon that account.
“This belief, which we have from distinct memory, we account real knowledge, no less certain than if it was grounded on demonstration; no man, in his wits, calls it in question, or will hear any argument against it. The testimony of witnesses in causes of life and death depends upon it, and all the knowledge of mankind of past events is built on this foundation. There are cases in which a man’s memory is less distinct and determinate, and where he is ready to allow that it may have failed him; but this does not in the least weaken its credit, when it is perfectly distinct.”
Importance of this Faculty.—The importance of memory as a power of the mind, is shown by the simple fact, that, but for it, there could be no consciousness of continued existence, none of personal identity, for memory is our only voucher for the fact that we existed at all at any previous moment. Without this faculty, each separate instant of life would be a new existence, isolated, disconnected with aught before or after; nay, there would, in that case, scarcely be any consciousness of even the present existence, for we are conscious only as we are cognizant of change, says Hamilton, and there is involved in it the idea of the latest past along with the present. Memory, then, is essential to all intelligent mental action, whether intellectual, sensational, or voluntary. The ancients seem to have been aware of this, when they gave it the name μνηνη (from μνηνοσ, μναομαι), appellations of the mind itself, as being, in fact, the chief characteristic faculty of the mind.
II. What is implied in an Act of Memory.
Several Conditions.—Every act of memory involves these several conditions: 1. Present existence. 2. Past existence. 3. Mental activity at some moment of that past existence. 4. The recurrence to the mind of something thus thought, perceived, or felt. 5. Its recognition as a past or former thought or impression, and that our own. These last, the recurrence and the recognition, are strictly the essential elements of memory, yet the others are implied in it. In order to my remembering, for example, an occurrence of yesterday, I must exist at the present time, else I cannot remember at the present time; I must have existed yesterday, else there can be no memory of yesterday; my mind must have been active then, else there will be nothing to remember; the thoughts, perceptions, sensations, then occupying the mind, must now recur, else it is the same as if they had never been; they must recur, not as new thoughts and impressions, but as old ones, else I no longer remember, but only conceive or perceive.
III. Qualities of Memory.
Distinctions of Stewart and Wayland.—It has been customary to designate certain qualities as essential to a good memory. Susceptibility, retentiveness, and readiness, are thus distinguished by Mr. Stewart; the first denoting the facility with which the mind acquires; the second, the permanence with which it retains; and the third, the quickness with which it recalls and applies its original acquisitions. And these qualities are rarely united, he adds, in the same person. The memory which is susceptible and ready, is not commonly very retentive. Dr. Wayland makes the same distinction. Some men, he says, retain their knowledge more perfectly than they recall it. Others have their knowledge always at command. Some men acquire with great rapidity, but soon forget what they have learned. Others acquire with difficulty, but retain tenaciously.
Objections to this View.—Although supported by such authority, it admits of question whether this distinction is strictly valid. Facility of acquisition, the readiness with which the mind perceives truth, is hardly to be reckoned as an attribute of memory. It is a quality of mind, a quality possessed in diverse degrees by different persons, doubtless, but not a quality of mind in its distinctive capacity and office of remembering. It is no part, psychologically considered, of the function of mental reproduction. It is essential, indeed, to the act of memory that there should be something to remember, but the acquisition of the thing remembered, and the remembering, are two distinct and different mental acts; nor is it of any consequence to the mind, in remembering, whether the original acquisition was made with more or less facility. Indeed, so far as that bears upon the case at all, facility of acquisition, as even these writers admit, is likely to be rather a hindrance than a help to subsequent remembrance, since what is most readily acquired is not most readily recalled.
The Mind retentive in what Sense.—Nor is it altogether proper to speak of retentiveness as a quality of memory—a quality which may pertain to it in a greater or less degree in different cases. The truth is, all memory is retentive, or, more properly, retentiveness is itself memory. It is a quality of mind; a power or faculty possessed in different degrees by different persons; and the power which the mind possesses of retaining thus, wholly, or in part, what passes before it, is the faculty of memory. But in what sense does the mind retain anything which has once occupied its thoughts? Not, of course, in the sense in which a hook retains the hat and coat that are hung upon it, ready to be taken down when wanted. We are not to conceive of the mind as a convenient receptacle, in which may be stowed away all manner of old thoughts, sensations, impressions, as old clothes are put by in a press, or guns in an armory. Not in any such sense is the mind retentive. What we mean, when we say the mind is retentive, is simply this, that it is in its power to repossess itself of what has once passed before it, to regain a thought or impression it has once had. And this is done by the operation of those laws of suggestion already considered. That, and that only is retained by the mind, which under the appropriate circumstances is by the principle of suggestion recalled to the mind. We are not to distinguish, then, the power to retain and the power to recall, as two separate things; nor, for the same reason, can we conceive of a memory that is other than retentive, or that is retentive but not ready. So far as these expressions denote any real distinction, it amounts simply to this, that some minds are more retentive than others; in other words, more susceptible of the influence of the suggesting principle in recalling ideas that have once been before them. Such a difference undoubtedly exists. Some remember much more readily and extensively than others. This may be owing, partly, to some difference of mental constitution and endowment; but more frequently to differences of mental habit and culture. It is not necessary to refer again to the laws of mental reproduction which have been already discussed. It is sufficient to say, that the more clearly any fact or truth is originally apprehended, and the more deeply it interests the mind, the more readily will it subsequently recur and the longer will it be retained.
IV. Memory in Relation to Intellectual Strength
The common Opinion.—The question has arisen, how far the power of memory may be regarded as a test of intellectual ability. The opinion has been somewhat prevalent, that a more than usual development of this faculty is likely to be attended with a corresponding deficiency in some other mental power, and especially that it is incompatible with a sound judgment. To this opinion I cannot subscribe. Doubtless it is true that many persons, deficient in the power of accurate discrimination, have possessed wonderful power of memory. The mind, in such cases, undisciplined, uncultivated, with little inventive and self-moving power, lies passive and open to the influence of every chance suggestion from without, as the lyre is put in vibration by the stray winds that sweep across its strings. Facts and incidents of no value, without number, and without order, are thrown into relief upon the confused background of the past, as sea-weed, sand, and shells are heaped by the unmeaning waves upon the shore.
But if a weak mind may possess a good memory, it is equally true, that a strong and well disciplined mind is seldom deficient in it. Men of most active and commanding intellect have been men also of tenacious and accurate memory. Napoleon was a remarkable instance of this. So also was the philosopher Leibnitz. While, then, we cannot regard the memory as a test of intellectual capacity, neither can it be considered incompatible with, or unfavorable to, mental strength. On the contrary, we can hardly look for any considerable degree of mental vigor and power where this faculty is essentially deficient.
Memory as affected by the Art of Printing.—It is remarked by Miss Edgeworth, and the remark is noticed with approval by Dugald Stewart, that the invention of printing, by placing books within the reach of all classes of people, has lowered the value of those extraordinary powers of memory which some of the learned were accustomed to display in former times. A man who had read, and who could repeat, a few manuscripts, was then not merely a remarkable, but a very useful man. It is quite otherwise now. There is no occasion now for any such exercise of memory. Hence instances of extraordinary memory are of unfrequent occurrence.
Failure of Memory accompanies failure of mental Power.—A decline of mental vigor, whether produced by disease or age, is usually attended with loss of memory to some extent. The first symptoms of this failure are usually forgetfulness of proper names and dates, and sometimes of words in general. A stroke of palsy frequently produces this result, and in such cases the name sometimes suggests the object, while the object no longer recalls the name. This is probably owing to the fact that the sign, being of less consequence than the thing signified, and making less impression on the mind, is more readily forgotten; hence the name, if suggested, recalls the thing, while, at the same time, the thing may not recall the name. In general, we pass more readily from the sign to the thing signified, than the reverse, and for the reason now given. Mr. Steward remarks, that this loss of proper names incident to old men, is chiefly observable in men of science, or those much occupied with important affairs—a fact resulting, he thinks, partly from their habits of general thought, and partly from their want of constant practice in that trivial conversation which is every moment recalling particulars to the mind.
The Memory of the Aged.—In the principles which have been advanced, we find an explanation, I think, of some facts respecting memory, which every one has noticed, but of which the philosophy may not be at first sight apparent, Why is it that aged people forget? that, as we grow old, while perhaps other powers of the mind are still vigorous, the memory begins to lose its tenacity? Not, I suspect, from any special change which the brain undergoes, for why should such changes affect this faculty more than any other? I should seek the explanation in a failure of one or other of the conditions already mentioned as essential to a good memory; either in the want of a sufficiently frequent coëxistence of associated ideas, or else in the want of a sufficiently vivid conception of them when presented; or, more likely, in both. And so the facts would indicate. Age involves usually the gradual failure and decay of the powers of perception; the ear fails to report what is said, the eye what is passing in space; and as memory is dependent on prior perception, of course a diminished activity of the one brings about a diminished activity of the other. In proportion as this ensues, the mind’s interest in passing events is likely to fail, for what is no longer clearly apprehended no longer awakens the same interest and attention as formerly. This directly affects the vividness of conception, and indirectly also reacts upon the frequency of coëxistence, for what we do not clearly apprehend, nor feel much interest in, will not be likely often to recur to mind, nor shall we dwell upon it when presented. There is thus brought about, by the mutual action and reaction of the causes now specified, a failure more or less complete of the essential conditions of a retentive memory.
The old man dwells accordingly much in the past. His life is behind him, and not in advance. He is unobservant of passing events, because he neither clearly apprehends them, now that his connection with the outer world is in a measure interrupted by the decay of sense, nor does he much care about them, for the same reason. His attention and interest, withdrawn in a manner from these, revert to the past. Those things he remembers, the sports and companions of his youth, and the stirring events of his best and most active years, for those things have been frequently associated in his mind, linked with each other, and with all the past of his life, and they have deeply interested him. Hence they are remembered while yesterday is forgotten.
Varieties of Memory.—Why is it, you ask, that memory seems to select for itself now one and now another field of operation, one man remembering dates, another events or facts in history, another words or pages of a book, while in each case the memory of other things, of every thing that lies beyond or without the favorite range of topics, is defective? Manifestly for much the same reason already given. The mind has its favorite subjects of investigation and thought; to these it frequently recurs, and dwells on them with interest; there is, consequently, frequency of coëxistence, and vividness of conception—the very conditions of retentiveness—while, at the same time, the mind being preöccupied with the given subjects, and the attention and interest withdrawn from other things, the memory of other things is proportionably deficient. We remember, in other words, just those things best, in which we are most interested, and with which we have most to do.
This explains why we forget names so readily. We have more to do with, and are more interested in, persons, than their names; the latter we have occasion to think of much less often than the former. The sign occurs less frequently than the thing signified.
V. Cultivation of Memory.
The principles already advanced furnish a clue to the proper and successful cultivation of the memory. Like all other powers, this may be cultivated, and to a wonderful degree; and, like all other powers, it gains strength by use, by exercise. The first and chief direction, then, if you would cultivate and strengthen this faculty of the mind, is, exercise it; train it to do its work—to do it quickly, easily, accurately, and well—as you train yourself to handle the keys of an instrument, or to add up a column of figures with promptness and accuracy.
To be more specific.—As regards any particular thing which you wish to remember: 1. Grasp it fully, clearly, definitely in the mind; be sure you have it exactly—it, and not something like it or something about it. 2. Connect it with other things that are known; suffer it to link itself with other ideas and impressions already in the mind, that you may have something to recall it by. 3. Frequently revert to it, until you are sure that it has become a permanent possession, and one which you can at any time recall by any one of numerous connecting links. In this way you secure the two conditions already specified as essential, viz., frequency of coëxistence, and vividness of conception.
Systems of artificial Memory.—A thing is recalled by the suggestion of any coëxisting thought or feeling. Observing this, ingenious men have availed themselves of the principle of association to construct various mechanical or artificial systems of memory, usually termed mnemonics. The principle of the construction is this: should you see an elm or an oak-tree, or hear a particular tune whistled, at the same time that you were going through a demonstration in Euclid, you would be likely to think of the tree or the tune whenever next you had occasion to repeat that demonstration. The sight of the diagram would recall the associated object. They stand together in your mind afterward. This we have already found to be the groundwork and chief element of all association of ideas and feelings, viz., prior coëxistence in the mind. Suppose, now, you wish to fix in the mind the list of English kings. Make out a corresponding list of simple figures, or images of objects, giving each its invariable place in relation to the series: No. 1. a pump; No. 2. a goose, etc., till you reach a sufficient number, say a hundred. These are committed to memory, fixed indelibly in the mind. You then associate with those figures your English kings; Charles I. stands by the pump; Charles II. pursues the goose; James hugs the bear, and so on. These things thus once firmly linked together, remain afterward associated, and the figure serves at once to recall the associate monarch and to fix his place in the series. The same series of figures, of course, will serve for any number of different series of events, personages, etc., which are to be remembered.
Utility questioned.—It may be seriously questioned, I think, whether such systems are of real value; whether they do not really weaken the memory and throw it into disuse, by departing from the ordinary laws and methods of suggestion, and substituting a purely artificial, arbitrary and mechanical process; whether, moreover, they really accomplish what they propose; whether, since the signs or figures have no natural relation to each other, and none to the things signified, but only the arbitrary relation imposed by the system, it is not really as difficult to fix the connection of the two things in your mind, e. g., to remember that Charles the Second is represented by a dog or by a goose, as it would be simply, and in the natural way, to remember the things themselves without any such association.
Extent to which the Memory may be cultivated.—The extent to which the cultivation of the memory may be carried by due training and care, is a topic worthy of some attention. Men of reflection and thought, and generally men of studious habits, literary men and authors, do not, for the most part, rely so much upon the memory as men of a more practical cast and of business pursuits; for this reason, viz., the want of due exercise, this faculty of their minds is not in the most favorable circumstances for development. Some striking exceptions, however, we shall have occasion presently to mention.
It has been already remarked, that prior to the art of printing, the cultivation of the memory was an object of far greater importance, to those who were destined for public life, than it is in modern times, and consequently instances of remarkable memory are much more frequently to be met with among the ancients than among the men of our times. The same remark will apply to men of different pursuits in any age: the more one has occasion to employ the memory, the more striking will be its development.
Instances of extraordinary Memory.—Cyrus, it is said, knew the name of every officer, Pliny has it of every soldier, that served under him. Themistocles could call by name each one of the twenty thousand citizens of Athens. Hortensius could sit all day at an auction, and at evening give an account from memory of every thing sold, the purchaser, and the price. Muretus saw at Padua a young Corsican, says Mr. Stewart, who could repeat, without hesitation, thirty-six thousand names in the order in which he heard them, and then reverse the order and proceed backward to the first.
Dr. Wallis of Oxford, on one occasion, at night, in bed, proposed to himself a number of fifty-three places, and found its square root to twenty-seven places, and, without writing down numbers at all, dictated the result from memory twenty days afterward. It was not unusual with him to perform arithmetical operations in the dark, as the extraction of roots, e. g., to forty decimal places. The distinguished Euler, blind from early life, had always in his memory a table of the first six powers of all numbers, from one to one hundred. On one occasion two of his pupils, calculating a converging series, on reaching the seventeenth term, found their results differing by one unit at the fiftieth figure, and in order to decide which was correct, Euler went over the whole in his head, and his decision was found afterward to be correct. Pascal forgot nothing of what he had read, or heard, or seen. Menage, at seventy-seven, commemorates, in Latin verses, the favor of the gods, in restoring to him, after partial eclipse, the full powers of memory which had adorned his earlier life.
The instances now given are mentioned by Mr. Stewart but perhaps the most remarkable instance of great memory in modern times, is the case of the celebrated Magliabechi, librarian of the Duke of Tuscany. He would inform any one who consulted him, not only who had directly treated of any particular subject, but who had indirectly touched upon it in treating of other subjects, to the number of perhaps one hundred different authors, giving the name of the author, the name of the book, the words, often the page, where they were to be found, and with the greatest exactness. To test his memory, a gentleman of Florence lent him at one time a manuscript he had prepared for the press, and, some time afterward, went to him with a sorrowful face, and pretended to have lost his manuscript by accident. The poor author seemed inconsolable, and begged Magliabechi to recollect what he could, and write it down. He assured the unfortunate man that he would, and setting about it, wrote out the entire manuscript without missing a word. He had a local memory also, knew where every book stood. One day the Grand Duke sent for him to inquire if he could procure a book which was very scarce. “No, sir,” answered Magliabechi; “it is impossible: there is but one in the world; that is in the Grand Seignior’s library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book, on the seventh shelf, on the right hand as you go in.”
VI. Effects of Disease on the Memory.
Forgetfulness of certain Objects.—Of the effect of certain forms of disease, and also of age, in weakening the power of remembering names, I have already spoken. There are other effects, occasionally produced by disease upon this faculty of the mind, which are not so readily explained. In some cases, a certain class of objects, or the knowledge of certain persons, or of a particular language or some part of a language, as substantives, e. g., seems to be lost to the mind; in other cases, a certain portion of life is obliterated from the recollection. In cases of severe injury to the head, persons have forgotten some particular language; others have been unable to recall afterward the names of the most common objects, while the memory was at no loss for adjectives. A surgeon mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie, so far recovered from a fall as to give special directions respecting his own treatment, yet, for several days, lost all idea of having either a wife or children. The case of Mr. Tennent, who on recovering from apparent death, lost all knowledge of his past life, and was obliged to commence again the study of the alphabet, until after considerable time his knowledge suddenly returned to him, is too well known to require minute description.
Former Objects recalled.—In other instances, precisely the reverse occurs. Disease brings back to mind what has been long forgotten. Thus, persons in extreme sickness, or at the point of death, not unfrequently converse in languages which they have known only in youth. The case cited by Coleridge, and so frequently quoted, of the German servant girl, who in sickness was heard repeating passages of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which she had formerly heard her master repeat, as he walked in his study, but of whose meaning she had no idea, is in point in this connection. So also is the case of the Italian mentioned by Dr. Rush, who died in New York, and who, in the beginning of his sickness, spoke English, in the middle of it, French, but on the day of his death, nothing but Italian. A Lutheran clergyman of Philadelphia told Dr. Rush that it was not uncommon for the Germans and Swedes of his congregation, when near death, to speak and pray in their native languages, which some of them had probably not spoken for fifty years. These facts are sufficiently numerous to constitute a class by themselves; they seem to fall under some law of the physical system not yet clearly understood, and are, therefore, in the present state of our knowledge, incapable of explanation.
Inference often drawn from these Facts.—Certain writers have inferred, from the recurrence of things long forgotten, as in the cases now cited, that all knowledge is indestructible and that all which is necessary to the entire reproduction of the past life is the quickened activity of the mental powers an effect which is produced in the delirium of disease. From this they have derived an argument for future retribution Coleridge has made such use of it, and has been followed by Upham, and in part, at least, though with more caution, by Wayland.
The true Inference.—It may be doubted, perhaps, whether the absolute indestructibility of all human knowledge is a legitimate inference from these facts. The most that can with certainty be concluded from them, is, not that all our past thoughts and consciousness must or will return, but that much of it may—perhaps all of it; and this is all we need to know in order to perceive the possibility of a future retribution. It is enough to know, that in the constitution of the mind means exist for recalling, in some way to us mysterious, and under certain conditions not by us fully understood, the objects of our former consciousness, in all the freshness and vividness of their past cognizance, long after they seem to have passed finally from the memory.
Importance of a well-spent Life.—This simple fact, together with the well-known tendency of the mind in advancing age to revert to the scenes and incidents of early life, certainly presents in the clearest light the importance of a well-spent life, of a mind stored with such recollections as shall cast a cheerful radiance over the past, and brighten the uncertain future in those hours of gloom and despondency when the shadows lengthen upon the path of earthly pilgrimage, and life is drawing to a close. If the thoughts and impressions of the passing moment are liable, by some casual association, by some mysterious law of our being, under conditions which may at any moment be fulfilled, to recur at any time to subsequent consciousness, with all the minuteness and power of present reality, it becomes us, as we regard our own highest interests, to guard well the avenues of thought and feeling against the first approach of that which we shall not be pleased to meet again, when it will not be in our power to escape its presence, or avoid its recognition.
VII. Influence of Memory on the Happiness of Life.
The Pleasures of the Past thus retained.—Of the importance of this faculty as related to other intellectual powers, I have already spoken. I refer now to its value as connected with human happiness, as the source of some of the purest pleasures of life. The present, however joyous, is fleeting and evanescent. Memory seizes the passing moment, fixes it upon the canvas, and hangs the picture on the soul’s inner chambers for her to look upon when she will. Thus, in an important sense, the former years are past, but not gone. We live them over again in memory.
Instance of Niebuhr.—It is related of Carsten Niebuhr, the Oriental traveller, that “when old and blind, and so feeble that he had barely strength to be borne from his bed to his chair, the dim remembrance of his early adventures thronged before his memory with such vividness that they presented themselves as pictures upon his sightless eye-balls. As he lay upon his bed, pictures of the gorgeous Orient flashed upon his darkness as distinctly as though he had just closed his eyes to shut them out for an instant. The cloudless blue of the eastern heavens bending by day over the broad deserts, and studded by night with southern constellations, shone as vividly before him, after the lapse of half a century, as they did upon the first Chaldean shepherds whom they won to the worship of the host of heaven; and he discoursed with strange and thrilling eloquence upon those scenes which thus, in the hours of stillness and darkness, were reflected upon his inmost soul.”
The same Thing occurs often in old Age.—Something of this kind not unfrequently occurs in advanced life. Picture to yourself an old man of many winters. The world in which his young life began has grown old with him and around him, and its brightest colors have faded from his vision. The life and stir, the whirl and tumult of the busy world, the world of to-day and yesterday, move him not. He heeds but slightly the events of the passing hour. He lives in a past world. The scenes of his childhood, the sports and companions of his youth, the hills and streams, the bright eyes and laughing faces on which his young eyes rested, in which his young heart delighted—these visit him again in his solitude, as he sits in his chair by the quiet fireside. He lives over again the past. He wanders again by the old hills, and over the old meadows. He feels again the vigor of youth. He leads again his bride to the altar. He brings home toys for his children, and enters again into their sports. And so the extremes of life meet. Age completes the circuit, and brings us back to the starting-point. We close where we began. Life is a magic ring.
The recollection of past Sorrow not always painful.—But life is not all joyous. Mingled with the brighter hues of every life are also much sadness and sorrow, and these, too, are to be remembered. It might be supposed that, while memory, by recalling the pleasing incidents of the past, might contribute much to our happiness, she would add, in perhaps an equal degree, to our sorrow, by recalling much that is painful to the thoughts. Such, however, I am convinced, is not the fact. The benevolence of the Creator has ordered it otherwise. To no one, perhaps, is memory the source of greater pleasure, strange as it may seem, than to the mourner. The very circumstances that tend to renew our grief, and keep alive our sorrow, in case of some severe calamity or bereavement, are still cherished with a melancholy satisfaction of which we would not be deprived. There is a luxury in our very grief, and in the remembrance of that for which we grieve. We would not forget what we have lost. Every recollection and association connected with it are sacred. Time assuages our grief, but impairs not the strength and sacredness of those associations, nor diminishes the pleasure with which we recall the forms we shall see no more, and the scenes that are gone forever. Every memento of the departed one is sacred; the books, the flowers, the favorite walks, the tree in whose shadow he was wont to recline, all have a significance and a value which the stricken heart only can interpret, and which memory only can afford.
We recollect the Past as it was.—It is to be noticed, also, that, in such cases, the picture which memory furnishes is a transcript of the past as it was; the image is stereotyped and unchangeable. Other things change, we change; that changes not. It has a fixed value. A mother, for instance, loses a child of three years. It ever remains to her a child of three years. She remembers it as it was. She grows old; twenty summers and winters pass; yet as often as she visits the little mound, now scarce to be distinguished from the level surface, there comes to her recollection that little child as he was, when she hung, for the last time, over that pale, sweet face that she should see no more. She still thinks of him, dreams of him, as a child, for it is as such only that she remembers him.
Blessed boon, that gives us just the past; when all things change, fortunes vary, friends depart, the world grows unkind, and we grow old, the former things remain treasured in our memory, and we can stand as mourners at the grave of what we once were.
VIII. Historical Sketch.—Different Theories Of Memory.
Ancient Theory.—The idea formerly, and almost universally entertained respecting the modus operandi of the faculty we call memory, was, that in perception and the various operations of the senses, certain impressions are made on the sensorium—certain forms and types of things without, certain images of them—which remain when the external object is no longer present, and become imprinted thus on the mind. Such, certainly, was the doctrine of the earliest Greek commentators on Aristotle. Such, I must think, is substantially the doctrine of Aristotle himself.
Theory of Aristotle.—His idea is, that memory, as well as imagination, primarily and directly, relates only to sensible objects, and gives us only images of these objects, and even when it gives us strictly intellectual objects, gives us these only by images. One cannot think, he says, without images. Its source and origin, then, he concludes, is the sensibility, and so it pertains to animals, as well as men; only to those, however, which have the perception of time, since memory is a modification of sensation or intellectual conception, under the condition of time past. Such being, in his view, the nature and source of memory, he goes on to ask how it is that only a modification (or state) of the mind being present, and the object itself absent, one recalls that absent object?
“Manifestly,” he replies, “we must believe that the impression which is produced, in consequence of the sensation, in the soul, and in that part of the body which perceives the sensation, is analogous to a species of painting, and that the perception of that impression constitutes precisely what we call memory. The movement which then takes place in the mind imprints there a sort of type of the sensation analogous to the seal which one imprints on wax with a ring. Hence it is that those who by the violence of the impression, or by the ardor of age are in a great excitement (movement) have not the memory of things, as if the movement and seal had been applied to running water. In the case of others, however, who are in a sort cold, as the plaster of old edifices, the very hardness of the part which receives the impression prevents the image from leaving the least trace. Hence it is that young children and old men have so little memory. It is the same with those who are too lively, and those who are too slow. Neither remember well. The one class are too humid, the other too hard. The image dwells not in the soul of the one, makes no impression whatever on that of the other.
“How is it now,” he goes on to ask, “that this stamp, impression, image, or painting, in us, a mere mode of the mind, can recall the absent object?” His answer is, that the impression or image is a copy of that object, while, at the same time, it is, in itself considered, only a modification of our mind, just as a painting is a mere picture, and yet a copy from nature. (Parva Naturalia: Memory, ch. 1.)
Defence of Aristotle.—Sir W. Hamilton defends Aristotle against the strictures of Dr. Reid, upon this subject, by the supposition that he used these expressions not in a literal, but in a figurative or analogical sense. The figure, however, if it be one, is very clearly and boldly sustained, and constitutes, in fact, the whole explanation given of the process of memory—the entire theory. Take away these expressions, and you take away the whole substance of his argument, the whole solution of the problem. Sensation, or intellectual conception, produces an impression on the soul, and imprints there a type of itself, not unlike a painting or the stamp of a seal on wax, and the perception of this is memory. Such is in brief his theory.
Theory of Hobbes.—Not far remote from this was the theory of Hobbes, who regarded memory as a decaying or vanishing sense; that of Hume, who represents it as merely a somewhat weaker impression than that which we designate as perception; and that of the celebrated Malebranche, who accounted for memory by making it to depend entirely on the changes which take place in the fibres of the brain. “For even as the branches of a tree which have continued some time bent in a certain form, still preserve an aptitude to be bent anew after the same manner, so the fibres of the brain having once received certain impressions by the course of the animal spirits, and by the action of objects, retain a long time some facility to receive these same dispositions. Now the memory consists only in this faculty, since we think on the same things when the brain receives the same impressions.”
He goes on to explain how, as the brain undergoes a change in different periods of life, the mind is affected accordingly. “The fibres of the brain in children are soft, flexible, and delicate; a riper age dries, hardens, and strengthens them; but in old age they become wholly inflexible.”... “For as we see the fibres which compose the flesh harden by time, and that the flesh of a young partridge is, without dispute, more tender than that of an old one, so the fibres of the brain of a child or youth will be much more soft and delicate than those of persons more advanced in years.”
Strictures upon this Theory.—Without disputing what is here stated as to the difference in the fibres of the brain at different periods of life, it remains to be proved that all this has any thing to do with the differences of memory in different persons, or with the phenomena of memory in general.
These theories, it will be observed, all assume that in perception and sensation some physical effect is produced on the system, which remains after the original sensation or perception has ceased to act, and that memory is the result of that remaining effect, the perception, or conscious cognizance of it by the mind. The process is a purely physiological one. Without insisting on the expressions made use of to represent this process, all which convey the idea strongly of a mechanical effect—type imprinted on the soul, impression made on it as of a seal on wax, image, picture, copy, etc.; allowing these to be mere metaphors; allowing, moreover, that the essential fact all along assumed, is a fact, viz., that in sensation, perception, etc., some physical effect is produced on the sensorium; there are still two essential propositions to be established before we can admit any of these theories: 1. That this physical effect remains any time after the cause ceases to operate; 2. That if so, it is in any way concerned in the production of memory; and even if these points could be made out, it would still be an open question, in WHAT way, possible or conceivable, this effect or impression on the sensorium gives rise to the phenomenon of memory; for this is, after all, the chief thing to be explained.
Chapter II
IMAGINATION.
§ I.—General Character of this Faculty.
The Point at which we have arrived.—We have thus far treated of those forms of mental representation which are concerned in the reproduction of what has once been perceived or felt, and in the recognition of it as such. It remains still to investigate that form of the representative power, which has for its office something quite distinct from either of these, and which we may term the creative faculty.
Office of this Faculty.—By the operation of this power, the former perceptions and sensations are replaced in thought, and combined as in mental reproduction, but not, as in mental reproduction, according to the original and actual, so that the past is simply repeated, but rather according to the mind’s own ideal, and at its own will and fancy; so that while the groundwork of the representation is something which has been, at some time, an object of perception, the picture itself, as it stands before the mind in its completeness, is not the copy of any thing actually perceived, but a creation of the mind’s own. This power the mind has, and it is a power distinct from either of those already mentioned, and not less wonderful than either. The details of the original perception are omitted; time, place, circumstance fall out, or are varied to suit the fancy; the scene is laid when and where we like; the incidents follow each other no longer in their actual order; the original, in a word, is no longer faithfully transcribed, but the picture is conformed to the taste and pleasure of the artist. The conception becomes IDEAL. This is imagination in its true and proper sphere—the creative power of the mind.
§ II.—Relation of this to other Faculties.
The true province of imagination may be more definitely distinguished by comparing it with other powers of the mind.
Imagination as related to Memory.—How, then, does imagination differ from memory? In this, first and chiefly, that memory gives us the actual, imagination, the ideal; in this also, that memory deals only with the past, while imagination, not confined to such limits, sweeps on bolder wing, and without bound, alike through the future and the past. In one respect they agree. Both give the absent—that which is not now and here present to sense. Both are representative rather than presentative. Both also are forms of conception.
To Perception.—In what respect does it differ from perception? In perception the object is given, presented; in imagination it is thought, conceived; in the former case it is given as actual, in the latter, conceived not as actual but as ideal.
To Judgment.—Imagination differs from judgment, in that the latter deals, not like the former, with things in themselves considered, but rather with the relations of things—is, in other words, a form not of simple, but of relative conception; and also in that it deals with these relations as actual, not as ideal. It has always specific reference to truth, and is concerned in the formation of opinion and belief, as resting on the evidence of truth, and the perception of the actual relations of things.
To Reasoning.—In like manner it differs from reasoning, which also has to do with truths, facts—has for its object to ascertain and state those facts or principles; its sole and simple inquiry being, what is true? Imagination concerns itself with no such inquiry, admits of no such limitation. Its thought is not what did actually occur, but what in given circumstances might occur. Its question is not what really was, or is, or will be, but what may be; what may be conceived as possible or probable under such or such contingencies.
Reasoning, moreover, reaches only such truths as are involved in its premises, and may fairly be deduced as conclusions from those premises. It furnishes no new material, but merely evolves and unfolds what lies wrapped up in the admitted premises. Imagination lies under no such restriction. There is no necessary connection between the wrath of Achilles, and the consequences that are made to result from it in the unfolding of the epic.
To Taste.—Imagination and taste are by no means identical. The former may exist in a high degree where the latter is essentially defective. In such a case the conceptions of the imagination are, it may be, too bold, passing the limits of probability, or, it may be, offensive to delicacy, wanting in refinement and beauty, or in some way deficient in the qualities that please a cultivated mind. This is not unfrequently the case with the productions of the poet, the painter, the orator. There is no lack of imagination in their works, while, at the same time, they strike us as deficient in taste. Taste is the regulating principle, whose office is to guide and direct the imagination, sustaining to it much the same relation that conscience does to free moral action. It is a lawgiver and a judge.
To Knowledge.—Still more widely does imagination differ from simple knowledge. There may be great learning and no imagination, and the reverse is equally true. We know that which is—the actual; we imagine that which is not—the ideal. Learning enlarges and quickens the mind, extends the field of its vision, augments its resources, expands its sphere of thought and action; in this way its powers are strengthened, its conceptions multiplied and vivified. There is furnished, consequently, both more and better material for the creative faculty to work upon. Further than this, the imagination is little indebted to learning.
Illustration of these Differences.—To illustrate the differences already indicated: I stand at my window and look out on the landscape. My eye rests on the form and dark outline of a mountain, pictured against the sky. Perception, this. I go back to my desk, I shut my eyes. That form and figure, pencilled darkly against the blue sky, are still in my mind. I seem to see them still. That heavy mass, that undulating outline, that bold rugged summit—the whole stands before me as distinctly as when my eye rested upon it. Conception, this, replacing the absent object. I not only in my thoughts seem to see the mountain thus reproduced, but I know it when seen; I recognize it as the mountain which a moment before I saw from my window. Memory, this, connecting the conception with something in my past experience. The picture fades perhaps from my view, and I begin to estimate the probable distance of the mountain, or its relative height, as compared with other mountains. Judgment, this, or the conception of relations. I proceed to calculate the number of square miles of surface on a mountain of that height and extent. Reasoning, this. And now I sweep away, in thought, the actual mountain, and replace it with one vastly more imposing and grand. Eternal snows rest upon its summits; glaciers hold their slow and stately march down its sides; the avalanche thunders from its precipices. Imagination now has the field to herself.
§ III.—Active and Passive Imagination.
View of Dr. Wayland.—“If we regard the several act of this faculty,” says Dr. Wayland, “we may, I think, observe a difference between them. We have the power to originate images or pictures for ourselves, and we have the power to form them as they are presented in language. The former may be called active, and the latter passive imagination. The active, I believe, always includes the passive power, but the passive does not always include the active. Thus we frequently observe persons who delight in poetry and romance, who are utterly incapable of creating a scene or composing a stanza. They can form the pictures dictated by language, but are destitute of the power of original combination.”
Correctness of this View questioned.—That many who enjoy the creations of the poet and the splendid fictions of the dramatist and novelist, are themselves incapable of producing like creations, is doubtless true. The same is true in other departments of the creative art. Many persons enjoy a fine painting or statue, good music, or a noble architectural design, who cannot themselves produce these works of art. This does not prove them deficient, however, in imagination, for the inability may be owing to other causes, as want of training; nor, on the other hand, does the simple enjoyment of ideal creations involve a different kind of imagination from that exercised in creating. Imagination is, as it seems to me, always active, never passive. Where it exists, and whenever it is called into exercise, it acts, and its action is, in some sense, creative. It conceives the ideal, that which, as conceived, does not exist, or at least is not known to the senses as existing. It matters not in what way these ideal conceptions are suggested, whether by the signs of language written or spoken, or by those characters which the painter, the sculptor, or the architect presents, each in his own way, and with his own material, or by one’s own previous conceptions. Every ideal conception is suggested by something antecedent to itself. All active imagination is, in other words, passive, in the sense here intended, and all passive imagination, so called, is in reality active, so far as it is, properly speaking, imagination at all. The difference between the faculty that produces and that which merely enjoys, is a difference of degree rather than of kind. The one is an imagination peculiarly active; the other slightly so; or, more properly, the one mind has much, the other little imagination.
Philosophic Imagination.—The term philosophic imagination, in distinction from poetic, is employed by the same distinguished writer to denote the faculty, possessed by some minds of a high order, of discovering new truths in science; of so classifying and arranging known facts as to bring to light the laws which govern them, or, by a happy conjecture, assigning to phenomena hitherto unexplained, a theory which will account for them. Whether the faculty now intended is properly imagination, admits of question. Its field is that of conjecture, supposition, theory, invention. It involves the exercise of judgment and reason. It seeks after truth. It is a process of discovering what is. Imagination deals with the ideal only—inquires not for the true.
§ IV.—Imagination a Simple Faculty.
Common Theory.—The view which has been very generally entertained of the faculty now under consideration, both in this country, and by the Scotch philosophers, resolves it partially or wholly into other powers of the mind, as abstraction, association, judgment, taste. In this view, it is no longer a simple faculty, if indeed it can with propriety be called a faculty at all, inasmuch as the effects ascribed to it can be accounted for by the agency of the other powers now named.
A different View.—It seems to me that imagination, while doubtless it presupposes and involves the exercise of the suggestive and associative principle, of the analytic or divisive principle by which compounds are broken up into their distinct elements, and also, to some extent, of judgment, or the principle which perceives relations, is, nevertheless, itself a power distinct from each of these, and from all of them in combination. Memory presupposes perception, or something to be reproduced and remembered. It is not, therefore, to be regarded as a complex faculty, comprising the perceptive power as one of its factors. The power to combine, in like manner, presupposes the previous separation of elements capable of being reunited, but is not to be resolved into that power which produces such separation. It involves some exercise of judgment along with its own proper and distinctive activity, but is not to be confounded with, or resolved into the power of perceiving relations.
The faculty of ideal conception is really a power of the mind, and it is a simple power, a thing of itself, although it may involve and presuppose the activity of other faculties along with its own. Abstraction, association, judgment, taste—none of them singly, nor all of them combined, are what we mean by it.
Theory of Brown.—Dr. Brown resolves the faculty now in question into simple suggestion, accompanied, in the case of voluntary imagination, with desire, and with judgment. There is nothing in the process different from what occurs in any case of the suggestion of one thought by another, he would say. We think of a mountain, we think of gold, and some analogy, or common property of the two, serves to suggest the complex conception, mountain of gold. Even where the process is not purely spontaneous, but accompanied with desire on our part, it is still essentially the same process. We think of something, and this suggests other related conceptions, some of which we approve as fit for our purpose, others we reject as unfit. Here is simple suggestion accompanied with desire and judgment; and these are all the factors that enter into the process. “We may term this state, or series of states, imagination or fancy, and the term may be convenient for its brevity. But in using it we must not forget that the term, however brief and simple, is still the name of a state that is complex, or of a succession of states, that the phenomena comprehended under it being the same in nature, are not rendered, by the use of a mere word, different from those to which we have already given peculiar names expressive of them as they exist separately, and that it is to the classes of these elementary phenomena, therefore, that we must refer the whole process of imagination in our philosophic analysis.”
Strictures on this Theory.—This view, it will be perceived, in reality sweeps the faculty of imagination entirely from the field. To this I cannot yield my assent. Is not this state, or affection of the mind, as Dr. Brown calls it, quite a distinct thing from other mental states and affections? Has it not a character sui generis? Is not the operation, the thing done, a different thing from what is done in other cases, and by other faculties; and has not the mind the power of doing this new and different thing; and is not that power of doing a given thing what we mean in any case by a faculty of the mind? Is there not an element in this process under consideration which is not involved in other mental processes, viz.: the ideal element; the conception, not of the actual and the real, as in the case of the other faculties, but of the purely ideal? And if the mind has the faculty of forming a class of conceptions so entirely distinct from the others, why not give that faculty a name, and its own proper name, and allow it a place, its own proper place, among the mental powers?
§ V.—Imagination not merely the Power of Combination.
The prevalent View.—This question is closely connected with that just discussed. The usual definitions make the faculty under consideration a mere process of combining and arranging ideas previously in the mind, so as to form new compounds. You have certain conceptions. These you combine one with another, as a child puts together blocks that lie before him, to suit himself, now this uppermost, now that, and the result is a world of imagination. It is the mere arrangement of previous conceptions, and not itself a power of producing or connecting any thing. And even this arrangement of former conceptions is itself a spontaneous casual process, according to Dr. Brown, not properly a power of the mind.
Makes Imagination little else than Invention.—According to this view, imagination is hardly to be distinguished from mere invention in the mechanic arts, which is the result of some new combination of previously existing materials. The construction of a steam-pump with a new kind of valve, is as really a work of imagination, as Paradise Lost. The man who contrives a carding-machine, and the man who conceives the Transfiguration, the Apollo Belvidere, or the Iliad, are exercising both the same faculty—merely combining in new forms the previous possessions of the mind.
This View inadequate.—This is a very meagre and inadequate view, as it seems to me, of the faculty of imagination. It fixes the attention upon, and elevates into the importance of a definition, a circumstance in itself unimportant, while it overlooks the essential characteristic of the faculty to be defined. The creative activity of the mind is lost sight of in attending to the materials on which it works.
The Distinctive Element of Imagination overlooked.—Imagination I take to be the power of conceiving the ideal. The elements which enter into and compose that ideal conception, are, indeed, elements previously existing, not themselves the mind’s creations; but the conception itself is the mind’s own creation, and this creative activity, this power of conceiving the purely ideal, is the very essence of that which we are seeking to define. True, the separate conceptions which enter into the composition of Paradise Lost—trees, flowers, rivers, mountains, angels, deities—were already in the poet’s mind before he began to meditate the sublime epic. They were but the material on which he wrought. Has he then created nothing, conceived nothing? Have we truly and adequately described that immortal poem when we say that it is a mere combination of trees, rivers, hills, and angels, in certain proportions and relations not previously attempted?
Illustration drawn from the Arts.—The artist makes use of colors previously existing when he would produce a painting, and of marble already in the block, when he would chisel a statue or a temple. In reality he only combines. Yet it would be but a poor definition of any one of these sublime arts to say that painting, sculpture, architecture, is merely the putting together of previous materials to form new wholes. We object to such a definition, not because it affirms what is not true, but because it does not affirm the chief and most important truth; not because of what it states, but because of what it omits to state. These are creative arts. They give us indeed not new substances, but new forms, new products, new ideas. So is imagination a creative faculty. The individual elements may not be new, but the grand product and result is new, a creation of the mind’s own. And this is of more consequence than the fact that the elementary conceptions were already in the mind. The one is the essential characteristic, the other a comparatively unimportant circumstance; the one describes the thing itself, the other the mere modus operandi of the thing.
Illustration drawn from the Creation of the material World.—What is creation in its higher and more proper sense, as applied to the formation, by divine power, of the world in which we dwell? There was a moment, in the eternity of the past, when the omnipotent builder divided the light from the darkness, and the evening and the morning were the first day. The elements may have existed before—heat, air, earth, water, the various material and diffused substance of the world about to be—but latent, confused, chaotic those elements, not called forth and appointed each to its own proper sphere. Light slumbers amid the chaotic elements unseen. He speaks the word, and it comes forth from its hiding-place, and stands revealed in its own beauty and splendor. Has God made nothing, in so doing? Has he conceived nothing, created nothing? And when the work goes on, and is at length complete, and the fair new world hangs poised and trembling on its axis, perfect in every part, and rejoicing the heart of the builder, is there no new power displayed in all this, no creation here? And do we well and adequately express the sublime mystery when we say that the deity has merely arranged and combined materials previously existing, to form a new whole?
Art essentially creative.—So when the poet, the painter, the skillful architect, the mighty orator, call forth from the slumbering elements new forms of beauty and power, are not they, too, in their humble way, creators? True, they have in so doing combined conceptions previously existing in the mind. The writer combines in new forms the existing letters of the alphabet, the painter combines existing colors, the architect puts together previously-existing stones. But is this all he does? Is it the chief thing? Is this the soul and spirit of his divine art? No; there is a new power, a new element, not thus expressed—the power of conceiving, and calling into existence, in the realm of thought, that which has no actual existence in the world of sober reality. He who has this power is a maker—ποιητησ. It is a power conferred, in some degree, on all, in its highest degree, on few. The poet, painter, orator, the gifted creative man, whoever he is, belongs to this class.
§ VI.—Imagination limited to Sensible Objects.
Law of the Imagination.—It is a law of the imagination, that whatever it represents, it realizes, clothes in sensible forms, conceives as visible, audible, tangible, or in some way within the sphere and cognizance of sense. Whatever it has to do with, whatever object it seizes and presents, it brings within this sphere, invests with sensible drapery. Now, strictly speaking, there are no objects, save those of sense, which admit of this process, which can be, even in conception, thus invested with sensible forms, pictured to the eye, or represented to the other senses as objects of their cognizance. If I conceive of objects strictly immaterial as thus presented, I make them, by the very conception, to depart from their proper nature and to become sensible. Imagination has nothing to do, then, strictly speaking, with abstract truths and conceptions, with spiritual and immaterial existences, with ideas and feelings as such, for none of these can be represented under sensible forms, or brought within the sphere and cognizance of the senses. Sensible objects are the groundwork, therefore, of its operation—the materials of its art.
But not to visible Objects.—It is not limited, however, to visible objects merely—is not a mere picture-forming, image-making power. It more frequently, indeed, fashions its creations after the conceptions which sight affords than those of the other senses; but it deals also with conceptions of sound, as in music, and the play of storm and tempest, and with other objects of sense, as the taste, the touch, pressure, etc. Thus the gelidi fontes of Virgil is an appeal to the sense of delicious coolness not less than to that of sparkling beauty. A careful analysis of every act of the imagination will show, I think, a sensible basis as the groundwork of the fabric—something seen, or heard, or felt—something said or done—some sensible reality—something which, however ideal and transcendental in itself and in reality, yet admits of expression in and through the senses; otherwise it were a mere conception or abstraction—a mere idea—not an imagination.
§ VII.—Imagination limited to New Results.
The simple reproduction of the past, whether an object or perception, or sensation, or conception merely, the simple reproduction or bringing back of that to the mind, we have assigned as the office of another faculty. Imagination, we have said, departs from the reality, and gives you not what you have had before, but something new, other, different. It is not the simple image-making power, then, for mental reproduction gives you an image or picture of any former object of perception, as you have seen it—a portrait of the past, true and faithful to the original.
Some writers would differ from the view now expressed. Some of the Germans assign to imagination the double office of producing the new and reproducing the old; the latter they call imaginative reproduction. In what respect this latter differs from the faculty of mental reproduction in general, it is difficult to perceive. When I remember a word spoken, or a song, I have the conception of a sound, or a series of sounds. When I remember an object in nature, as a mountain, a house, etc., I have the conception of a material object, having some definite form, and figure, outline, proportion, magnitude, etc. The conception of the absent object presents itself in such a case, of course, as an image or picture of the object to the mental eye. It is as really the work of conception reproductive, however, to replace, in this case, the absent object as once perceived, as it is to bring back to mind any thing else that has once been before it; e. g., a spoken word or a date in history. We may, if we please, term this faculty, as employed on objects of sight, conception imaginative and distinguish it from the same faculty as employed in reproducing other objects; but it were certainly better to appropriate the term imagination to the single and far higher province of creation—the office of conceiving the ideal under the form of the sensible.
§ VIII.—Imagination a Voluntary Power, or Process.
Is it an act which the mind puts forth when it will, and withholds when it will? Or is it a mere passive susceptibility of the mind to be impressed in this particular way? As the harp lies passive to the wind, which comes and goes we know not how or whither, so does the mind lie open to such thoughts and fancies as flit over it and call forth its hidden harmonies as they pass by? Those who, with Dr. Brown, resolve imagination into mere suggestion, of course take the latter view.
Often spontaneous.—Undoubtedly, the greater part of our ideal conceptions are spontaneous—the thoughts that rise at the instant, unpremeditated, uncalled, the suggestions of the passing moment or event. This is true of our daily reveries, and all the little romances we construct, when we give the reins to fancy, and a “varied scene of thought”—to use the beautiful expression of Cudworth—passes before us, peopled with forms unreal and illusive. There is no special volition to call up these conceptions, or such as these. They take their rise and hue from the complexion of the mind at the time, and the character of the preceding conceptions, in the ever moving, ever varying series and procession of thought. They are like the shifting figures on the curtain in a darkened room, shadows coming and going, as the forms of those without move hither and thither. So far, all is spontaneous. Nay, more: It is, doubtless, impossible, by direct volition, to call up any conception, ideal or otherwise; since this, as Dr. Brown has well argued, would be “either to will without knowing what we will, which is absurd,” or else to have already the conception which we wished to have, which is not less absurd.
If no intentional Activity, then Imagination not a Faculty.—Is there then no intentional creation of new and ideal conceptions, of images, similes, metaphors, and other like material of a lively and awakened fancy, but merely a casual suggestion of such and such thoughts, quite beyond any control and volition or even purpose of ours? If so, then, after all, is it proper to speak of a faculty of imagination, since we have not, in this case, the power of doing the thing under consideration? We merely sit still in the darkened room, and watch the figures as they come and go, with some desire that the thing may go on, some appreciation of it, some critical judgment of the different forms and movements.
The Mind not wholly passive in the Process.—I reply this is not altogether so. The mind is not altogether passive in this thing; there is an activity involved in the process, and that of the mind’s own. There is a power, either original or acquired, of conceiving such thoughts as are now under consideration, a readiness for them, a proneness to them[, a bias, propensity, inclination, more powerful in some than in others, by virtue of which this process occurs. We may call this a faculty, though, more strictly, perhaps, a susceptibility, but it is, in truth, one of the endowments of the mind, part of its furniture, one form of its activity.
A more direct voluntary Element.—But there is, further than this, and more directly, a voluntary element in the process. It is in our power to yield, or not, to this propensity, this inclination to the ideal; to put forth the mental activity in this direction, or to withhold it; to say whether or not the imagination shall have its free, full play, and with liberated wing soar aloft through her native skies; whether our speech shall be simple argument, unadorned stout logic, or logic not less stout, clothed with the pleasing, rustling drapery which a lively imagination is able to throw, like a splendid robe, over the naked form of truth.
There is, then, really a mental activity, and an activity in some degree under control of the will, in the process we are considering.
Same Difficulty lies elsewhere.—The same difficulty which meets us here, meets us elsewhere, and lies equally against other mental powers. We cannot, by direct volition, remember a past event, for this implies, as in the case of the volition to imagine a given scene, either that the thing is already in view, or else that we will we know not what. Yet, as every one knows, there is a way of recalling past events; a faculty or power of doing this thing; a faculty which we exercise when we please.
The same may be said of the power of thought in general. We cannot, by direct volition, think of any given thing, for to will to think of it is already to have thought of it, yet there is mental activity involved in every process of thought a mental power exercised, a faculty of some sort exercised. Nor is it a power altogether beyond our own control. We can direct our thoughts, can govern them, can turn them, as we do a water course, that will flow somewhere, but whose channel we may lead this way or that.
§ IX.—Use and Abuse of Imagination.
Influence upon the Mind.—As to the benefits arising from the due use and exercise of this faculty, not much, perhaps, is requisite to be said. It gives vividness to our conceptions, it raises the tone of our entire mental activity, it adds force to our reasoning, casts the light of fancy over the sombre plodding steps of judgment, gilds the recollections of the past, and the anticipations of the future, with a coloring not their own. It lights up the whole horizon of thought, as the sunrise flashes along the mountain tops, and lights up the world. It would be but a dreary world without that light.
Influence on the Orator.—By its aid the orator presents his clear, strong argument in its own simple strength and beauty, or commands those skillful touches, that, by a magic spell, thrill all hearts in unison. There floats before his mind, ever as he proceeds, the beau ideal of what his argument should be; toward this he aspires, and those aspirations make him what he is. No man is eloquent who has not the imagination requisite to form and keep vividly before him such an ideal.
On the Artist.—By its aid the artist breathes into the inanimate marble the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. By its aid, deaf old Beethoven, at his stringless instrument, calls up the richest harmony of sound, and blind old Milton, in his darkness and desolateness, takes his magician’s wand, and lo! there rises before him the vision of that Paradise where man, in his primeval innocence, walked with God.
On other Minds.—Nor is it the poet, the orator, the artist, alone, that derive benefit from the exercise of this faculty, or have occasion to make use of it. It is of inestimable value to us all. It opens for us new worlds, enlarges the sphere of our mental vision, releases us from the bonds and bounds of the actual, and gives us, as a bird let loose, the wide firmament of thought for our domain. It gilds the bald, sullen actualities, and stern realities of life, as the morning reddens the chill, snowy summits of the Alps, till they glow in resplendent beauty.
On the Spectator and Observer.—It is of service, not to him who writes alone, but to him who reads; not to him who speaks alone, but to him who hears; not to the artist alone, but to the observer of art; for neither poet, nor orator, nor artist, can convey the full meaning, the soul, the inspiration of his work, to one who has not the imagination to appreciate and feel the beauty, and the power, that lie hidden there. There is just as much meaning in their works, to us, as there is soul in us to receive that meaning. The man of no imagination sees no meaning, no beauty, no power, in the Paradise Lost, the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Aurora of Guido, or the master-pieces of Canova and Thorwalsden.
Errors of Imagination.—Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices, illusions of the imagination; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some wrong use, of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We dwell upon its pleasing visions till we forget the sober face of truth. We fancy pleasures, benefits, results which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark and dreary side of things till all nature wears the sombre hue of our disordered fancy.
Not, therefore, to set aside its due Culture.—All this we are liable to do. All these abuses of the imagination are possible, likely enough to occur. Against them we must guard. But to cry out against the culture and due exercise of the imagination, because of these abuses to which it is liable, is not the part of wisdom or highest benevolence. To hinder its fair and full development, and to preclude its use, is to cut ourselves off, and shut ourselves out, from the source of some of the highest, purest, noblest, pleasures of this our mortal life.
No Faculty perhaps of more Value.—It is not too much to say, that there is, perhaps, no faculty of the mind which, under due cultivation, and within proper bounds, is of more real service to man, or is more worthy of his regard, than this. Especially, is it of value in forming and holding before the mind an ideal of excellence in whatever we pursue, a standard of attainment, practicable and desirable, but loftier far than any thing we have yet reached. To present such an ideal, is the work of the imagination, which looks not upon the actual, but the possible, and conceives that which is more perfect than the human eye hath seen, or the human hand wrought. No man ever yet attained excellence, in any art or profession, who had not floating before his mind, by day and by night, such an ideal and vision of what he might and ought to be and to do. It hovers before him, and hangs over him, like the bow of promise and of hope, advancing with his progress, ever rising as he rises, and moving onward as he moves; he will never reach it, but without it he would never be what he is.
§ X.—Culture of the Imagination.
Strengthened by Use.—In what way, it is sometimes asked, may the faculty under consideration be improved and strengthened? To this it may be replied, in general, that the ideal faculty, like every other, is developed and strengthened by exercise, weakened and impaired by neglect. There is no surer way to secure its growth than to call its present powers, whatever they may be, into frequent exercise. The mental faculties, like the thews and muscles of the physical frame, develop by use. Imagination follows the same general law.
Study of the Works of others.—I do not mean by this exclusively the direct exercise of the imagination in ideal creations of our own, although its frequent employment in this way, is of course necessary to its full development. But the imagination is also exercised by the study of the ideal creations of others, especially of those highly gifted minds which have adorned and enriched their age with productions of rarest value, which bear the stamp and seal of immortality. With these, in whatever department of letters or art, in poetry, oratory, music, painting, sculpture, architecture—whatever is grand, and lofty, and full of inspiration, whatever is beautiful and pleasing, whatever is of choicest worth and excellence in its own proper sphere; with these let him become familiar who seeks to cultivate in himself the faculty of the ideal. Every work of the imagination appeals to the imagination of the observer, and thus develops the faculty which it calls into exercise. No one can be familiar with the creations of Shakspeare and Milton, of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and not catch something of their inspiration.
Study of Nature.—Even more indispensable is the study of nature; and it has this advantage, that it is open to those who may not have access to the sublime works of the highest masters of art. Nature, in all her moods and phases—in her wonderful variety of elements—the grand and the lowly, the sublime and the beautiful, the terrible and the pleasing—nature in her mildest and most fearful displays of power, and also in her softest and sweetest attractions, is open to every man’s observation, and he must be a close observer and a diligent student of her who would cultivate in himself the ideal element. The most gifted sons of genius, the minds most richly endowed with the power of ideal creation, have been remarkable for their love and careful study of nature.
Mistake on this Point.—I must notice in this connection, however, a mistake into which some have fallen in regard to this matter. The simple description of a scene in nature, just as it is, is not properly a work of the imagination. It is simply perception or memory that is thus exercised, along with judgment and artistic power of expression. Imagination gives not the actual, but the ideal. She never satisfies herself with an exact copy. The mere portrait painter, however skillful, is not in the highest sense an artist. The painter, mentioned by Wayland, who copied the wing of the butterfly for the wing of the Sylph, was not, in so doing, exercising his imagination, but only his power of imitation. So, too, when Walter Scott gives us, in the cave of Denzel, a precise description of some spot which he has seen, even to the very plants and flowers that grow among the rocks, that scene, however pleasing and life-like, is not properly a creation of his own imagination; it is a description of the actual, and not a conception of the ideal. Much that is included under the general title of works of the imagination is not properly the production of that faculty.
Coleridge has made essentially the same remark, that in what is called a work of imagination, much is simple narration, much the filling up of the outline, and not to be attributed to that faculty.
The Student of Nature not a mere Copyist.—The true study of nature, is not to observe simply that we may copy what she presents, but rather to gather materials on which our own conceptive power may work, and which it may fashion after its own designs into new combinations and results of beauty. Nature, too, is full of hints and suggestions which a discerning mind, and an eye practised to the beautiful, will not fail to catch and improve. It is only when we do this, when we begin, in fact, to depart from, and go beyond the actual, that we exercise the imagination.
Difference illustrated by an Example.—The difference between simple description, and the creations of the conceptive faculty, may be shown by reference to a single example:
“The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free;
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand in the sea;
For every wave, with dimpled cheek
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.”
The quiet stillness of the evening, the reflection of the stars in the sea, are the two simple ideas which enter into this beautiful stanza. They would have been faithfully and fully expressed, so far as regards all the perfections of exact description, by the simple propositions which follow: “The evening hours passed swiftly and silently; many stars appeared in the sky, and each was reflected in the sea.”
The poet is not content with this description. The swiftness and silentness of those passing hours remind him of the flight of birds along the sky. The resemblance strikes him as beautiful. He embodies it in his description. It is an ideal conception. He goes further. He sees in the water, not the reflection merely of the stars, but the stars themselves, as many in the sea as in the sky. Here is a departure from the truth, from the actual, an advance into the region of the ideal. Imagination, thus set free, takes still further liberties: attributes to the inanimate wave the dimpled cheek of beauty, ascribes its restlessness not to the laws of gravitation, but to the force of a strictly human passion, under the influence of which it leaps into the air toward the object of its affection, seizes it, and holds it, trembling, in its embrace.
§ XI.—Historical Sketch.
Various Definitions, and Theories of Imagination By Different Writers.
Definition of Dr. Reid.—Reid makes it nearly synonymous with simple apprehension. “I take imagination, in its most proper sense, to signify a lively conception of objects of sight,” the conception of things as they appear to the eye. Addison employs the term with the same limitation, that is, as confined to objects of sight.
Of Stewart.—Stewart regards this as incorrect, holds that imagination is not confined to visible or even sensible objects. He regards it as a complex, not a simple power, including simple apprehension, abstraction, judgment, or taste, and association of ideas; its province being to select, from different objects, a variety of qualities and circumstances, and combine and arrange them so as to form a new creation of its own.
Of Brown.—Brown differs not essentially from the view of Stewart. He also makes imagination a complex operation, involving conception, abstraction, judgment, association. He distinguishes between the spontaneous and the voluntary operation of the imaginative power; in the former case, there is no voluntary effort of selection, combination, etc., but images arise independently of any desire or choice of ours, by the laws of suggestion; and this he holds to be the most frequent operation of the faculty. In the case of voluntary imagination, which is attended with desire, this desire is the prominent thing, and serves to keep the conception of the subject before the mind, in consequence of which, a variety of associated conceptions follow, by the laws of suggestion, in regular train. Of these suggested conceptions and images, some, we approve, others, we do not; the former, by virtue of our approval, become more lively and permanent, while the latter pass away. Thus, without any direct effort or power of the will to combine and separate these various conceptions, they shape themselves according to our approval and desire, in obedience to the ordinary laws of suggestion.
Of Smith.—Sydney Smith regards imagination in much the same light—a faculty in which association plays the principal part, assisted by judgment, taste, etc., amounting, in fact, to much the same thing that we call invention; the process by which a poet constructs a drama, or a machinist a steam-engine, being essentially the same.
Of Wayland and Upham.—Wayland, in common with most of the authors already cited, makes imagination a complex faculty, involving abstraction, and association; “the power by which, from simple conceptions already existing in the mind, we form complex wholes or images.” Some form of abstraction necessarily precedes the exercise of this power. The different elements of a conception must be first mentally severed before we can reunite them in a new conception. “It is this power of reuniting the several elements of a conception at will, that is, properly, imagination. Imagination may then be designated the power of combination.” Upham takes the same view. The same view, essentially, is also given by Amandè Jacques, a French writer of distinction.
View of Tissot.—Tissot, as also many of the German philosophers, gives imagination the double province of recalling sensible intuitions, objects of sight, such as we have known them, and also of conceiving objects altogether differently disposed from our original perceptions of them, varied from the reality. The former they call imagination reproductive, the latter, creative. That form of the imagination which is purely spontaneous, in distinction from the voluntary, they term fancy.
Of Coleridge and Mahan.—Coleridge, followed by Mahan, regards imagination as the power which recombines the several elements of thought into conceptions, which conform not to mere existences, but to certain fundamental ideas in the mind itself, ideas of the beautiful, sublime, etc.
These Definitions agree in what.—These definitions, it will be perceived, with scarcely an exception make imagination to be a complex faculty, and regard it as merely the power of combining, in new forms, the various elements of thought already in the mind. The correctness of each of these ideas has been already discussed.