day. We associate evil with a bad man, and make it a person and black, and call it the devil. The African, on the other hand, associates evil with a pale aspect, and makes it a person and white, and calls it the devil. We associate motion with wings, and so paint those feathered appendages on those impersonated virtues we call angels, whom we surround with light and haloes, and give them light golden hair and blue eyes. The heathen gods and goddesses were impersonations of qualities, an association of qualities with ideal forms, personifying or representing the abstract ideas. In visions, when people fancy they see spirits or ghosts, impressions unconsciously evolve embodyings, projected on the vision. Such is our tendency to associate every thing with persons or objects, according to our familiar conception. Those who have an impression of the death of friends (as several whom I know have) sometimes, as it were, see the form of the dying person; at other times only have an intimation of the circumstance. And some have a form which they always associate with evil in the clairvoyant state, if not in their ordinary condition. Others in dreams have simple associations; of which last, Bacon's dream on the death of his father is a good instance. Bacon says, "There be many reports in History that upon the death of persons in near relationship, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember that, being in Paris, and my father dying in

*Natural History, Cent. X. sec. 986.

London, two or three days before my father's death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, that my father's house in the country was plastered all over with black mortar."I myself, while sitting up with a lady who, from extreme ill health, could be held alive only by being kept continually in a mesmeric state, on two occasions, in the quiet of the night, have known her recognize the death, at the moment of its occurring, of persons at a distance, whose immediate danger was unknown. On one occasion, it was a clear sight of the fact and circumstances, though occurring a hundred miles away. person was a relation.

This was when the dying

But in the other instance there was no relationship. The person was very ill, like herself, and it was a case with which she had great sympathy. The intimation of the death appeared in the form of a black cat coming over her bed; which to her was the associated form of evil and death.

--

Association arises out of similitudes, of likeness in the same sphere, or resemblance and correspondence in some other sphere: and again, in contrasts. Associations arise from habit, and from reaction and exhaustion, from sympathy and antipathy. We fall upon reaction, contrast, &c., just as after looking at a red spot, the sense falls for relief upon the opposite condition, and presents a green image. How many silly persons you see scold and coax by turns; and ridiculously short turns they often are! Light to truth, truth to

beauty, beauty to goodness, are similitudes or correspondences in different spheres: and we see these associations in different media by the terms we use: "a beautiful character: " "sweet music : bitter feeling" "a tone of mind: ""a bright conception:" "flashes of wit."

99 64 а

The sympathies and relations in mind and body are natural associations: and so again is the expression of these in the language of actions, motions, or sounds; and this again developed into artificial signs; all which matter you doubtless understand as well as I. Habit is a great principle of Association, and likewise of Memory. Habit induces repetition. Associated ideas present themselves together, or follow in regular sequence. If I would recall a passage from a book, I see the page, and the place on the page where I saw it first. If I would recall an event, I place myself as nearly as possible in the position in which it occurred. We have a pre-notion that in memory we know a thing, and look for it, as it were, in a circle, and direct the attention as if there were places in memory. Phrenologists have denied a separate faculty of attention and yet there is no faculty which acts more alone, and appears to be more distinct. The dog associates sport with the sight of the gun; much so as his master. How pretty to see the flocks of pigeons at Venice, all fluttering about in the Piazza, at the sound of the bell of St. Mark's striking twelve !

as

Most of our muscular movements are uncon

scious, associated movements; and results not interrupting but often essential to the abstraction and continuance of thought. The associations in time are more interesting, and perhaps least understood. We know what strange, but quite natural associations occur in our dreams; and often when we are awake. And when we would think well, the more freely we let the mind act by its own power and laws of association, the better. Some minds do not sustain these associations in sequence well. They want the faculty of order, and they fly off to something grotesque, or away from the matter. We generally spoil the results by forcing attention; and in trying too hard to remember, we often forget the more. Newton said, that he let his mind rest upon a subject, and waited for the ideas to come. I have often tried the effects of indirect association in the mind by speaking out my thoughts as they occurred, and suggested each other, wholly without guidance; and I have been astonished at the happy sequences that would occur, and the excellence and originality of the matter, and the mode of expression, such as I cannot effect when I sit down to direct my attention and write. One of our most eloquent writers and speakers tells me he can write only by first walking about the room, and uttering his sentiments as in a speech. Again, (and I now must end,) we know how associating words with music, and sense with rhymes, assists the memory. We should never recall the number of days in each month, but for

the lines "Thirty days hath September," &c.

Of course, the strength and peculiarity of our associations depend on the natural strength of particular faculties, and the exercise of these. One associates things or ideas better with form; others with colors or sounds. Some are forever associating persons in resemblance. It is quite a propensity with some to see how like one person is to another; the new comer to some familiar. Some attribute their own evil ways and thoughts to the whole world. Others more happily dwell on the good and the beautiful, and associating qualities of life with inanimate things, find

tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks; Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

XVII.

NOTHING.

H. M. TO H. G. A.

THANK you for the reply you have sent to some of my questions. I do not see how you can help making your letters so questions as in my last. dispose of more of them?

long, if I ask so many

Will you now please to

Others are rising in

my mind, while I wait for your solution of these: but I will keep them back till I have heard from you again.