time when it occurred we may perhaps call to mind one event, and say it was before that, and another, and say it was after that, till we come upon the exact time; precisely in the same way as we can turn to a particular passage in a book we have read. The treasures of our memory would thus seem to be laid up in distinct layers or recorded in consecutive pages like the matter of a book.1 Thus children who have learnt to speak in several languages never confuse them. When asked a question in one language they always reply in that language.

Hence in recollection the great difficulty usually is to make a beginning to get the first word of a sentence, the first letter of a word, something that will lead us to the right place, or set the mind on the right grooveand then it will run on with little difficulty. We sometimes search the memory in vain for a thing for a long time till we come upon some link—a word, it may be, or a name-and then all at once the whole thing flashes up before us. A friend tries to bring to our recollection something that happened long ago-some school-boy exploit, it may be, in which we took part. We fail to recall it till he mentions a particular circumstance, or names some one who was present, and then all at once the whole scene is brought vividly to our recollection, as if it had happened only yesterday.2

1 "The exact observance of the order of place in visible ideas, and of the order of time in audible ones, may serve to show that these ideas are copies and offsprings of the impressions made on the eye and ear, in which the same orders were observed respectively.” -Dr. D. Hartley.

It is related of a distinguished equity judge that, in listening to the further proceedings in a case that had previously been before him, he had no recollection of it till, "in the course of the argument, some word, phrase, or incident has furnished a suggestion that has served at once to bring the whole case vividly into his recollection, as if a curtain had been drawn away and a complete picture presented to his view".-Dr. Carpenter.

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We may have striven to recollect something for a long time in vain, and afterwards it may occur to us suddenly when perhaps we are not thinking of it, having, as it were, come unexpectedly upon the place where it lay. Sometimes, again, it may be said that we were told something or other, and we may be unconscious of ever having heard it before, and yet perhaps, days or weeks afterwards, through the accidental shining in, as it were, of light on some dark corner of the memory, the circumstance may be brought to our recollection.

In endeavouring to recover a lost idea, we sometimes seem to know what or where it is, and yet we feel unable to get at it or grasp it. Numerous other ideas, more or less, it may be, resembling it or related to it, come up, and they seem, as it were, to obstruct or hinder our getting at the right one. We feel that if we could get away from these, or banish them from the mind, we would get nearer to what we are in search of. Hence some have said that forgetfulness is nothing but the remembrance of wrong ideas, or the presence in the mind of ideas other than those we are seeking. At all events, forgetfulness is an important condition of memory, and we must temporarily forget many things in order to remember some things well.2

1 "Once lodged in the brain or mind, an impression may lie dormant indefinitely, until some discharge of mental force or energy happens to take place through the particular layer or stratum of corpuscles which embodies the record of the idea."-Dr. M. Granville.

2 "If our impressions of the past were not... liable to be abated, borne down, or obscured and obliterated, there would in most minds be certain vivid recollections that would continue to usurp the entire consciousness, and so exclude the present with its fainter sensations, its interests, and its duties."-Isaac Taylor. "Without the total oblivion of an immense number of states of consciousness, and the momentary repression of many more, recollection would be impossible.”—Th. Ribot.

CHAPTER II.

MATTER AND MIND.

"The popular or habitual conception of mankind in general is that there are two distinct worlds, mixed up in the phenomenal cosmos-a world of mind, consisting of multitudes of individual minds, and a world of matter, consisting of all the extended immensity and variety of material objects."-Prof. Masson.

"What matter is independent of our perception, what mind is independent of its temporary varieties of feeling, it is impossible for us to discover."-Dr. Thos. Brown.

"We cannot tell what matter is in itself or what spirit is in itself; but we mean by matter that which has length, depth, and breadth,—the properties which are revealed to us by our outward senses; we mean by spirit that which is not bound to the conditions of space, which is not known to us by our bodily senses immediately, but by a revelation sui generis called consciousness."-S. T. Coleridge.

"What I call my body is a persistent aggregate of objective phenomena,-and my soul is a persistent aggregate of subjective phenomena: the one is an individualised group of experiences expressible in terms of matter and motion, and therefore designated physical; the other an individualised group of experiences expressible in terms of feeling, and therefore designated psychical."—G. H. Lewes.

CLA

YLAIMING as we do a material basis for the memory, we deem it necessary to explain at some length what we understand thereby, especially as it is a subject on which no little ignorance and prejudice commonly prevail. What matter is by itself or what mind is by itself, we know and can know nothing. Certain phenomena, or appearances, present themselves to our bodily senses, and we attribute them to matter; certain other phenomena reveal themselves to our inner sense, or consciousness, and these we attribute to mind. Were we endowed with more senses than we have at present, or were those we now possess more powerful than they are, we cannot doubt that our knowledge of the so-called material world would be greatly ex

tended, and probably much that we now regard as mental might be found to be the result of physical causes; and, on the other hand, were our consciousness much extended so as, for instance, to take cogniz ance of some of those material changes which we know to accompany every thought that passes through the mind, we might find mind to be much more dependent upon physical causes than is generally believed at present.1

Formerly, when consciousness reigned supreme, and was regarded as the ground of all our knowledge, the world of mind was everything, that of matter as nothing in comparison. "On earth," said the philosopher, "there is nothing great but man; in man there is nothing great but mind." Men then talked with pride of the mastery achieved by mind over matter, which was compelled to submit its gigantic powers to its will, and from being an uncontrollable tyrant to become the most submissive and obedient of servants. Every fresh victory gained over matter seemed only to bring out more clearly the unlimited power of mind, and to hold it up as the one thing worthy of supreme regard.

This, however, is no longer the case. Men have discovered that every thought that passes through the

1"We have no reason for believing that the sensibility of the mind of man exhausts the properties of matter or is percipient of all possible forms of existence in space. Other senses might make new discoveries no less surprising than the sense of sight to one who has been born blind. It is even conceivable that substances may exist contiguous to us in space, yet be as nothing to us, because their properties bear no relation to our sensibility."-R. A. Thompson. "The addition of one new sense might probably, in a few hours, communicate more instruction with respect to matter, than all which is ever to repay and consummate the physical labours of mankind.” -Dr. Chalmers. "Consciousness gives no account of the essential material conditions which underlie every mental manifestation and determine the character of it."-Dr. H. Maudsley.

mind is attended with a material change in certain particles of the body; so that without some material change no conscious act of the mind can take place.1 Hence some of the ablest thinkers in the present day declare that there is no such thing as mind in the world apart from matter; that mind is simply the result of a certain combination of matter, or that matter and mind are only different sides of one and the same substance.

This much is certain, that matter and material laws are largely concerned in all the phenomena of mind, and the broad distinctions that were formerly believed to exist between the two no longer hold good.3

1 "In the present condition of our nature, the human mind is connected with a material and organised substance, the body, with which its operations stand in a state of union so close, perfect, and necessary, that neither can act without the action, direct or indirect, of the other."-Dr. Pye Smith. "Mind can only manifest itself in existence as it acts upon matter; without matter there can be no manifestation of mind."-Dr. Laycock. "Every idea, voluntary or not, clear or obscure, complex or simple, fugitive or persistent, implies a determined molecular movement in the cerebral cells. There is no exception to this rule, the loftiest thought, the most abstract conception, is subject to it."—H. Taine.

2 "The arguments for the two substances have, we believe, now entirely lost their validity; they are no longer compatible with ascertained science and clear thinking. The one substance, with two sets of properties, two sides, the physical and mental-a double-faced unity, would appear to comply with all the exigencies of the case.' Prof. Bain. "Psychological analysis leads to the conclusion that the objective process and the subjective process are simply the twofold aspects of one and the same fact; in the one aspect it is the felt, and the other the feeling."-G. H. Lewes. "Reduced to one single fact possessed of two aspects they evidently become like the front and reverse side of a surface, so that the presence or absence of the one will infallibly result in the presence or absence of the other."-H. Taine.

"The purest, the most ideal sentiment still pertains on some side, to organisation. The inspiration of the poet, the passion of the lover, the enthusiasm of the martyr have their languors and shortcomings that often depend on very pitiable material causes."V. Cousin. "The pluck by which the British soldier is especially distinguished is clearly as much physical as psychical." - Dr. Carpenter.