more or less durable in the memory, and to instigate voluntary acts to bring on, or ward off, the reality, as yet in prospect. A counter stimulus of actual sensation may also be present, and the rivalry takes place between such ideal ends and the real one. I remember the pains of excessive muscular fatigue, and am now enjoying the pleasure of some exciting game, or sport; there is a hostile encounter within; if the pleasure of the sport be very intense, that carries the day; if the pain, as remembered on former occasions, was very acute, and the memory of it now so fresh and lively, as to present it in nearly all its living power to the present view, that will probably prevail, and I shall desist from the present pleasure. The comparison no longer faithfully represents the relative force of the opposing impressions at the moment of their actual occurrence, inasmuch as the ideal retentiveness may be so bad as to do no justice to the force of the actual; what was severely felt at the time when it happened is not severely felt as a mere anticipation. The pains of our various excesses in food, stimulants, and other sensual delights, are often very great, sometimes acute, and sometimes massively depressing; but if the recollection of the suffering vanishes with the reality, there is nothing to counteract the pleasurable impetus to repeat the whole round of indulgence. An important branch of our intellectual acquisitions is constituted by this good and faithful recollection of past pleasures and pains; a certain amount of natural force of adhesive association is the groundwork, and an adequate repetition of the lessons of experience completes the structure. The thoroughly educated man in this respect is he that can carry with him at all times the exact estimate of what he has enjoyed, or suffered, from every object that has ever affected him, and, in case of encounter, can present to the enemy as strong a front as if he were then under the genuine impression. This is one of the points of superiority that age confers; but, as formerly remarked, there may be a special retentiveness for likings and aversions, such as to bring on a precocious maturity of practical wisdom, just as we may see a precocious mathematician, painter, or poet. When we find persons manifesting

IMPORTANCE OF IDEAL RETENTION OF FEELINGS. 413

energetic volitions in all the points bearing upon the maintenance of Health, we may interpret their conduct on various grounds. There may be in the constitution a remarkably acute sensibility to derangements of every kind, so that the voluntary actions are strongly solicited in the way of preventing such infractions of the sound condition; the same circumstance of acute sensibility also leads to an abiding recollection that serves in absence. If to this be added a good intellectual adhesiveness for bodily pains, the cause of protection is still farther strengthened; while every fresh experience of the evils of ill-health adds force to the ideal representation. In such a state of things, the motive of present pleasure must be strong, indeed, to overthrow a bulwark so confirmed; and very acute pain in other departments will be borne rather than surrender this fortress. Take another case. Poverty brings with it a round of discomforts and privations felt in some degree by every human being, although constitutions differ exceedingly in the acuteness of the susceptibility. Scanty, indifferent, food, poor shelter and clothing, few delights, a position of contumely-are all painful; but they do not actually operate at every moment. The stimulus of the will to ward them off by industry, frugality, temperance, and all other ways to wealth,' is at certain moments supplied from the pressure of the actual, while, for the remaining time, the ideal form of the miseries must be the sustaining spur. If there be a natural dulness of sensibility to all those evils, conjoined with a repugnance to continuous and regular labour, only one result can ensue, the slothfulness and degradation of the lowest races. There may be, however, a considerable sense of the sufferings of penury under the actual pressure of hunger, cold, or privation, but an intelligence so deplorably unretentive as not to represent those miseries to the will in the intervals of their cessation. The consequence is, that the preventive efforts are fitful, uncertain, and therefore inadequate. An intelligence of another cast keeps them ever in the eye of the mind, confronting them with each counter motive of pleasurable ease and painful toil; whence emerges

the man of unfaltering, persevering industry, with the natural consequences.

7. In describing the Special Emotions, I have included a reference to their greater, or less, persistence as ideas with men generally. In the preceding chapter, notice has been taken of the assistance rendered by the external objects of the several feelings, in maintaining the recollection of the pleasurable or painful states, as when we revive the gratification of a poem, or narrative, by recalling the main stream of the composition. itself. The forms of the intelligence-the sights, sounds, and touches, &c., representing the material world—are the most persistent elements of our mental stock, and we are aided by their mediation in the memory of states of a merely emotional nature. Not only do places, persons, scenes, incidents, operate as the links of association in restoring states of joy, suffering, or excitement, but they contribute to keep alive in the mind, for the purposes of active pursuit or avoidance, those various conditions of our sentient life. The pleasures of music, or painting, should therefore naturally persist in minds that have a strong affinity for the material of either art, and should operate upon the will accordingly. Those occasions of pleasurable or painful excitement, that do not connect themselves with well-remembered objects, are apt to fade from the view, and accordingly lose the day in any conflict with more potent and abiding impressions. In this way, we may really let slip valuable pleasures, and run unheeding upon very malignant pains. Any form of suffering that has a visible, assignable and certain cause, such as a wound, a chill, a harsh discord, a mortifying reproof, a money loss, is peculiarly calculated for being held in the mind as a deterring motive; the cause, being itself a well-remembered fact, or incident, imparts the same property to the effect. On the other hand, those sufferings that spring up we know not how, that have no ascertainable object, or agent, or defined circumstances, give nothing for the intellect to fasten upon, and unless they are formidable enough to excite terror, as mystery is apt to do, they die away and are forgotten. This is the case with the

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more uncertain and inscrutable ailments that occasionally come over us; they have neither connecting circumstances for the memory to lay hold of, nor assignable antecedents for the will to avoid, and so we are apt not to count them among the miseries that have to be recorded in the list of our voluntary ends. Seeing that emotional states as such are retainable to a much less degree than the appearances that constitute our notions of material things, it is of importance to have a good alliance between them and those more enduring notions. Our recollection of a burst of wonder, of tenderness, of pride, of anger, is always a mixed notion or idea, having the object, circumstances, or occasions, as presented to the senses, in company with the emotional excitement. The remembrance of a pure, detached, or isolated emotion is of rare occurrence. Still, there is a certain ideal persistence in those conditions of pure feeling, which would sustain them without their companion circumstances addressed to the eye or the ear. An acute misery can be remembered in its own proper character; and as such can incite the voluntary efforts to ward off a repetition of it; the remembrance being still farther enhanced by the notion, also present, of the instrumentality or circumstances involved with it. Thus we see how very pertinent the strength of the intelligence is in determining the will, and in representing absent joys, or miseries. A good retentiveness for the material accompaniments is an auxiliary of great force in holding in the view the things to be aimed at, or recoiled from. No doubt, for the purpose in hand, this recollection ought to couple strongly with the outward circumstances the exact feeling bred by them, otherwise we get no good by it. If the recollection of an opponent whom we have to conciliate, or combat, does not carry with it a lively sense of the mischief he is likely to do us, but runs off upon other peculiarities of his character, the proper end, of setting us to work to smooth him down or overwhelm him, is not brought about. So that, after all, the most indispensable part of the reminiscence is the way that we actually felt at the time of the present reality. The very actions stimulated then

ought still to be stimulated under the idea. The perfect balance of the mind consists in this approximation of the present to the absent, whereby the same evil prompts us alike in both conditions, not being too furious in the one, nor too lax in the other.

8. In what has now been said, I have put the case of a conflict of the ideal with the actual, as when a present gratification of the sense is opposed to a future represented by the intellect. We can easily extend the illustration to other conflicts. The opposing motives may be both ideal, as when a prospective day of pleasure is coupled with an array of subsequent pains. Our decision depends first on the comparative intensity of the two as formerly experienced, and next on the faithfulness of the recollection of each. If memory has retained the pleasure in all the colouring of the original, while the painful part is scarcely at all remembered in its deterring power, we shall be sure to give way to the promptings of the side of indulgence, even although in an actual conflict the other were strong enough to prevail. Neither is the case uncommon of a prospective pain debarring us from a course of enjoyment, owing to the circumstance that the enjoyment is feebly represented in comparison of its rival. I may underrate the satisfaction that I shall derive from joining in some amusement, because I have not a vigorous recollection of my previous experience, while I retain strongly the pain of loss of time, or the remission of some other occupation that engages my mind. Having passed through the first much less frequently than the last, the persistence of the two is very unequal, and the will is moved to a wrong choice as regards my happiness. We are thus the victims of unfair comparisons. The well-stamped and familiar pleasure is apt to move us to set aside some still greater delight not adequately conceived, because it is seldom repeated, and lapses into a remote and forgotten past. He that has had few occasions of exciting sport may not do justice to this pleasure as a motive, especially when the very latest experience is now long gone by. It is no doubt possible to make up for the