than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But if the fire does come, his

having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

Physiological Study of Mental Conditions an Ally of Ethics."The physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become. mere walking bundles of habit, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying I won't count this time!' Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literal

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ness, wiped out. Of course, this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together."

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is the law of habit?

2. How does Sully define it?

3. Is he right?

4. Distinguish between the law of habit, and habits.

5. What can we do to make our pupils cautious and independent reasoners?

6. Is the basis of habit physical or mental?

7. Enumerate the maxims which Professor James infers from the law of habit.

LESSON XXI.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

Association of Ideas Illustrated. If you think about anything, no matter what, you are sure to find yourself thinking, the moment after, of something connected with it. Think about the last school you attended, and you may think of a schoolmate, or of some of the books you studied, or of some of the games you played. Think of Napoleon, and you may think of a friend who lent you a book about him, or of some of his battles, or of Alexander or Cæsar. This fact, that thinking of anything tends to make us think of something else connected with it, is called the association of ideas.

Different Kinds. If you watch the course of your thoughts for an hour, you will find that there are very different kinds of connection between the ideas recalled and the experiences that recall them. If you think of a hill, it may make you think of a walk you took 'there last night, or of one like it near your own home. The thought of the hill makes you think of the walk you took there, because when you were taking the walk you thought of the hill. In other words, the thought of the hill and the thought of the walk were in your mind at the same time. The thought of the hill makes you think of one like it near

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your home, not because you have ever seen or thought of them both at the same time before, but because they are like each other.

Association of the first kind-association by contiguity, as it is generally termed—is sometimes called mechanical association; and I think it will be useful for us to remember both names, and the reasons for them. It is called association by contiguity because contiguity means nearness, and the things associated by contiguity were thought of at or about the same time. It is called mechanical association to contrast it with another kind of association called logical or rational. When the thought of the hill makes you think of one like it near your own home, it is because there is an inner relation similarity and not a mere external, mechanical relation between them. But if the first time a child sees a Chinaman and a steamengine he sees them both together, the next time he sees one of them he will be likely to think of the other, not because they have an inner connection, but because they were seen at the same time. Hence this kind of association is called mechanical, because the things associated have only an external or mechanical connection; it is called association by contiguity because they were thought of at or about the same time.

Mechanical Association.

Evidently the connecting

link in the case of things mechanically associated is time; but we must be careful to remember that the time which forms this connecting link is not the time in which events happen, but the time in which we think of them. Declaration of Independence makes you think of the Fourth of July, not because it was made on that day, but

The

because the thought of the two has been in your mind at the same time.

Logical Association. But in order that we may associate things rationally or logically, we must be able to perceive some inner relation between them. Things as unrelated as it is possible for things to be in this world may be brought side by side in space; and if so, we may see them at the same time, and so associate them mechanically. But in order to associate them logically we must be able to apprehend an inner relation between them a relation not depending on accident or chance, but growing out of their very nature.

Of these inner relations, besides likeness, the relations of cause and effect, of instrument and use, of means and end, of premise and conclusion, of law and example, at once occur to us; and a careful study of them will enable us to realize the contrast between the innerness of logical relations and the outerness of mechanical relations. Two peaches can not but be like each other — they would not be peaches if they were not; a good school must be a useful agency in developing the minds of its pupils; fire must throw out heat as long as the present constitution of the world remains the same. In all these cases it is evident that the relation is not external or accidental or casual, but inner-growing out of the very nature of the things themselves.

Importance of the Distinction between Mechanical and Logical Association. The distinction between mechanical and rational association is of the first importance in Psychology. Many psychologists hold a theory of