pleased and angry features, but, in vocal utterance, there is a manifest suitability of some tones for pleasing expression, and of others for the reverse.

It is a part of our pleasures to see happy beings around us, and especially those that have the power of expressing their feelings in a lively manner. Children and animals, in their happy moods, impart a certain tone of gaiety to a spectator. On the other hand, the wretched, the downcast, and the querulous, are apt to chill and depress those in their company. There is a satisfaction in merely beholding, or even in imagining, the appearances and accompaniments of superior happiness, which probably accounts in part for the disposition to do homage to the wealthy, the powerful, the renowned, and the successful among mankind.

Associated emotion is the medium of sympathy with the feelings of others. We have to acquire the signs of feeling, in order to make the states of others our own. We learn the natural appearances of the different emotions, and also the names that describe them, which appearances and names are the medium for realizing them. As in all else, there are great individual differences of progress in this acquirement, and corresponding differences in the power of sympathy.

Among the associations of Feeling, we should not omit the important sentiments of moral approbation and moral disapprobation. These are admitted on all hands to be greatly the result of education; indeed, the fact is too notorious to be controverted. The well-trained child constantly finds certain acts spoken of with marked disapprobation, and visited with pain, which gives to disapprobation its meaning; and there grows up, as a consequence, a strong association between those actions and the feelings of dread and aversion. A high motive power is thus generated for abstaining from lying, theft, cruelty, neglect of studies, and other forbidden acts. This is one side of our moral education. The other side is, in like manner, a series of associations between certain actions and praise, approval, or reward;

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and these determine the acquired sentiment of moral approbation. How little of either of the two modes is to be found where nothing has been done to impress them, is best known to those that concern themselves with the outcasts of society.

The rate of advancement in moral training depends on several circumstances. In the first place, the energy of the impulses that trespass against the laws of society may be strong, or they may be weak, by nature. But, secondly, a still greater importance is to be attached to the aptitude for vividly retaining the penalties, and expressed disapprobation, of wrong. This memory for good and evil appears to be a special, or local, mode of retentiveness, as much so as colour or music; it does not always accompany high intellect generally, and it is occasionally strong, when the power of recollection in other things is weak. It belongs, no doubt, to the same circle of sensibilities that includes our prudential and our sympathetic regards. For both prudence and sympathy must concur to a well developed moral

sense.

There are many of our strong likings on the one hand, and strong antipathies on the other, that come under the class of reflected influences. The sight of blood affects some persons to fainting, which cannot be owing to anything in the mere appearance of it; apart from association, the rich scarlet hue would make this a really agreeable object to the eye.

ASSOCIATIONS OF VOLITION.

51. I have already adverted to the mistake, committed by Reid, in pronouncing the voluntary command of our limbs and other moving organs instinctive. If we observe the movements of infancy, we see plainly that, for many months, there is no such thing as a command of the active members, in obedience to an aim or purpose present to the mind. An infant may have sufficient intelligence to form a wish, and be quite unable to execute the simplest movements

for attaining the thing wished. A common example of this is the attempt to seize something with the hand, as a spoon; we see the most awkward movements occurring, evidently from the entire want of any definite direction of the limbs at that stage. This definite direction is acquired; and the acquisition is the most laborious and difficult of all human attainments. The performance of the simple movements that we wish to perform, is the basis of our acquirement of more complex movements at a subsequent stage; but our first education is self-education. Until a child can, of its own accord, put out its hand and seize an object before its eyes, which for the first few months it cannot do, any attempt to direct it is in vain; and, until, of its own accord, it can move its own body as it sees something else moved, it has not begun to be an educable being.

The voluntary command of the organs implies the following things. 1st, The power of continuing or abating a present movement in obedience to a present feeling, as when the child sucks while the appetite is gratified, and ceases when satiety comes on. We have referred this to a primary law of the animal organization, namely, that pleasures are accompanied with an increase, and pains with a diminution, of the vital energies. So far, Volition is an Instinct. 2ndly, The power of selecting a movement in order to heighten or abate a present feeling, as when the child directs its head and mouth to seize the nipple, and begins sucking. There may be a few instances of instinctive movements of this kind, but in general they are acquired, being determined by means of association. The coincidence of the movement and the feeling must be at first accidental; the movement springing up of its own accord, and finding itself able to control the feeling, the two become after a time so firmly connected that the one suggests the other. Thus the movement of the eyes and head is at first spontaneous, but the agreeable feelings of light brought on by these movements prompt their continuance, and the pleasure grows to be associated with these movements; whereupon, when this feeling is present to the mind

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as a wish, it prompts the requisite exertions. Thus it is that a child learns to search out a light in a room in order to enjoy the maximum of the illumination; it learns to turn its view to the fire, or the window, or to some face that it has begun to recognize agreeably. Volition means, 3rdly, the performance of some intermediate actions with a view to our gratification; as when things are seized with the hand in order to be carried to the mouth, and when animals, descrying their food at a distance, set themselves to move forward to lay hold of it. These intermediate actions are most manifestly the result of experience, in the human subject at least. The power of locomotion has first to be developed; the exerting of the power then becomes associated with its various consequences, and among others that of bringing the individual within reach of the objects of its desires. 4thly, The voluntary command of the organs means the power of imitation, or of performing actions in consequence of seeing them performed. Here a link has to be established between a certain appearance to the eye and the movement of corresponding organs in the individual's self. In the case of vocal imitation, a sound is the antecedent of an utterance, each sound heard being associated with a distinct movement of the chest and larynx, under the proper attitudes of the mouth. It is not uncommonly supposed that imitation, both of actions and of sounds, is instinctive; but I believe this to be incorrect. 5thly, Under volition we include the power of moving our organs merely on the wish to see them moved; as when I look at my hand, and will to raise it. Here a connexion is formed between the sensible appearance of any member, or the idea left by that sensible appearance, and its being moved. Lastly, we can make a movement on being directed to do so, by the part being named; 'up head,' down hands,' &c. This is a further association, formed between certain names or sounds and a particular class of movements. All these various actions are employed in the most elementary efforts of the will to control the body. Others could be named that

transcend their range of influence, as, for example, the control of the passions and the command of the thoughts.*

The following are notes of observations made upon the earliest movements of two lambs seen during the first hour after birth, and at subsequent stages of their development. The two came from the same mother, and their actions were in the main alike.

One of the lambs, on being dropped, was taken hold of by the shepherd, and laid on the ground so as to rest on its four knees. For a very short time, perhaps not much above a minute, it kept still in this attitude. A certain force was doubtless exerted to enable it to retain this position; but the first decided exertion of the creature's own energy was shown in standing up on its legs, which it did after the pause of little more than a minute. The power thus put forth I can only describe as a spontaneous burst of the locomotive energy, under this condition, namely, that as all the four limbs were actuated at the same instant, the innate power must have been guided into this quadruple channel in consequence of that nervous organization that constitutes the four limbs one related group. The animal now stood on its legs, the feet being considerably apart so as to widen the base of support. The energy that raised it up continued flowing in order to maintain the standing posture, and the animal doubtless had the consciousness of this flow of energy, as its earliest mental experience. This standing posture was continued for a minute or two in perfect stillness. Next followed the beginnings of locomotive movement. At first a limb was raised and set down again, then came a second movement that widened the animal's base without altering its position. When a more complex movement with two limbs came on, the effect seemed to be to go sideways; another complex movement led forwards; but at the outset there appeared to be nothing to decide one direction rather than another, for the earliest movements were a jumble of side, forward, and backward. Still, the alternation of limb that any consecutive advance required, seemed within the power of the creature during the first ten minutes of life. Sensation as yet could be of very little avail, and it was evident that action took the start in the animal's history. The eyes were wide open, and light must needs have entered to stimulate the brain. The contact with the solid earth and the feelings of weight and movement were the earliest feelings. In this state of uncertain wandering with little change of place, the lamb was seized hold of and carried up to the side of the mother. This made no difference till its nose was brought into contact with the woolly skin of the dam, which originated a new sensation. Then came a conjunction manifestly of the volitional kind. There was clearly a tendency to sustain this contact, to keep the nose rubbing upon the side and belly of the ewe. On finding a certain movement to have this effect, that movement was sustained; exemplifying what I consider the primitive or fundamental fact of volition. On losing the contact, there was as yet no power to recover it by a direct action, for the indications of sight at this stage had no meaning. The animal's spontaneous irregular movements were continued;