LETTER XXII.

GENERAL TERMS.

It will conduce to the clear understanding of what passes in the mind on occasion of hearing or using general and abstract language, if we consider in the first place certain phenomena of perception.

When we perceive an external object we may see it either near or at a distance, either in partial obscurity or in broad daylight, either hastily or with a leisurely survey. We may, for example,

see a man a quarter of a mile off where we can only just discern that he is a man, not a woman or a boy; or we may see him so close as to recognise in him a well-known acquaintance. A difference in the degree of light by which we see him, or in the rapidity with which we pass by him, may produce a similar difference in the distinctness of our perception. In a railway carriage we are sometimes wheeled along with such velocity, that we cannot distinguish the faces of those we pass, but only just perceive they are human beings.

If the objects we have perceived with these

different degrees of distinctness have been seen by us for the first time, our recollections, when we afterwards call them to mind, will partake in this respect of the character of our perceptions. We shall not recollect clearly and definitely an object that we have seen only obscurely and vaguely, however long and minutely we may dwell upon it in thought.

If, on the contrary, the object perceived is a familiar one, as, for example, an intimate friend, although the actual glimpse we catch of him is indistinct and momentary, it is sufficient, except in extreme cases, both to produce a recognition of his person and, if we pause upon the thought at all, to raise up a complete image of the man.

It is astonishing, when we reflect upon it, and at the same time important to remark, what a slight and fugitive glance at an object enables us to recognise it when it is already perfectly familiar

to us.

But there is another cause of variety in the distinctness of our recollections besides the character of our original acts of perception.

As the objects perceived may appear faint and ill-defined, from the velocity with which they pass before our eyes, so our recollections of external objects, even when the latter have been leisurely and thoroughly observed, may be faint and illdefined from an analogous cause; namely, the swiftness with which they pass through our minds,

or,

in other words, succeed each other in our consciousness.

This may perhaps be most readily shown in those cases where words are the means of recalling external phenomena.

It is a function of words, and more obviously of the names of external things (which alone it is needful here to consider), to revive in the memory objects formerly perceived.

Confining our attention, then, to the names of external objects, let us first take the case of proper

names.

The name of an intimate friend, whom I have

just heard mentioned, has brought to my mind a distinct remembrance of his personal appearance, and, in the same way, the names of my other friends, when I dwell upon them, recall their respective personal appearances with all possible vivacity and completeness. But if I hear a long list of such names rapidly read over, the images, as they are usually termed, or mental representations of my friends, will no longer appear before me with the same fulness and distinctness; a faint and fugitive image of each will be all I shall be conscious of. There will be as much difference, in this respect, between the leisurely and the hurried remembrance, as there is between a deliberate survey of the passengers in a railway carriage when it is stationary, and a glimpse caught of them when it is moving swiftly before the sight. Yet, not

withstanding the velocity of the ideal procession through my mind, and the consequent incompleteness of the several figures in it, I distinctly recognise each transitory form as that of a wellknown acquaintance, just as I recognise their actual persons when seen as before supposed by a momentary glimpse in passing.

Let us next turn to the consideration of common names or general concrete terms; names or terms applicable not to a single individual exclusively, but to any one of a number of individuals, or a class.

We shall find that what passes in the mind when common names are heard, corresponds very closely to what takes place when proper names are heard. This is very obvious in the case of the names of simple objects, such as snow, water, daisy, primrose, harebell, oak-tree. On hearing these words slowly pronounced, I have in my mind as complete and lively an image of the object denoted by each appellation, as I have on listening to a deliberate enumeration of proper names when I am familiar with the personal appearances of the individuals to whom they belong.

There is indeed, it may be alleged, this difference between the two cases, that the proper name ties me down to a particular image, while the general name leaves me at liberty to vary the image within certain limits; or, to describe the matter with greater precision, the proper name raises up the image of one individual object, while the general

name raises up the image sometimes of one individual of the class formerly seen, sometimes of another, not unfrequently of many individuals in succession; and it sometimes suggests an image made up of elements from several different objects by a latent process of which I am not conscious.

This difference between the two cases, although real, is, however, less than, on a first view, we are apt to suppose.

Compare the effect produced by the proper name "Queen Victoria," with that which ensues from hearing the common name of some simple object, such as a primrose. Simple flowers of the same species are so much alike, that the image rising up in the mind on hearing the word "primrose" is almost as little varied, on different occasions, as on hearing the words "Queen Victoria." To a person, indeed, who happens to have seen the Queen in diversified states of emotion, and in a variety of dresses and attitudes, not to mention coins and pictures, her image may be even more varied than that of the flower. He may have seen her sitting in solemn state on the throne, with the crown on her head, or driving with cheerful countenance, in a simple bonnet in the park, or talking and laughing in a ball-dress in her own palace; and her image may occur to him with any of these varieties of expression and accompaniment: while the primrose, never, perhaps, having been seen by him, except on a grassy bank, may always present