Chapter XIV: Part 14

ASSINIBOIA, a name formerly applied to two districts of Canada, but not now held by any. (1) A district formed in 1835 by the Hudson's Bay Company, having in it Fort Garry at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Rupert's Land, North America. It extended over a circular area, with a radius of 50 m. from Fort Garry. It was governed by a local council nominated by the Hudson's Bay Company. It ceased to exist when Rupert's Land was transferred to Canada in 1870. (2) A district of the North-west Territories, which was given definite existence by an act of the Dominion parliament in 1875. Assiniboia extended from the western boundary of Manitoba (99 deg. W. in 1875, and 101 deg. 25' W. in 1881) to 111 deg. W., and from 49 deg. N. to 52 deg. N. The name was a misnomer, as it barely touched the Assiniboine river. To the north of the district lay the district of Saskatchewan, so that when the two were united by the Dominion act of 1905, they were somewhat changed in boundaries and the name Saskatchewan was given to the new province. The derivation of Assiniboia is from two Ojibway words, _assini_ meaning a stone, and the termination "to cook by roasting"; from these came a name first applied to a Dakota or Sioux tribe living on the Upper Red river; afterwards when this tribe separated from the Dakotas, its name was given to the branch of the Red river which the tribe visited, the river being known as the Assiniboine and the tribe as Assiniboin.

ASSINIBOIN ("Stone-Cookers"), a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. Their name (see above) is said to refer to their method of boiling water by dropping red-hot stones into it. Their former range was between the Missouri and the middle Saskatchewan on both sides of the Canadian frontier. In 1904 there were 1234 in the United States, all on reservations in Montana; and in 1902 there were 1371 in Canada.

See _Handbook of American Indians_, ed. F.W. Hodge (Washington, 1907).

ASSISE (from the Fr., derived from Lat. _assidere_, to sit beside), a geological term for two or more beds of rock united by the occurrence of the same characteristic species or genera.

ASSISI (anc. _Asisium_), a town and episcopal see of Umbria, Italy, in the province of Perugia, 15 m. E.S.E. by rail from the town of Perugia. Pop. (1901) town, 5338; commune, 17,240. The town occupies a fine position on a mountain (1345 ft. above sea-level) with a view over the valleys of the Tiber and Topino. It is mainly famous in connexion with St Francis, who was born here in 1182, and returned to die in 1226. The Franciscan monastery and the lower and upper church of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed in 1253, being fine specimens of Gothic architecture. The crypt was added in 1818, when the sarcophagus containing his remains was discovered. The lower church contains frescoes by Cimabue, Giotto and others, the most famous of which are those over the high altar by Giotto, illustrating the vows of the Franciscan order; while the upper church has frescoes representing scenes from the life of St Francis (probably by Giotto and his contemporaries) on the lower portion of the walls of the nave, and scenes from Old and New Testament history by pupils of Cimabue on the upper. The church of Santa Chiara (St Clare), the foundress of the Poor Clares, with its massive lateral buttresses, fine rose-window, and simple Gothic interior, was begun in 1257, four years after her death. It contains the tomb of the saint and 13th-century frescoes and pictures. Santa Maria Maggiore is also a good Gothic church. The cathedral (San Rufino) has a fine facade with three rose-windows of 1140; the interior was modernized in 1572. The town is dominated by the medieval castle (1655 ft.), built by Cardinal Albornoz (1367) and added to by Popes Pius II. and Paul III. Two miles to the east in a ravine below Monte Subasio is the hermitage _delle Carceri_ (2300 ft.), partly built, partly cut out of the solid rock, given to St Francis by Benedictine monks as a place of retirement. Below the town to the south-west, close to the station, is the large pilgrimage church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, begun in 1569 by Pope Pius V., with Vignola as architect; but not completed until 1640. It contains the original oratory of St Francis and the cell in which he died. Adjacent is the garden in which the saint's thornless roses bloom in May. Half a mile outside the town to the south-east is the convent of San Damiano, erected by St Francis, of which St Clare was first abbess.

In the early middle ages Assisi was subject to the dukes of Spoleto; but in the 11th century it seems to have been independent. It became involved, however, in the disputes of Guelphs and Ghibellines, and was frequently at war with Perugia. It was sacked by Perugia and the papal troops in 1442, and even after that continued to be the prey of factions. The place is now famous as a resort of pilgrims, and is also important for the history of Italian art. The poet Metastasio was born here in 1698.

See L. Duff-Gordon, _Assisi_ ("Mediaeval Towns" series, London, 1900).
For ancient history see ASISIUM. (T. As.)

ASSIUT, or SIUT, capital of a province of Upper Egypt of the same name, and the largest and best-built town in the Nile Valley south of Cairo, from which it is distant 248 m. by rail. The population rose from 32,000 in 1882 to 42,000 in 1900. Assiut stands near the west bank of the Nile across which, just below the town, is a barrage, completed in 1902, consisting of an open weir, 2733 ft. long, and over 100 bays or sluices, each 16-1/2 ft. wide, which can be opened or closed at will. At the western end of the barrage begins the Ibrahimia canal, the feeder of the Bahr Yusuf, the largest irrigation canal of Egypt. The Ibrahimia canal is skirted by a magnificent embankment planted with shady trees leading from the river to the town. There are several bazaars, baths and handsome mosques, one noted for its lofty minaret, and here the American Presbyterian mission has established a college for both sexes. Assiut is famous for its red and black pottery and for ornamental wood and ivory work, which find a ready market all over Egypt. It is one of the chief centres of the Copts. Here also is the northern terminus of the caravan route across the desert, which, passing through the Kharga oasis, goes south-west to Darfur. It is known as the Arbain, or forty days road, from the time occupied on the journey. Assiut (properly Asyut) is the successor of the ancient Lycopolis (Eg. Sioout), capital of the 13th nome of Upper Egypt. Here were worshipped two canine gods (see ANUBIS), Ophois (Wepwoi) being the principal god of the city, while Anubis apparently presided over the necropolis. No ruins are visible, the mounds of the old city being for the most part hidden under modern buildings; but the slopes of the limestone hills behind it are pierced with an infinity of rock-cut tombs, some of which were large and decorated with sculptures, paintings and long inscriptions. The archaeological commission of the _Description de l'Egypte_ visited them in 1799, when the walls of many of the large tombs were still almost intact; in the first half of the 19th century (and to some extent later) an immense amount of destruction was caused by blasting for stone. Three of the tombs illustrate one of the darkest periods in Egypt's history, when the princes of Siut played a leading part in the struggle between Heracleopolis and Thebes (Dyns. IX.-XI.); another, of the XIIth Dynasty, contains a remarkable inscription detailing the contracts made by the nomarch with the priests of the temples of Ophois and Anubis for perpetual services at his tomb (see Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt, Historical Documents_, vol. i. pp. 179, 258). Remains of the mummies of dogs and similar animals sacred to these deities are scattered among the debris on the hillside in abundance. Lycopolis was the birthplace of Plotinus, the founder of Neo-Platonism (A.D. 205-270). From the 4th century onwards its grottoes were the dwellings of Christian hermits, amongst whom John of Lycopolis was the most celebrated. (F. Ll. G.)

ASSIZE, or ASSISE (Lat. _assidere_, to sit beside; O. Fr. _assire_, to sit, _assis_, seated), a legal term, meaning literally a "session," but in fact, as Littleton has styled it, a _nomen aequivocum_, meaning sometimes a jury, sometimes the sittings of a court, and sometimes the ordinances of a court or assembly.

It originally signified the form of trial by a jury of sixteen persons, which eventually superseded the barbarous judicial combat; this jury was named the grand assize and was sworn to determine the right of seisin of land (see EVIDENCE). The grand assize was abolished in 1833; but the term assize is still applicable to the jury in criminal causes in Scotland.

In the only sense in which the word is not now almost obsolete, assize means the periodical session of the judges of the High Court of Justice, held in the various counties of England, chiefly for the purposes of gaol delivery and trying causes at _nisi prius_. Previous to Magna Carta (1215) writs of assize had all to be tried at Westminster, or to await trial in the locality in which they had originated at the septennial circuit of the justices in eyre; but, by way of remedy for the great consequent delay and inconvenience, it was provided by this celebrated act that the assizes of _mort d'ancestor_ and _novel disseisin_ should be tried annually by the judges in every county. By successive enactments, the civil jurisdiction of the justices of assize was extended, and the number of their sittings increased, till at last the necessity of repairing to Westminster for judgment in civil actions was almost obviated to country litigants by an act, passed in the reign of Edward I., which provided that the writ summoning the jury to Westminster should also appoint a time and place for hearing such causes within the county of their origin. The date of the alternative summons to Westminster was always subsequent to the former date, and so timed as to fall in the vacation preceding the Westminster term, and thus "_Unless before_," or _nisi prius_, issues came to be dealt with by the judges of assize before the summons to Westminster could take effect. The _nisi prius_ clause, however, was not then introduced for the first time. It occurs occasionally in writs of the reign of Henry III. The royal commissions to hold the assizes are--(1) general, (2) special. The general commission is issued twice a year to the judges of the High Court of Justice, and two judges are generally sent on each circuit. It covers commissions--(1) of oyer and terminer, by which they are empowered to deal with treasons, murders, felonies, &c. This is their largest commission; (2) of _nisi prius_ (q.v.) (3) of gaol delivery, which requires them to try every prisoner in gaol, for whatsoever offence committed; (4) of the peace, by which all justices must be present at their county assizes, or else suffer a fine. Special commissions are granted for inquest in certain causes and crimes. See also the articles CIRCUIT; JURY.

Assizes, in the sense of ordinances or enactments of a court or council of state, as the "assize of bread and ale," the "assize of Clarendon," the "assize of arms," are important in early economic history. As early as the reign of John the observance of the _assisae venalium_ was enforced, and for a period of 500 years thereafter it was considered no unimportant part of the duties of the legislature to regulate by fixed prices, for the protection of the lieges, the sale of bread, ale, fuel, &c. (see ADULTERATION). Sometimes in city charters the right to assize such articles is specially conceded. Regulations of this description were beneficial in the repression of fraud and adulteration. Assizes are sometimes used in a wider legislative connexion by early chroniclers and historians--the "assisae of the realme," e.g. occasionally meaning the organic laws of the country. For the "assizes of Jerusalem" see CRUSADES.

The term assize, originally applying to an assembly or court, became transferred to actions before the court or the writs by which they were instituted. The following are the more important.

_Assize of darrien presentment_, or last presentation, was a writ directed to the sheriff to summon an assize or jury to enquire who was the last patron that presented to a church then vacant, of which the plaintiff complained that he was deforced or unlawfully deprived by the defendant. It was abolished in 1833 and the action of _quare impedit_ (q.v.) substituted. But by the Common Law Procedure Act 1860, no _quare impedit_ can be brought, so that an action in the king's bench of the High Court was substituted for it.

Assize of _mort d'ancestor_ was a writ which lay where a plaintiff complained of an "abatement" or entry upon his freehold, effected by a stranger on the death of the plaintiff's father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, &c. It was abolished in 1833.

Assize of _novel disseisin_ was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been "disseised" or dispossessed. It was abolished in 1833. See Pollock and Maitland, _Hist. Eng. Law._

_Assize, clerk of_, an officer "who writes all things judicially done by the justices of assizes in their circuits." He has charge of the commission, and takes recognizances, records, judgments and sentences, grants certificates of conviction, draws up orders, &c. By the Clerks of Assize Act 1869 he must either have been for three years a barrister or solicitor in actual practice, or have acted for three years in the capacity of subordinate officer of a clerk of assize on circuit.

_United States._--There are no assize courts in the United States; it is not the custom for supreme court judges of the states to go on circuit, but the judges of the United States Supreme Court do sit as members of the United States circuit courts in the several states periodically throughout the year. These courts are not assize courts, but are federal as distinguished from state courts, and have a special and limited jurisdiction. In the several states the highest court is divided into departments, in each of which there are courts presided over by supreme court judges residing in that department, thus avoiding the assize court or circuit-going system.

ASSMANNSHAUSEN, a village of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine and the railway from Frankfort-on-Main to Niederlahnstein. Pop. 1100. It has a lithium spring, baths and a _Kurhaus_, and is famed for its red wine (Assmannshauser), which resembles light Burgundy. From here a railway ascends the Niederwald.

ASSOCIATE (Lat. _associatus_, from _ad_, to, and _sociare_ to join). one who is united with another, and so generally a companion--in particular a subordinate member of an institution or society, as an associate of the Royal Academy, or one holding a degree in a learned society lower than that of fellow. In English law the associates are officers of the supreme court, whose duties are to draw up the list of causes, enter verdicts, hand the records to the parties, &c., and generally to conduct the business of trials. By the Judicature (Officers) Act 1879 they were styled masters of the supreme court, but the office is now amalgamated with the crown office department, of which they are clerks.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, or MENTAL ASSOCIATION, a term used in psychology to express the conditions under which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers to account generally for the facts of mental life. Modern physiological psychology has so altered the approach to this subject that much of the older discussion has become antiquated, but it may be recapitulated here for historical purposes.

_Earlier Theory._--In the long and erudite Note D**, appended by Sir
W. Hamilton to his edition of Reid's Works, many anticipations of
modern statements on association are cited from the works of ancient
or medieval thinkers; and for Aristotle, in particular, the glory is
claimed of having at once originated the doctrine and practically
brought it to perfection.[1] As translated by Hamilton, but without
his interpolations, the classical passage from the _De Memoria et
Reminiscentia_ runs as follows:--

"When, therefore, we accomplish an act of reminiscence, we pass
through a certain series of precursive movements, until we arrive at a
movement on which the one we are in quest of is habitually consequent.
Hence, too, it is that we hunt through the mental train, excogitating
from the present or some other, and from similar or contrary or
coadjacent. Through this process reminiscence takes place. For the
movements are, in these cases, sometimes at the same time, sometimes
parts of the same whole, so that the subsequent movement is already
more than half accomplished."

The passage is obscure, but it does at all events indicate the various
principles commonly termed contiguity, similarity and contrast.
Similar principles are stated by Zeno the Stoic, by Epicurus (see
Diog. Laert. vii. S 52, x. S 32), and by St Augustine (_Confessions_,
x. e. 19). Aristotle's doctrine received a more or less intelligent
expansion and illustration from the ancient commentators and the
schoolmen, and in the still later period of transition from the age of
scholasticism to the time of modern philosophy, prolonged in the works
of some writers far into the 17th century, Hamilton adduced not a few
philosophical authorities who gave prominence to the general fact of
mental association--the Spaniard Ludovicus Vives (1492-1540)
especially being most exhaustive in his account of memory.

In Hobbes's psychology much importance is assigned to what he called,
variously, the succession, sequence, series, consequence, coherence,
train of imaginations or thoughts in mental discourse. But not before
Hume is there express question as to what are the distinct principles
of association. John Locke had, meanwhile, introduced the phrase
"Association of Ideas" as the title of a supplementary chapter
incorporated with the fourth edition of his _Essay_, meaning it,
however, only as the name of a principle accounting for the mental
peculiarities of individuals, with little or no suggestion of its
general psychological import. Of this last Hume had the strongest
impression; he reduced the principles of association to
three--Resemblance, Contiguity in time and place, Cause and (or)
Effect. Dugald Stewart put forward Resemblance, Contrariety, and
Vicinity in time and place, though he added, as another obvious
principle, accidental coincidence in the sounds of words, and further
noted three other cases of relation, namely, Cause and Effect, Means
and End, Premisses and Conclusion, as holding among the trains of
thought under circumstances of special attention. Reid, preceding
Stewart, was rather disposed to make light of the subject of
association, vaguely remarking that it seems to require no other
original quality of mind but the power of habit to explain the
spontaneous recurrence of trains of thinking, when become familiar by
frequent repetition (_Intellectual Powers_, p. 387).

Hamilton's own theory of mental reproduction, suggestion or
association is a development, greatly modified, of the doctrine
expounded in his _Lectures on Metaphysics_ (vol. ii. p. 223, seq.),
which reduced the principles of association first to two--Simultaneity
and Affinity, and these further to one supreme principle of
Redintegration or Totality. In the ultimate scheme he posits no less
than four general laws of mental succession concerned in reproduction:
(1) _Associability_ or possible co-suggestion (all thoughts of the
same mental subject are associable or capable of suggesting each
other); (2) _Repetition_ or direct remembrance (thoughts coidentical
in modification, but differing in time, tend to suggest each other);
(3) _Redintegration_, direct remembrance or reminiscence (thoughts
once coidentical in time, are, however, different as mental modes,
again suggestive of each other, and that in the mutual order which
they originally held); (4) _Preference_ (thoughts are suggested not
merely by force of the general subjective relation subsisting between
themselves, they are also suggested in proportion to the relation of
interest, from whatever source, in which they stand to the individual
mind). Upon these follow, as special laws:--A, Primary--modes of the
laws of Repetition and Redintegration--(1) law of Similars (Analogy,
Affinity); (2) law of Contrast; (3) law of Coadjacency (Cause and
Effect, &c.); B, Secondary--modes of the law of Preference, under the
law of Possibility--(1) laws of Immediacy and Homogeneity; (2) law of
Facility.

_The Associationist School._--This name is given to the English
psychologists who aimed at explaining all mental acquisitions, and the
more complex mental processes generally under laws not other than
those which have just been set out as determining simple reproduction.
Hamilton, though professing to deal with reproduction only, formulates
a number of still more general laws of mental succession--law of
Succession, law of Variation, law of Dependence, law of Relativity or
Integration (involving law of Conditioned), and, finally, law of
Intrinsic or Objective Relativity--as the highest to which human
consciousness is subject; but it is in a sense quite different that
the psychologists of the so-called Associationist School intend their
appropriation of the principle or principles commonly signalized. As
far as can be judged from imperfect records, they were anticipated to
some extent by the experientialists of ancient times, both Stoic and
Epicurean (cf. Diogenes Laertius, as above). In the modern period,
Hobbes is the first thinker of permanent note to whom this doctrine
may be traced. Though, in point of fact, he took anything but an
exhaustive view of the phenomena of mental succession, yet, after
dealing with trains of imagination, or what he called mental
discourse, he sought in the higher departments of intellect to explain
reasoning as a discourse in words, dependent upon an arbitrary system
of marks, each associated with, or standing for, a variety of
imaginations; and, save for a general assertion that reasoning is a
reckoning--otherwise, a compounding and resolving--he had no other
account of knowledge to give. The whole emotional side of mind, or, in
his language, the passions, he, in like manner, resolved into an
expectation of consequences, based on past experience of pleasures and
pains of sense. Thus, though he made no serious attempt to justify his
analysis in detail, he is undoubtedly to be classed with the
associationists of the next century. They, however, were wont to trace
their psychological theory no further back than to Locke's _Essay_.
Bishop Berkeley was driven to posit expressly a principle of
suggestion or association in these terms:--"That one idea may suggest
another to the mind, it will suffice that they have been observed to
go together, without any demonstration of the necessity of their
coexistence, or so much as knowing what it is that makes them so to
coexist" (_New Theory of Vision_, S 25); and to support the obvious
application of the principle to the case of the sensations of sight
and touch before him, he constantly urged that association of sound
and sense of language which the later school has always put in the
foreground, whether as illustrating the principle in general or in
explanation of the supreme importance of language for knowledge. It
was natural, then, that Hume, coming after Berkeley, and assuming
Berkeley's results, though he reverted to the larger inquiry of Locke,
should be more explicit in his reference to association; but he was
original also, when he spoke of it as a "kind of attraction which in
the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in
the natural, and to show itself in as many and as various forms"
(_Human Nature_, i. 1, S 4). Other inquirers about the same time
conceived of association with this breadth of view, and set themselves
to track, as psychologists, its effects in detail.

David Hartley in his _Observations on Man_, published in 1749 (eleven
years after the _Human Nature_, and one year after the better-known
_Inquiry_, of Hume), opened the path for all the investigations of
like nature that have been so characteristic of English psychology. A
physician by profession, he sought to combine with an elaborate theory
of mental association a minutely detailed hypothesis as to the
corresponding action of the nervous system, based upon the suggestion
of a vibratory motion within the nerves thrown out by Newton in the
last paragraph of the _Principia_. So far, however, from promoting the
acceptance of the psychological theory, this physical hypothesis
proved to have rather the opposite effect, and it began to be dropped
by Hartley's followers (as F. Priestley, in his abridged edition of
the _Observations_, 1775) before it was seriously impugned from
without. When it is studied in the original, and not taken upon the
report of hostile critics, who would not, or could not understand it,
no little importance must still be accorded to the first attempt, not
seldom a curiously felicitous one, to carry through that parallelism
of the physical and psychical, which since then has come to count for
more and more in the science of mind. Nor should it be forgotten that
Hartley himself, for all his paternal interest in the doctrine of
vibrations, was careful to keep separate from its fortunes the cause
of his other doctrine of mental association. Of this the point lay in
no mere restatement, with new precision, of a principle of coherence
among "ideas," but in its being taken as a clue by which to follow
the progressive development of the mind's powers. Holding that mental
states could be scientifically understood only as they were analysed,
Hartley sought for a principle of synthesis to explain the complexity
exhibited not only in trains of representative images, but alike in
the most involved combinations of reasonings and (as Berkeley had
seen) in the apparently simple phenomena of objective perception, as
well as in the varied play of the emotions, or, again, in the manifold
conscious adjustments of the motor system. One principle appeared to
him sufficient for all, running, as enunciated for the simplest case,
thus: "Any sensations A, B, C, &c., by being associated with one
another a sufficient number of times, get such a power over the
corresponding ideas (called by Hartley also vestiges, types, images)
_a, b, c_, &c., that any one of the sensations A, when impressed
alone, shall be able to excite in the mind _b, c_, &c., the ideas of
the rest." To render the principle applicable in the cases where the
associated elements are neither sensations nor simple ideas of
sensations, Hartley's first care was to determine the conditions under
which states other than these simplest ones have their rise in the
mind, becoming the matter of ever higher and higher combinations. The
principle itself supplied the key to the difficulty, when coupled with
the notion, already implied in Berkeley's investigations, of a
coalescence of simple ideas of sensation into one complex idea, which
may cease to bear any obvious relation to its constituents. So far
from being content, like Hobbes, to make a rough generalization to all
mind from the phenomena of developed memory, as if these might be
straightway assumed, Hartley made a point of referring them, in a
subordinate place of their own, to his universal principle of mental
synthesis. He expressly put forward the law of association, endued
with such scope, as supplying what was wanting to Locke's doctrine in
its more strictly psychological aspect, and thus marks by his work a
distinct advance on the line of development of the experiential
philosophy.

The new doctrine received warm support from some, as Law and
Priestley, who both, like Hume and Hartley himself, took the principle
of association as having the like import for the science of mind that
gravitation had acquired for the science of matter. The principle
began also, if not always with direct reference to Hartley, yet,
doubtless, owing to his impressive advocacy of it, to be applied
systematically in special directions, as by Abraham Tucker (1768) to
morals, and by Archibald Alison (1790) to aesthetics. Thomas Brown (d.
1820) subjected anew to discussion the question of theory. Hardly less
unjust to Hartley than Reid or Stewart had been, and forward to
proclaim all that was different in his own position, Brown must yet be
ranked with the associationists before and after him for the
prominence he assigned to the associative principle in
sense-perception (what he called external affections of mind), and for
his reference of all other mental states (internal affections) to the
two generic capacities or susceptibilities of Simple and Relative
Suggestion. He preferred the word Suggestion to Association, which
seemed to him to imply some prior connecting process, whereof there
was no evidence in many of the most important cases of suggestion, nor
even, strictly speaking, in the case of contiguity in time where the
term seemed least inapplicable. According to him, all that could be
assumed was a general constitutional tendency of the mind to exist
successively in states that have certain relations to each other, of
itself only, and without any external cause or any influence previous
to that operating at the moment of the suggestion. Brown's chief
contribution to the general doctrine of mental association, besides
what he did for the theory of perception, was, perhaps, his analysis
of voluntary reminiscence and constructive imagination--faculties that
appear at first sight to lie altogether beyond the explanatory range
of the principle. In James Mill's _Analysis of the Phenomena of the
Human Mind_ (1829), the principle, much as Hartley had conceived it,
was carried out, with characteristic consequence, over the
psychological field. With a much enlarged and more varied conception
of association, Alexander Bain re-executed the general psychological
task, while Herbert Spencer revised the doctrine from the new point of
view of the evolution-hypothesis. John Stuart Mill made only
occasional excursions into the region of psychology proper, but
sought, in his _System of Logic_ (1843), to determine the conditions
of objective truth from the point of view of the associationist
theory, and, thus or otherwise being drawn into general philosophical
discussion, spread wider than any one before him its repute.

The Associationist School has been composed chiefly of British
thinkers, but in France also it has had distinguished representatives.
Of these it will suffice to mention Condillac, who professed to
explain all knowledge from the single principle of association
(_liaison_) of ideas, operating through a previous association with
signs, verbal or other. In Germany, before the time of Kant, mental
association was generally treated in the traditional manner, as by
Wolff. Kant's inquiry into the foundations of knowledge, agreeing in
its general purport with Locke's, however it differed in its critical
procedure, brought him face to face with the newer doctrine that had
been grafted on Locke's philosophy; and to account for the fact of
synthesis in cognition, in express opposition to associationism, as
represented by Hume, was, in truth, his prime object, starting, as he
did, from the assumption that there was that in knowledge which no
mere association of experiences could explain. To the extent,
therefore, that his influence prevailed, all inquiries made by the
English associationists were discounted in Germany. Notwithstanding,
under the very shadow of his authority a corresponding, if not
related, movement was initiated by J.F. Herbart. Peculiar, and widely
different from anything conceived by the associationists, as Herbart's
metaphysical opinions were, he was at one with them, and at variance
with Kant, in assigning fundamental importance to the psychological
investigation of the development of consciousness, nor was his
conception of the laws determining the interaction and flow of mental
presentations and representations, when taken in its bare
psychological import, essentially different from theirs. In F.E.
Beneke's psychology also, and in more recent inquiries conducted
mainly by physiologists, mental association has been understood in its
wider scope, as a general principle of explanation.

The associationists differ not a little among themselves in the
statement of their principle, or, when they adduce several principles,
in their conception of the relative importance of these. Hartley took
account only of Contiguity, or the repetition of impressions
synchronous or immediately successive; the like is true of James Mill,
though, incidentally, he made an express attempt to resolve the
received principle of Similarity, and through this the other principle
of Contrast, into his fundamental law--law of Frequency, as he
sometimes called it, because upon frequency, in conjunction with
vividness of impressions, the strength of association, in his view,
depended. In a sense of his own, Brown also, while accepting the
common Aristotelian enumeration of principles, inclined to the opinion
that "all suggestion may be found to depend on prior coexistence, or
at least on such proximity as is itself very probably a modification
of coexistence," provided account be taken of "the influence of
emotions and other feelings that are very different from ideas, as
when an analogous object suggests an analogous object by the influence
of an emotion which each separately may have produced before, and
which is, therefore, common to both." To the contrary effect, Spencer
maintained that the fundamental law of all mental association is that
presentations aggregate or cohere with their like in past experience,
and that, besides this law, there is in strictness no other, all
further phenomena of association being incidental. Thus in particular,
he would have explained association by Contiguity as due to the
circumstance of imperfect assimilation of the present to the past in
consciousness. A. Bain regarded Contiguity and Similarity logically,
as perfectly distinct principles, though in actual psychological
occurrence blending intimately with each other, contiguous trains
being started by a first (it may be, implicit) representation through
Similarity, while the express assimilation of present to past in
consciousness is always, or tends to be, followed by the revival of
what was presented in contiguity with that past.

The highest, philosophical interest, as distinguished from that which
is more strictly psychological, attaches to the mode of mental
association called Inseparable. The coalescence of mental states noted
by Hartley, as it had been assumed by Berkeley, was farther formulated
by James Mill in these terms:--

"Some ideas are by frequency and strength of association so closely
combined that they cannot be separated; if one exists, the other
exists along with it in spite of whatever effort we make to disjoin
them."--(_Analysis of the Human Mind_, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 93.)

J.S. Mill's statement is more guarded and particular:--

"When two phenomena have been very often experienced in conjunction,
and have not, in any single instance, occurred separately either in
experience or in thought, there is produced between them what has been
called inseparable, or, less correctly, indissoluble, association; by
which is not meant that the association must inevitably last to the
end of life--that no subsequent experience or process of thought can
possibly avail to dissolve it; but only that as long as no such
experience or process of thought has taken place, the association is
irresistible; it is impossible for us to think the one thing disjoined
from the other."--(_Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy_, 2nd ed. p.
191.)

It is chiefly by J.S. Mill that the philosophical application of the
principle has been made. The first and most obvious application is to
so-called necessary truths--such, namely, as are not merely analytic
judgments but involve a synthesis of distinct notions. Again, the same
thinker sought to prove Inseparable Association the ground of belief
in an external objective world. The former application, especially, is
facilitated, when the experience through which the association is
supposed to be constituted is understood as cumulative in the race,
and transmissible as original endowment to individuals--endowment that
may be expressed either, subjectively, as latent intelligence, or,
objectively, as fixed nervous connexions. Spencer, as before
suggested, is the author of this extended view of mental association.

_Modern Criticism._--Of recent years the associationist theory has
been subjected to searching criticism, and it has been maintained by
many writers that the laws are both unsatisfactorily expressed and
insufficient to explain the facts. Among the most vigorous and
comprehensive of these investigations is that of F.H. Bradley in his
_Principles of Logic_ (1883). Having admitted the psychological fact
of mental association, he attacks the theories of Mill and Bain
primarily on the ground that they purport to give an account of mental
life as a whole, a metaphysical doctrine of existence. According to
this doctrine, mental activity is ultimately reducible to particular
feelings, impressions, ideas, which are disparate and unconnected,
until chance Association brings them together. On this assumption the
laws of Association naturally emerge in the following form:--(1) The
_law of Contiguity._--"Actions, sensations and states of feeling,
occurring together or in close connexion, tend to grow together, or
cohere, in such a way that, when any one of them is afterwards
presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea"
(A. Bain, _Senses and Intellect_, p. 327). (2) The _law of
Similarity._--"Present actions, sensation, thoughts or emotions tend
to revive their like among previous impressions or states" (A. Bain,
_ibid._ 457. Compare J.S. Mill, _Logic_, ii. p. 440, 9th ed.). The
fundamental objection to (1) is that ideas and impressions once
experienced do not recur; they are particular existences, and, as
such, do not persevere to recur or be presented. So Mill is wrong in
speaking of two impressions being "frequently experienced." Bradley
claims thus to reduce the law to "When we have experienced (or even
thought of) several pairs of impressions (simultaneous or successive),
which pairs are like one another; then whenever an idea occurs which
is like all the impressions on one side of these pairs, it tends to
excite an idea which is like all the impressions on the other side."
This statement is destructive of the title of the law, because it
appears that what were contiguous (the impressions) are not
associated, and what are associated (the ideas) were not contiguous;
in other words, the association is not due to contiguity at all.

Proceeding to the law of Similarity (which in Mill's view is at the
back of association by contiguity), and having made a similar
criticism of its phrasing, Bradley maintains that it involves an even
greater absurdity; if two ideas are to be recognized as similar, they
must both be present in the mind; if one is to call up the other, one
must be absent. To the obvious reply that the similarity is recognized
_ex post facto_, and not while the former idea is being called up,
Bradley replies simply that such a view reduces the law to the mere
statement of a phenomenon and deprives it of any explanatory value,
though he hardly makes it clear in what sense this necessarily
invalidates the law from a psychological point of view. He further
points out with greater force that in point of fact mere similarity is
not the basis of ordinary cases of mental reproduction, inasmuch as in
any given instance there is more difference than similarity between
the ideas associated.

Bradley himself bases association on identity plus contiguity:--"Any
part of a single state of mind tends, if reproduced, to re-instate the
remainder," or "any element tends to reproduce those elements with
which it has formed one state of mind." This law he calls by the name
"redintegration," understood, of course, in a sense different from
that in which Hamilton used it. The radical difference between this
law and those of Mill and Bain is that it deals not with particular
units of thoughts but with universals or identity between individuals.
In any example of such reproduction the universal appears in a
particular form which is more or less different from that in which it
originally existed.

_Psychophysical Researches._--Bradley's discussion deals with the
subject purely from the metaphysical side, and the total result
practically is that association occurs only between universals. From
the point of view of empirical psychologists Bradley's results are
open to the charge which he made against those who impugned his view
of the law of similarity, namely that they are merely a statement--not
in any real sense an explanation. The relation between the mental and
the physical phenomena of association has occupied the attention of
all the leading psychologists (see PSYCHOLOGY). William James holds
that association is of "objects" not of "ideas," is between "things
thought of"--so far as the word stands for an effect. "So far as it
stands for a cause it is between processes in the brain." Dealing with
the law of Contiguity he says that the "most natural way of accounting
for it is to conceive it as a result of the laws of habit in the
nervous system; in other words to ascribe it to a physiological
cause." Association is thus due to the fact that when a nerve current
has once passed by a given way, it will pass more easily by that way
in future; and this fact is a physical fact. He further seeks to
maintain the important deduction that the only primary or ultimate law
of association is that of neural habit.

The objections to the associationist theory are summed up by G.F.
Stout (_Analytic Psychol._, vol. ii. pp. 47 seq.) under three heads.
Of these the first is that the theory as stated, e.g. by Bain, lays
far too much stress on the mere connexion of elements hitherto
entirely separate; whereas, in fact, every new mental state or
synthesis consists in the development or modification of a
pre-existing state or psychic whole. Secondly, it is quite false to
regard an association as merely an aggregate of disparate units; in
fact, the _form_ of the new idea is quite as important as the elements
which it comprises. Thirdly, the phraseology used by the
associationists seems to assume that the parts that go to form the
whole retain their identity unimpaired; in fact, each part or element
is _ipso facto_ modified by the very fact of its entering into such
combination.

The experimental methods now in vogue have to a large extent removed
the discussion of the whole subject of association of ideas, depending
in the case of the older writers on introspection, into a new sphere.
In such a work as E.B. Titchener's _Experimental Psychology_ (1905),
association is treated as a branch of the study of mental reactions,
of which association reactions are one division.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See PSYCHOLOGY; and the works of Bradley, Stout, and
James, above quoted, and general works on psychology: articles in
_Mind_ (passim); A. Bain, _Senses and Intellect_ (4th ed., 1894), and
in _Mind_, xii. (1887) pp. 237-249; John Watson, _An Outline of
Philosophy_ (1898); H. Hoffding, _Hist. of Mod. Philos._ (Eng. trans.,
Lond., 1900), _Psychologie in Umrissen auf Grundlage der Erfahrung_
(2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893); Jas. Sully, _The Human Mind_ (1892), and
_Outlines of Psych._ (Lond., 1892); E.B. Titchener, _Outline of
Psych._ (New York, 1896), and in his trans. of O. Kulpe's _Outlines of
Psych._ (New York, 1895,); Jas. Ward in _Mind_, viii. (1883), xii.
(1887), new series ii. (1893), iii. (1894); G.T. Ladd, _Psychology,
Descriptive and Explanatory_ (Lond., 1894); C.L.C. Morgan, _Introd. to
Comparative Psych._ (Lond., 1894); W. Wundt, _Princip. of Physiol.
Psych._ (Eng. trans., 1904), _Human and Animal Psych._ (Eng. trans.,
1894), pp. 282-307; _Outlines of Psych._ (Eng. trans., 1897); E.
Claparede, _L'Association des idees_ (1903). For associationism in
Greek philosophy see J.I. Beare, _Greek Theories of Elementary
Cognition_ (Oxford, 1906), part iii. SS 14, 43 seq.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] There are, however, distinct anticipations of the theory in Plato
(_Phaedo_), as part of the doctrine of [Greek: anamnaesis]; thus we
find the idea of Simmias recalled by the picture of Simmias
(similarity), and that of a friend by the sight of the lyre on which
he played (contiguity).

ASSONANCE (from Lat. _adsonare_ or _assonare_, to sound to or answer to), a term defined, in its prosodical sense, as "the corresponding or riming of one word with another in the accented vowel and those which follow it, but not in the consonants" (_New English Dictionary_, Oxford). In other words, assonance is an improper or imperfect form of rhyme, in which the ear is satisfied with the incomplete identity of sound which the vowel gives without the aid of consonants. Much rustic or popular verse in England is satisfied with assonance, as in such cases as

"And pray who gave thee that jolly red _nose_?
Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg and _Cloves_,"

where the agreement between the two _o's_ permits the ear to neglect the discord between _s_ and _v_. But in English these instances are the result of carelessness or blunted ear. It is not so in several literatures, such as in Spanish, where assonance is systematically cultivated as a literary ornament. It is an error to confound alliteration,--which results from the close juxtaposition of words beginning with the same sound or letter,--and assonance, which is the repetition of the same vowel-sound in a syllable at points where the ear expects a rhyme. The latter is a more complicated and less primitive employment of artifice than the former, although they have often been used to intensify the effect of each other in a single couplet. Assonance appears, nevertheless, to have preceded rhyme in several of the European languages, and to have led the way towards it. It is particularly observable in the French poetry which was composed before the 12th century, and it reached its highest point in the "Chanson de Roland," where the sections are distinguished by the fact that all the lines in a _laisse_ or stanza close with the same vowel-sound. When the ear of the French became more delicate, and pure rhyme was introduced, about the year 1120, assonance almost immediately retired before it and was employed no more, until recent years, when several French poets have re-introduced assonance in order to widen the scope of their effects of sound. It held its place longer in Provencal and some other Romance literatures, while in Spanish it has retained its absolute authority over rhyme to the present day. It has been observed that in the Romance languages the ear prefers the correspondence of vowels, while in the Teutonic languages the preference is given to consonants. This distinction is felt most strongly in Spanish, where the satisfaction in _rimas asonantes_ is expressed no less in the most elaborate works of the poets and dramatists than in the rough ballads of the people. The nature of the language here permits the full value of the corresponding vowel-sounds to be appreciated, whereas in English--and even in German, where, however, a great deal of assonant poetry exists--the divergence of the consonants easily veils or blunts the similarity of sound. Various German poets of high merit, and in particular Tieck and Heine, have endeavoured to obviate this difficulty, but without complete success. Occasionally they endeavour, as English rhymers have done, to mix pure rhyme with assonance, but the result of this in almost all cases is that the assonances, &c., which make a less strenuous appeal to the ear, are drowned and lost in the stress of the pure rhymes. Like alliteration, assonance is a very frequent and very effective ornament of prose style, but such correspondence in vowel-sound is usually accidental and involuntary, an instinctive employment of the skill of the writer. To introduce it with a purpose, as of course must be done in poetry, has always been held to be a most dangerous practice in prose. Assonance as a conscious art, in fact, is scarcely recognized as legitimate in English literature. (E. G.)

ASSUAN, or ASWAN, a town of Upper Egypt on the east bank of the Nile, facing Elephantine Island below the First Cataract, and 590 m. S. of Cairo by rail. It is the capital of a province of the same name--the southernmost province of Egypt. Population (1907) 16,128. The principal buildings are along the river front, where a broad embankment has been built. Popular among Europeans as a winter health resort and tourist centre, Assuan is provided with large modern hotels (one situated on Elephantine Island), and there is an English church. South-east of the railway station are the ruins of a temple built by Ptolemy Euergetes, and still farther south are the famous granite quarries of Syene. On Elephantine Island are an ancient nilometer and other remains, including a granite gateway built under Alexander the Great at the temple of the local ram-headed god Chnubis or Chnumis (Eg. Khnum), perhaps on account of his connexion with Ammon (q.v.); two small but very beautiful temples of the XVIIIth Dynasty were destroyed there about 1820. In the hill on the opposite side of the river are tombs of the VIth to XIIth dynasties, opened by Lord Grenfell in 1885-1886. The inscriptions show that they belonged to frontier-prefects whose expeditions into Nubia, &c., are recorded in them. Three and a half miles above the town, at the beginning of the Cataract, the Assuan Dam stretches across the Nile. This great engineering work was finished in December 1902 (see IRRIGATION: _Egypt_; and NILE). Above the dam the Nile presents the appearance of a vast lake. Consequent on the rise of the water-level several islands have been wholly and others partly submerged, among the latter Philae (q.v.). On the east bank opposite Philae is the village of Shellal, southern terminus of the Egyptian railway system and the starting point of steamers for the Sudan.

In ancient times the chief city, called Yeb, capital of the frontier nome, the first of the Upper Country, was on the island of Elephantine, guarding the entrance to Egypt. But, owing to the cataract, the main route for traffic with the south was by land along the eastern shore. Here, near the granite quarries--whence was obtained the material for many magnificent monuments--there grew up another city, at first dependent on and afterwards successor to the island town. This city was called _Swan_, the Mart, whence came the Greek _Syene_ and Arabic _Aswan_. Syene is twice mentioned (as Seveneh) in the prophecies of Ezekiel, and papyri, discovered on the island, and dated in the reigns of Artaxerxes and Darius II, (464-404 B.C.), reveal the existence of a colony of Jews, with a temple to Yahu (Yahweh, Jehovah), which had been founded at some time before the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses in 523 B.C. They also mention the great frontier garrison against the Ethiopians, referred to by Herodotus. Syene was one of the bases used by Eratosthenes in his calculations for the measurement of the earth. In Roman times Syene was strongly garrisoned to resist the attacks of the desert tribes. Thither, in virtual banishment, Juvenal was sent as prefect by Domitian. In the early days of Christianity the town became the seat of a bishopric, and numerous ruins of Coptic convents are in the neighbourhood. Syene appears also to have flourished under its first Arab rulers, but in the 12th century was raided and ruined by Bedouin and Nubian tribes. On the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in the 16th century, Selim I. placed a garrison here, from whom, in part, the present townsmen descend. As the southern frontier town of Egypt proper, Assuan in times of peace was the entrepot of a considerable trade with the Sudan and Abyssinia, and in 1880 its trade was valued at L2,000,000 annually. During the Mahdia (1884-1898) Assuan was strongly garrisoned by Egyptian and British troops. Since the defeat of the khalifa at Omdurman and the fixing (1899) of the Egyptian frontier farther south, the military value of Assuan has declined.

For the Jewish colony see A.H. Sayce and A.E. Cowley, _Aramaic Papyri
discovered at Assuan_ (Oxford, 1906); E. Sachau, _Drei Aramaische
papyrus-Urkunden aus Elephantine_ (Berlin, 1907). For the dam see W.
Willcocks, _The Nile Reservoir Dam at Assuan_ (London, 1901).
(F. Ll. G.)

ASSUMPSIT ("he has undertaken," from Lat. _assumere_), a word applied to an action for the recovery of damages by reason of the breach or non-performance of a simple contract, either express or implied, and whether made orally or in writing. _Assumpsit_ was the word always used in pleadings by the plaintiff to set forth the defendant's undertaking or promise, hence the name of the action. Claims in actions of _assumpsit_ were ordinarily divided into (a) common or _indebitatus assumpsit_, brought usually on an implied promise, and (b) special _assumpsit_, founded on an express promise. _Assumpsit_ as a form of action became obsolete after the passing of the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875. (See further CONTRACT; PLEADING and TORT.)