Chapter XXV: Act III: Scene II (4)

The general clue to that ænigma, the character of the French, seems to
be that their feelings are very imperfectly modified by the objects
exciting them. That is, the difference between the several degrees and
kinds of feeling in them does not correspond as much as it does in
most other people with the different degrees and kinds of power in the
external objects. They want neither feeling nor ideas in the abstract;
but there seems to be no connection in their minds between the one and
the other. Consequently their feelings want compass and variety, and
whatever else must depend on the ‘building up of our feelings through
the imagination.’ The feelings of a Frenchman seem to be all one
feeling. The moment any thing produces a change in him, he is thrown
completely out of his character, he is quite beside himself. This is
perhaps in a great measure owing to their quickness of perception.
They do not give the object time to be _thoroughly_ impressed on their
minds, their feelings are roused at the first notice of its approach,
and if I may so express myself, fairly run away from the object. Their
feelings do not grapple with the object. The least stimulus is
sufficient to excite them and more is superfluous, for they do not
wait for the impression, or stop to inquire what degree or kind it is
of. There is not resistance sufficient in the matter to receive those
sharp incisions, those deep, marked, and strongly rooted impressions,
the traces of which remain for ever. From whatever cause it proceeds,
the sensitive principle in them does not seem to be susceptible of the
same modification and variety of action as it does in others; and
certainly the outward forms of things do not adhere to, do not wind
themselves round their feelings in the same manner. For any thing that
appears to the contrary, objects might be supposed to have no direct
communication with the internal sense of pleasure or pain, but to act
upon it through some intermediate, very confined organ, capable of
transmitting little more than the simple impulse. But the same thing
will follow, if we suppose the principle itself to be this very organ,
that is, to want comprehensiveness, elasticity, and plastic force. (It
is difficult to express this in English: but there is a French word,
_ressort_, which expresses it exactly. This is possibly owing to their
feeling the want of it; as there is no word in any other language to
answer to the English word, _comfort_, I suppose, because the English
are the most uncomfortable of all people). It will rather follow from
what has been here said than be inconsistent with it that the French
must be more sensible of minute impressions and slight shades of
difference in their feelings than others, because having, as is here
supposed, less real variety, a narrower range of feeling, they will
attend more to the differences contained within that narrow circle,
and so produce an artificial variety. In short their feelings are very
easily set in motion and by slight causes, but they do not go the
whole length of the impression, nor are they capable of combining a
great variety of complicated actions to correspond with the distinct
characters and complex forms of things. Hence they have no such thing
as poetry. This however must not be misunderstood. I mean then that I
never met with any thing in French that produces the same kind of
feeling in the mind as the following passage. If there is any thing
that belongs even to the same class with it, I am ready to give the
point up.

_Antony._ _Eros_, thou yet behold’st me.

_Eros._ Ay, noble Lord.

_Ant._ Sometimes we see a cloud that’s Dragonish,
A vapour sometimes like a Bear, or Lion,
A tower’d Citadel, a pendant Rock,
A forked Mountain, or blue Promontory
With Trees upon’t, that nod unto the World
And mock our Eyes with Air. Thou hast seen these Signs,
They are black Vesper’s Pageants.

_Eros._ Ay, my Lord.

_Ant._ That which is now a Horse, even with a Thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
As Water is in Water.

_Eros._ It does, my Lord.

_Ant._ My good Knave, _Eros_, now thy Captain is
Even such a body, &c.

It is remarkable that the French, who are a lively people and fond of
shew and striking images, should be able to read and hear with such
delight their own dramatic pieces, which abound in nothing but general
maxims, and vague declamation, never embodying any thing, and which
would appear quite tedious to an English audience, who are generally
considered as a dry, dull, plodding people, much more likely to be
satisfied with formal descriptions and grave reflections. This appears
to me to come to the same thing that I have said before, namely, that
it is characteristic of the French that their feelings let go their
hold of things almost as soon as the impression is made. Except
sensible impressions therefore (which have on that account more force,
and carry them away without opposition while they last) all their
feelings are general; and being general, not being marked by any
strong distinctions, nor built on any deep foundation of inveterate
associations, one thing serves to excite them as well as another, the
name of the general class to which any feeling belongs, the words
_pleasure_, _charming_, _delicious_, &c., convey just the same
meaning, and excite the same kind of emotion in the mind of a
Frenchman, and at the same time do this more readily, than the most
forcible description of real feelings, and objects. The English on the
contrary are not so easily moved with words, because being in the
habit of retaining individual images and of brooding over the feelings
connected with them, the mere names of general classes, or (which is
the same thing) vague and unmeaning descriptions or sentiments must
appear perfectly indifferent to them. Hence the French are delighted
with Racine, the English (I mean some of them) admire Shakespear.
Rousseau is the only French writer I am acquainted with (though he by
the bye was not a Frenchman) who from the depth of his feelings,
without many distinct images, produces the same kind of interest in
the mind that is excited by the events and recollections of our own
lives. If he had not true genius, he had at least something which was
a very good substitute for it. The French generalise perpetually, but
seldom comprehensively: they make an infinite number of observations,
but have never discovered any great principle. They immediately
perceive the analogy between a number of facts of the same class, and
make a general inference, which is done the more easily, the fewer
particulars you trouble yourself with; it is in a good measure the art
of forgetting. The difficult part of philosophy is, when a number of
particular observations and contradictory facts have been stated, to
reconcile them together by finding out some other distinct view of the
subject, or collateral circumstance, applicable to all the different
facts or appearances, which is the true principle from which, when
combined with particular circumstances, they are all derived. Opposite
appearances are always immediately incompatible with each other, and
cannot therefore be deduced from the same immediate cause, but must be
accounted for from a combination of different causes, the discovery of
which is an affair of comprehension, and not of mere abstraction.

Footnote 81:

Berkeley’s Essay on Vision.

Footnote 82:

See page 392, and the following pages.

Footnote 83:

The sum of the matter is this. Individuality may relate either to
absolute unity, to the identity, or similarity of the parts of any
thing, or to an extraordinary degree of connection between things
neither the same nor similar. This last alone in fact determines the
positive use of the word, at least with respect to man, and other
organized beings. (Indeed the term is hardly ever applied to other
things in common language.) When I speak of the difference between one
individual and another, this must refer ultimately to the want of such
connection between them, or to my perceiving that a number of things
are so connected as to have a mutual and intimate dependence on one
another, making one individual, and that they are so _disconnected_
with a number of other things as not to have the least habitual
dependence upon or influence over them, which makes them two distinct
individuals. As to the other distinctions between one individual and
another, namely those of number and properties, the first of these
subsists as necessarily between the parts of the individual, as
between one individual and another, and the second frequently subsists
in a much greater degree between those parts, than between different
individuals. Two distinct individuals can certainly never be the same:
that is, supposing the number of parts in each individual to be as 10,
10 can never make 20. But neither can 10 ever be made into an unit; so
that we should have ten individuals instead of one by insisting on the
absolute distinction of numbers. When I say therefore that one
individual differs from another, I must be understood by implication
to mean, in some way in which the parts of that individual do _not_
differ from each other or not by any means in the same degree. The
mind is however extremely apt to fasten on the distinctions of number
and properties where they co-exist with the other distinction, and
almost loses sight of those distinctions between things that have a
very close connection with each other. When therefore we include the
distinctions of number and properties in our account of the difference
between one individual and another, this can only be true in an
absolute sense, and not if it be meant to imply that the same
distinctions do not exist in the same individual.—This account is
altogether very crude and unsatisfactory.

Footnote 84:

I remember a story somewhere in the Arabian Nights of a man with a
silver thigh. Why may not a fable serve for an illustration as well as
any thing else? Metaphysics themselves are but a dry romance. Now
suppose this thigh to have been endued with a power of sensation and
to have answered every other purpose of a real thigh. What difference
would this make in its outward appearance either to the man himself or
to any one else? Or how by means of sight would he know it to be _his_
thigh, more than it was? It would still look just like what it did, a
silver thigh and nothing more. It’s impression on the eye would not
depend on it’s being a _sensible_ substance, on it’s having life in
it, or being connected with the same conscious principle as the eye,
but on it’s being a visible substance, that is having extension,
figure, and colour.

Footnote 85:

To avoid an endless subtlety of distinction I have not here given any
account of consciousness in general: but the same reasoning will apply
to both.

Footnote 86:

Suppose a number of men employed to cast a mound into the sea. As far
as it has gone, the workmen pass backwards and forwards on it, it
stands firm in it’s place, and though it recedes farther and farther
from the shore, it is still joined to it. A man’s personal identity
and self-interest have just the same principle and extent, and can
reach no farther than his actual existence. But if a man of a
metaphysical turn, seeing that the pier was not yet finished, but was
to be continued to a certain point and in a certain direction, should
take it into his head to insist that what was already built and what
was to be built were the same pier, that the one must afford as good
footing as the other, and should accordingly walk over the pier-head
on the solid foundation of his metaphysical hypothesis—he would argue
a great deal more ridiculously, but not a whit more absurdly than
those who found a principle of absolute self-interest on a man’s
future identity with his present being. But say you, the comparison
does not hold in this, that the man _can_ extend his thoughts (and
that very wisely too) beyond the present moment, whereas in the other
case he cannot move a single step forwards. Grant it. This will only
shew that the mind has wings as well as feet, which of itself is a
sufficient answer to the selfish hypothesis.

Footnote 87:

See Preface to Wordsworth’s Poems.

REMARKS
ON
THE SYSTEMS OF HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS

I find I owe the reader two explanations, one relating to the association of ideas, from which Hartley and other writers have deduced the origin of all our affections, even of self-love itself, the other relating to the mechanical principle of self-interest stated by Helvetius.[88] It was my first intention to have given at the end of the preceding essay a general account of the nature of the will, and to have tried at least to dig down a little deeper into the foundation of human thoughts and actions than I have hitherto done. At present I have laid aside all thoughts of this kind as I have neither time nor strength for such an undertaking; and the most that I shall attempt is to point out such contradictions and difficulties in both these systems as may lessen the weight of any objections drawn from them against the one I have stated, and leave the argument as above explained in it’s original force.

To begin with the doctrine of association.

The general principle of association as laid down by Hartley is this, that if any given sensation, idea, or motion be for a number of times either accompanied, or immediately followed by any other sensation, idea, or muscular motion, the recurrence of the one will afterwards mechanically give rise to that of the other. By _immediately followed_ I mean _closely followed_: for suppose A to be associated with B, and B with C, A will not only produce B and C intermediately, but will in time produce C immediately without the intervention of B. A mathematician would perhaps here ask how this can ever be actually proved: for though it seems reasonable to suppose that the influence of A if it extend to B should also go a little farther to the next idea, and join indirectly and secretly with B in producing C, yet as the connection between A and B must be stronger than that between A and C, if in any case the connection between the former become gradually so weakened as to dissolve of itself, the latter must fail of course, and therefore C can never follow A, except when B stands equivocally between them. This question would go upon the supposition, that B and C must always be impressions of exactly the same kind and degree of strength, which is not the case. A, though more remote from C, may yet be more intimately connected with it than with B from several other causes, from the greater strength of the impression, from similarity, &c. (This implies by the bye that the effect of association depends on the conjunction of many circumstances, and principles of action, and is not simply determined by the relation of proximity or remoteness between our ideas with respect to time or place.) Thus if a person has done a number of good actions, which have been observed with pleasure by another, this approbation will be afterwards associated with the idea of the person, and the recollection of the benevolent disposition which gave birth to those actions remains when the particular manner in which it was exerted is forgotten. First, because the feeling is the principal or strongest circumstance. Secondly, the association of our ideas with moral qualities is evidently assisted, and forced into the same general direction by the simplicity and uniform character of our feelings compared with the great variety of things and actions, which makes it impossible to combine such a number of distinct forms under the same general notion.

What I have here stated is I believe the whole extent and compass of the law of association. It has been said that this principle is of itself sufficient to account for all the phenomena of the human mind, and is the foundation of every rule of morality. My design is to shew that both these assertions are absolutely false, or that it is an absurdity, and an express contradiction to suppose that association is either the only mode of operation of the human mind, or that it is the primary and most general principle of thought and action.—But first of all it will be necessary to consider the account which Hartley himself has given of this principle as depending on the mechanical communication of motion from the seat of one idea to that of the next and so on, according to a certain local arrangement of these ideas in the brain, as certainly if thought is carried on in this manner, that is, by means of vibrations, it is difficult to conceive of it’s being produced by any other means than the accidental justling of these one against the other, which is what is meant by association.

There are two or three general observations which will be of use in conducting us through this inquiry. In the first place it appears to me certain that every impression or idea is produced in such a manner as to affect or be perceived by the whole brain at once, or in immediate succession, that is, before the action ceases. For if we suppose a certain degree of resemblance to subsist between two ideas, the perception of the one will always be sure to excite a recollection of the other, if it is at all worth remembering. I mean for instance if a person should in some strange place suddenly see an excellent picture of their dead father or mother, I suppose there can be no doubt but the picture would call up the memory of the person whom it resembled with an instantaneous and irresistible force. Now this could not always happen but on the supposition that the visible impression of the picture was conveyed to every part of the brain, as otherwise it must be a mere accident whether it would ever come in contact with that part of it, where that distinct set of recollections was lodged which it was calculated to excite. It is evident that the force with which the impression of the picture acts upon the mind is subsequent to the recollection of the likeness and not the cause of it, since the picture of any other person would act physically upon my mind in the same manner. It may be worth remarking here that the strength, or habitual or recent recurrence of any idea makes it more easily recollected. I might see a picture of a person whom I had not often seen and whose face did not at all interest me at the time without recollecting whose it was, though the likeness should be never so great. The frequent recurrence of the imitation on the other hand if it has had it’s usual effect renders the recollection of the object less certain or at any rate less vivid every time, till at last what remains of it is entirely lost, and confounded with the imitation.[89] Again, it is also certain that the proximity of the parts of an object to one another, or of one object to another object is of itself a sufficient and necessary reason for their recollection in succession or together, in the same order in which they were actually perceived. Unless this were the case, we could never recollect any thing at all, as every object is necessarily composed of parts, and those again of others without end. Now how are we to reconcile this with the first-mentioned inference that thought is uniformly and necessarily communicated to every part of the thinking substance? If thought is produced in such a manner, that the shock is immediately felt in those parts nearest the seat of the individual impression, and is indeed sure to excite thought in them without ever affecting the remote parts of the brain in the same manner, it seems strange that it’s own communication over the whole brain should be so rapid and certain, while the force with which it is sent along (as implied in its confined power of producing other thoughts by simple impulse) is so unequal.

The reader will I hope have the good-nature to pardon some inconsistencies of expression in treating of this subject. In order to disprove the theory which I am combating I must first assume it’s truth, and go on talking of _the seats of our ideas_, _the different parts of the brain_, _the communication of thought by impulse_, &c. till it is clearly shewn that the hypothesis to which all these expressions refer is in reality good for nothing.

Though I do not see my way out of the dilemma here stated, and find I have engaged in an undertaking I am not equal to, I think I have seen enough of the difficulties belonging to it to be able to reject the Hartleian hypothesis as directly incompatible with a fair and comprehensive view of the subject. For, first, it has been shewn above that every idea, or perception is communicated to all the parts of the brain, or to the whole sentient principle, whatever this is supposed to be. Or the same thing might be shewn from the nature of consciousness.[90] That there is some faculty of this sort which opens a direct communication between our ideas, so that the same thinking principle is at the same time conscious of different impressions, and of their relations to each other, is what hardly any person who attends in the least to what passes in his own mind and is not determined to reason himself out of his senses will I should think deny. In other words, when any two ideas or parts of an idea (for there is no difference in this respect) as those of two lighted candles, or the top and bottom of the same candle are impressed at the same time on different parts of the brain, before these ideas can be perceived in connection as making parts of a whole, or can be accompanied with a consciousness of each other’s existence, we must suppose them mutually to affect the seats of action belonging to each other, or else to be united in some common principle of thought, the same comparing power being exerted upon both. Without supposing their distinct impressions thus to meet in the same point, it seems a thing impossible to conceive how any comparison can take place between different impressions existing at the same time, or between our past, and present impressions, or ever to explain what is meant by saying, _I perceive such and such objects_, _I remember such and such events_, since these different impressions are evidently referred to the same conscious being, which idea of individuality could never have been so much as conceived of if there were no other connection between our ideas than that which arises from the juxtaposition of the particles of matter on which they are severally impressed. The mere juxtaposition of the parts of the thinking substance on which different ideas are impressed will never produce any thing more than the actual juxtaposition of the ideas themselves, unaccompanied by any consciousness of their having this relation to each other: for the mind in this case consisting of nothing more than a succession of material points, each part will be sensible of the corresponding part of any object which is impressed upon it, but can know nothing of the impression which is made on any other part of the same substance, except from it’s reaction on the seat of the first, which is contrary to the supposition. In short, to attempt accounting at all for the nature of consciousness from the proximity of different impressions, or of their fluxional parts to each other in the brain seems no less absurd than it would be to imagine that by placing a number of persons together in a line we should produce in them an immediate consciousness and perfect knowledge of what was passing in each other’s minds. If consciousness is to be deduced at all from the circumstance of place, it must be that different impressions occupy exactly the same place. One place has no identity with another: however thin the partition between one idea and another, the distinction must be as absolute and complete, and must confine each idea as effectually within it’s own bounds in this fantastical mosaic-work of the brain, as if the solid skulls of ten philosophers were interposed between each. There is another consideration to be attended to, which is that sensible impressions appear to be continually made on the same part of the brain in succession:—with respect to those received by the eye, a new set of objects is almost every moment impressed on the whole organ, and consequently transmitted along the nerves to the same receptacle in the brain.[91] It follows from this last observation in particular (which is not a speculative refinement but a plain matter of fact) that the sphere occupied by different vibrations is constantly the same, or that the same region of the brain belongs equally to a thousand different impressions, and consequently that the mere circumstance of situation is insufficient to account for that complete distinctness, of which our ideas are capable.

From all these considerations taken together I cannot help inferring the fallacy of the Hartleian doctrine of vibrations, which all along goes on the supposition of the most exact distinction and regular arrangement of the _places_ of our ideas, and which therefore cannot be effectually reconciled with any reasoning that excludes all local distinction from having a share in the mechanical operations of the human mind. For if we suppose the succession of our ideas to be carried on by the communication of the impulse belonging to one idea to the contiguous cell, or dormitory of another idea formerly associated with it, and if we at the same time suppose each idea to occupy a separate cell which is inviolable, and which it has entirely to itself, then undoubtedly the ideas thus called up will follow one another in the same order in which they were originally excited. But if we take away this imaginary allotment of separate parcels of the brain to different ideas and suppose the same substance or principle to be constantly impressed with a succession of different ideas, then there seems to be no assignable reason why a vibratory motion accompanied with thought in passing from one part of the thinking substance to the next should not excite any other idea which had been impressed there, as well as the one with which that particular vibration had been originally associated, or why it should not by one general impulse equally excite them all. It is like supposing that you might tread on a nest of adders twined together, and provoke only one of them to sting you. On the other hand to say that this species of elective affinity is determined in it’s operation by the greater readiness with which the idea of a particular impression recalls the memory of another impression which co-existed with it in a state of sensible excitement is to repeat the fact but not (that I can perceive) in any manner to account for it. Let any one compare this account with the one given by Hartley of his own principle, and he will be able to judge.

But farther, even if it could be shewn that the doctrine of vibrations accounts satisfactorily for the association of the ideas of any one sense, (as those of the sight for example) yet surely the very nature of that principle must cut off every sort of communication between the ideas of different senses, (as those of sight and hearing) which may have been associated in the order of time, but which with respect to actual situation must be farther removed from one another than any ideas of the same sense, at whatever distance of time they may have been severally impressed. If from the top of a long cold barren hill I hear the distant whistle of a thrush which seems to come up from some warm woody shelter beyond the edge of the hill, this sound coming faint over the rocks with a mingled feeling of strangeness and joy, the idea of the place about me, and the imaginary one beyond will all be combined together in such a manner in my mind as to become inseparable. Now the doctrine of vibration appears absolutely to exclude the possibility of the union of all these into one _associated_ idea, because as the whole of that principle is founded on the greater ease and certainty with which one local impression is supposed to pass into the seat of the next, and the greater force with which it acts there than it can do farther off, the idea of a visible object can never run into the notion of a sound, nor _vice versâ_, these impressions being of course conveyed along different nerves to different and very remote parts of the brain. Perhaps it will be said that all ideas impressed at the same moment of time may be supposed to be assigned to particular compartments of the brain as well as where the external objects are contiguous. To this I should answer that such a supposition does not at all account for what I have said above with respect to consciousness and the association of ideas from similarity, &c. and secondly, this supposition is neither included in Hartley’s theory, nor does it seem to be compatible with it, as there is no other reason on the common material hypothesis for inferring the contiguity of our ideas in the brain than the contiguity of their external objects, and the impression of those objects on corresponding parts of the external sensible organ.

The whole of Hartley’s system is founded on what seems an entirely gratuitous supposition, viz. the imaginary communication of our ideas to particular places in the brain to correspond not only with the relations of external objects, but with the order of time. This supposition can never be reconciled with the inference mentioned above (to go no farther) that thought is communicated to every part of the thinking substance by an immediate and uniform impulse. For though we should suppose that it is communicated in one manner to what may be called it’s _primary seat_, and in a different manner over the rest of the brain, yet we shall still be as much at a loss as ever to shew a reason why it’s primary action should always excite the associated or contiguous ideas, while it’s indirect or secondary action has no power at all to excite any of the ideas, with the spheres of which it necessarily comes in contact in it’s general diffusion over the whole brain, that is by it’s simple impulse. This is not all. There is another circumstance which must entirely prevent the least use being made of this distinction, which is that associated ideas are not properly such as are contiguous in place, but all such as are connected in point of time, the relation of place not being at all essential in the question, for ideas that have been impressed together are always recollected as parts of the same complex impression, without any regard to the proximity or remoteness of their direct, primary seats in the brain, considered as distinct local impressions. As has been explained above with respect to sounds and visible objects, where the association must evidently arise from what I have called their secondary, or relative actions, or, if you will, their _conscious ideas_, that is those which are not confined to a particular spot in the circumference of the brain, but affect the general principle of thought, whatever this may be, whether composed of extended, material parts, or indivisible. Now if these secondary or conscious ideas which we may represent as continually posting backwards and forwards like couriers in all directions through all quarters of the brain to meet each other and exchange accounts are in fact the only instruments of association, it is plain that the account given by Hartley of that principle falls to the ground at once, first because that account affords no explanation of any of the associations which take place in the mind, except when there is an immediate communication between the primary seats of the associated ideas; secondly, because these secondary or conscious ideas being spread over the whole brain, or rather being impressed on the same thinking principle cannot have any particular connection with or power to call up one another or the contrary from any circumstances of local distinction, which is thus completely done away.—The doctrine of vibrations supposes the order of place and the order of time to correspond exactly in all combinations of our ideas, and that it is owing to this circumstance entirely that those ideas which have been impressed nearly at the same time have afterwards a power to call up one another from the facility with which they must be supposed to pass from their own primary seats into the contiguous ones of the associated ideas. I have endeavoured to shew on the contrary not only that there is no regular local arrangement of our ideas to correspond exactly with the order in which they cohere together in the mind, but that there appears to be no distinction whatever in this respect, that they all belong absolutely to the same place or internal seat of consciousness, that this want of distinction is an evident fact with respect to the successive impressions which are made on the same parts of the body, and consequently on the same parts of the thinking substance, and that it may be deduced generally from the nature of thought itself, and the associations which arise from similarity, &c. that this principle must be entirely nugatory with respect to the associations of the ideas of different senses, even though it should hold true with respect to those of any one sense,[92] lastly that all ideas impressed at the same time acquire a power of exciting one another ever after without any regard to the coincidence of their imaginary seats in the brain (according to the material hypothesis) and that therefore the true account of the principle of association must be derived from the first cause, viz. the coincidence of time, and not from the latter which bears no manner of proportion to the effects produced.

The account indeed which Hartley has in one place given of successive association as distinct from synchronous seems to have no necessary connection with this last-mentioned principle. He says, page 69, ‘If A and B be vibrations impressed successively, then will the latter part of A, viz. that part which remains after the impression of the object ceases, be modified and altered by B, at the same time that it will a little modify and alter it, till at last it be quite overpowered by it, and end in it. It follows therefore that the successive impression of A and B sufficiently repeated will so alter the medullary substance, as that when A is impressed alone, it’s latter part shall not be such as the sole impression of A requires, but lean towards B, and end in C at last. But B will not excite a in a retrograde order, since, by supposition, the latter part of B was not modified and altered by A, but by some other vibration, such as C or D.’ First of all, this account seems to imply that the associated impressions A and B are the only ones made on the mind, and that they extend over the whole medullary substance. In this case when the action of A ceases or grows very weak, we may suppose that the tendency to B will be gradually revived, and at last completely overpower that of A, because these are the only impressions existing in the mind, and it must consequently incline to one or other of them, which would be equally the case, whether they had been impressed together, or not. Otherwise we must suppose the impressions thus made successively to have a distinct local communication with each other, or there is no reason given why A should excite _b_ more than any other vibration impressed on the brain in general, or on the seat of _b_ in particular. We must besides this suppose the vibrations A and B to have a particular line of direction, as well as primary sphere of action in the brain to account for B’s not exciting _a_ in the reverse order, &c. The question is how the impression of different objects at the same time, or in quick succession gives the idea of one of those objects a power to excite the idea of the other, though the object is absent; and it is no answer to this question to say, that A being often repeated in connection with B, when it is afterwards excited, ‘leans towards B, and ends in it.’ Hartley says by way of breaking the difficulty, that the latter part of A is altered and modified by B. This is evident enough while B really acts upon the senses: but why should it be modified by it in the absence of B? This modification of the latter part of A by B is not the intermediate cause of the excitement of _b_, for _b_, the representative of B, must be excited, at least imperfectly, before it can modify A (B itself being nothing) and the point is how A, or _a_ excites the movement connected with B and that only, not how, supposing this connection between them to be established, the one gradually passes into the other, and ends in it. I think Hartley constantly mistakes tracing the order of palpable effects, or overt acts of the mind for explaining the causes of the connection between them, which he hardly ever does with a true metaphysical feeling. Even where he is greatest, he is always the physiologist rather than the metaphysician.[93]

Perhaps a better way to set about discovering the clue to the principle of association, setting aside all ideas of extension, contiguity, &c. would be by considering the manner in which the same conscious principle may be supposed to adapt itself to, to combine, and as it were reconcile together the actions of different objects impressed on it at once, and to all of which it is forced to attend at the same time; by which means these several impressions thus compelled into agreement, and a kind of mutual understanding one with another afterwards retain a particular tendency or disposition to unite together, that is to say, the mind when thrown back into the same state by the recurrence of any one of these ideas is of course put into the way of admitting or passing more readily to any other of the same set of ideas than to any other ideas of a different set not so blended and harmonized with it. It seems as if the mind was laid open to all the impressions which had been made upon it at any given time, the moment any one of them recalls a state of feeling habitually in unison with the rest. By touching a certain spring, all obstacles are removed, the doors fly open, and the whole gallery is seen at a single glance.—The mind has a capacity to perform any complex action the easier for having performed the same action before. It will consequently have a disposition to perform that action rather than any other, the other circumstances being the same. I imagine that association is to be accounted for on the very same principle as a man’s being able to comprehend or _take in_ a mathematical demonstration the better for going over it a number of times, or to recognise any well-known object, as the figure of a man for instance in the middle of a common, sooner than a stump of a tree, or piece of a rock of twice the size, and of just as remarkable a shape.—In like manner, or at least consistently with this, we may suppose, if one impression is very like another, though not _associated_ with it, that the mind will in that case slide more naturally, will feel less repugnance in passing from the recollection of the one to that of the other, that is from it’s actual state into a state very little different from it than into one of a totally different kind. When any particular idea becomes predominant, the turn which is thus given to the mind must be favourable to the reception or recollection of any other idea, which requires but little alteration in the state of the mind to admit it. A slight turn of the screws on which the tension of the mind depends will set it right to the point required. When the actual state of the mind agrees, or falls in with some previous tendency, the effort which the latent idea makes to pass into a state of excitement must be more powerful than it would be without this co-operation, and where the other circumstances are indifferent must always be effectual. Thus the actual feeling of warmth must have a tendency to call up any old ideas of the same kind: _e.g._ to-day being a very warm day put me in mind of a walk I took in a hot day last summer. Here however another difficulty occurs: for the very opposition of our feelings as of heat and cold frequently produces a transition in the mind from the one to the other. This may be accounted for in a loose way by supposing, that the struggle between very opposite feelings producing a violent and perturbed state of mind excites attention, and makes the mind more sensible to the shock of the contrary impression to that by which it is preoccupied, as we find that the body is more liable to be affected by any opposite extremes, as of heat and cold, immediately succeeding, and counteracting each other. Be this as it may, all things naturally put us in mind of their contraries, cold of heat, day of night, &c. These three, viz. association, similarity, and contrast I believe include all the general sources of connection between our ideas, for as to that of cause and effect, it seems to be referable (as remarked by Priestley) or at least chiefly so to the first class, that of common association.—I hope no one will think me weak enough to imagine that what I have here stated is even a remote and faint approach to a satisfactory account of the matter. Every attempt of this sort must be light and ineffectual without first ascertaining (if that were possible) the manner in which our ideas are produced, and the nature of consciousness, both of which I am utterly unable to comprehend. I have endeavoured simply to point out what it is that is to be accounted for, the general feeling with which a reflecting man should set out in search of the truth, and the impossibility of ever arriving at it, if at the outset we completely cover over our own feelings with maps of the brain, dry skulls, musical chords, pendulums, and compasses, or think of looking into the bottom of our own minds by means of any other instrument than a sharpened intellect.

What I at first proposed was to shew, that association, however we may suppose it to be carried on, is not the only source of connection between our ideas, or mode of operation of the human mind. This has been assumed indirectly, and I think proved with respect to similarity, &c. Here however a shrewd turn has been given to the argument by the Hartleians, who, admitting similarity among the causes of connection between our ideas, deny that it is any objection to their doctrine, for that this very example is easily resolved into a case of mere association. Similarity they say is nothing but partial sameness, and that where part of a thing has been first associated with certain circumstances, and is afterwards conjoined with others, making in fact two different objects, it’s recurrence in the second instance will necessarily recall the circumstances with which it was associated in the first.[94]—In general we suppose that if we meet a person in the street with a face resembling some other face with which we are well acquainted, the reason why the one puts us in mind of the other is _that the one is like the other_; and we should be little disposed to believe any one who told us seriously that in reality we had before seen the one man’s nose upon the other’s face, and that this old impression or very identical object brought along with it the other ideas with which it had been formerly associated. This account would be sufficiently contrary to common sense and feeling, and I hope to shew that it has as little connection with any true subtlety of thinking. No metaphysician will I am sure be disposed to controvert this, who takes the trouble accurately to compare the meaning of the explanation with the terms and necessary import of the law of association. For let an impression which I received yesterday be in every possible respect the same with the one which I received to-day, still the one impression is not the other; they are two distinct impressions existing at different times, and by the supposition associated with very different circumstances. The one from having been co-existent with certain circumstances has a power by the law of association of exciting the recollection of those circumstances whenever it is itself recollected: the other has the same power over that particular combination of circumstances with which it was associated, merely because they were so impressed together on the mind at the same moment of time. To say therefore that a particular property of an object has a power of exciting the ideas of several other properties of another object, of which it never made a part, on the principle of association, is a contradiction in terms. It’s being essentially or comparatively the same with another property which did actually make part of such an object no more proves the consequences which fairly result from the principle of association than it would follow from my looking at the same object at which another has been looking, that I must forthwith be impressed with all the ideas, feelings and imaginations which have been passing in his mind at the time. This last observation has been objected to on the ground that there is no connection whatever between one man’s ideas, and another’s. No doubt: but then it follows as clearly (and that is all I meant to shew) that the abstract identity of the objects or impressions does not of itself produce this connection, so that the perception of the one must needs bring along with it the associated ideas belonging to the other. The objects or ideas are the same in both cases, if that were all: but this is not sufficient to prove that they must have the same accompaniments, or associations, because in the one case they are impressed on different minds, and in the other on the same mind at different times, which is expressly contrary to the principle of association, unless we assume by the help of a verbal sophism that the same generical idea is the same associated idea, and this again would lead to the absurd consequence above stated. It is not here necessary to give a regular definition or account of what in general constitutes sameness, or to inquire whether strictly speaking such a relation can ever be said to subsist between any two assignable objects. Such an inquiry would be quite foreign to the purpose, and I wish to avoid as much as possible all useless common-place subtleties, all such as whichever way they are determined can make no alteration in the state of the argument. It is plain in the present instance for example that when it is stated that a particular idea having been once associated with given circumstances, the _same_ idea will ever afterwards excite the recollection of those circumstances, all that is meant is that the idea in the latter case must be a _production_, continuation, or properly a recollection of the former one, so as to retain the impression of the accidental modifications by which that idea was originally affected. It must be so far the same as to bear the same relation to the surrounding ideas, as to depend for what it is on what it has been, and connect the present with the past. It must be the old idea lurking in the mind with all it’s old associations hanging about it, and not an entirely new impression with entirely new associations. This idea must therefore be originally derived from an individual impression in contradistinction to half a dozen different ones possessing the same absolute properties: for the whole point turns upon this, that such and such ideas have not naturally any sort of connection with certain other ideas, but that any one of these ideas having been actually associated with any of the others, this accidental relation begets a peculiar and artificial connection between them which is continued along with the remembrance of the ideas themselves.

Mr. Mac-Intosh, I remember, explained this principle in his lectures in the following manner. If, says he, any gentleman who has heard me in this place to-day should by chance pass by this way to-morrow, the sight of Lincoln’s-Inn Hall will upon the principle we are now examining bring along with it the recollection of some of the persons he has met with the day before, perhaps of some of the reasonings which I have the honour to deliver to this audience, or in short any of those concomitant circumstances with which the sight of Lincoln’s-Inn Hall has been previously associated in his mind. This is a correct verbal statement, but it is liable to be misunderstood. Mr. Mac-Intosh is no doubt a man of a very clear understanding, of an imposing elocution, a very able disputant, and a very metaphysical lawyer, but by no means a profound metaphysician, not quite a Berkeley in subtlety of distinction. I will try as well as I am able to help him out in his explanation. It is clear that the visible image of Lincoln’s-Inn Hall which any one has presented to his senses at any given moment of time cannot have been _previously_ associated with other images and perceptions. Neither is a renewed sensible impression of a particular object the same with or in any manner related to a former recollected impression of the same object except from the resemblance of the one to the other. There can be no doubt then of the connection between my idea or recollection of Lincoln’s-Inn Hall yesterday, and the associated ideas of the persons whom I saw there, or the things which I heard, the question is how do I get this idea of yesterday’s impression from seeing Lincoln’s-Inn Hall to-day. The difficulty I say is not in connecting the links in the chain of previously associated ideas, but in arriving at the first link,—in passing from a present sensation to the recollection of a past object. Now this can never be by an act of association, because it is self-evident that the present can never have been previously associated with the past. Every beginning of a series of associations, that is every departure from the continued beaten track of old impressions or ideas remembered in regular succession therefore implies and must be accounted for from some act of the mind which does not depend on association.