35The reason assigned by the author for considering association by resemblance as a case of association by contiguity, is perhaps the least successful attempt at a generalisation and simplification of the laws of mental phenomena, to be found in the work. It ought to be remembered that the author, as the text shows, attached little importance to it. And perhaps, not thinking it important, he passed it over with a less amount of patient thought than he usually bestowed on his analyses.Objects, he thinks, remind us of other objects resembling them, because we are accustomed to see like things together. But we are also accustomed to see like things separate. When two combinations incompatible with one another are both realised in familiar experience, it requires a very great preponderance of experience on one side to determine the association specially to either. We are also much accustomed to see unlike things together; I do not mean things contrasted, but simply unlike. Unlikeness, therefore, not amounting to contrast, ought to be as much a cause of association as likeness. Besides, the fact that when we see (for instance) a sheep, we usually see more sheep than one, may cause us, when we think of a sheep, to think of an entire flock; but it does not explain why, when we see a sheep with a black mark on its forehead, we are reminded of a sheep with a similar mark, formerly seen, though we never saw two such sheep together. It does not explain why a portrait makes us think of the original, or why a stranger whom we see for the first time reminds us of a person of similar appearance whom we saw many years ago. The law by which an object reminds us of similar objects which we have been used to see along with it, must be a different law from that by which it reminds us of similar objects which we have not been used to see along with it. But it is the same law by which it reminds us of dissimilar objects which we have been used to see along with it. The sight of a sheep, if it reminds us of a flock of sheep, probably by the same law of contiguity, reminds us of a meadow; but it must be by some other law that it reminds us of a single sheep previously seen, and of the occasion on which we saw that single sheep.The attempt to resolve association by resemblance into association by contiguity must perforce be unsuccessful, inasmuch as there never could have been association by contiguity without a previous association by resemblance. Why does a sensation received this instant remind me of sensations which I formerly had (as we commonly say), along with it? I never had them along with this very sensation. I never had this sensation until now, and can never have it again. I had the former sensations in conjunction not with it, but with a sensation exactly like it. And my present sensation could not remind me of those former sensations unlike itself, unless by first reminding me of the sensation like itself, which really did coexist with them. There is thus a law of association anterior to, and presupposed by, the law of contiguity: namely, that a sensation tends to recall what is called the idea of itself, that is, the remembrance of a sensation like itself, if such has previously been experienced. This is implied in what we callrecognisinga sensation, as one which has been felt before; more correctly, as undistinguishably resembling one which has been felt before. The law in question was scientifically enunciated, and included, I believe for the first time, in the list of Laws of Association, by Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Dissertations appended to his edition of Reid: but the fact itself is recognised by the author of the Analysis, in various passages of his work; more especially in the second section of the fourteenthchapter. There is, therefore, a suggestion by resemblance—a calling up of the idea of a past sensation by a present sensation like it—which not only does not depend on association by contiguity, but is itself the foundation which association by contiguity requires for its support.When it is admitted that simple sensations remind us of one another by direct resemblance, many of the complex cases of suggestion by resemblance may be analysed into this elementary case of association by resemblance, combined with an association by contiguity. A flower, for instance, may remind us of a former flower resembling it, because the present flower exhibits to us certain qualities, that is, excites in us certain sensations, resembling and recalling to our remembrance those we had from the former flower, and these recall the entire image of the flower by the law of association by contiguity. But this explanation, though it serves for many cases of complex phenomena suggesting one another by resemblance, does not suffice for all. For, the resemblance of complex facts often consists, not solely, or principally, in likeness between the simple sensations, but far more in likeness of the manner of their combination, and it is often by this, rather than by the single features, that they recall one another. After we had seen, and well observed, a single triangle, when we afterwards saw a second there can be little doubt that it would at once remind us of the first by mere resemblance. But the suggestion would not depend on the sides or on the angles, any or all of them; for we might have seen such sides and such angles uncombined, or combined into some other figure. The resemblance by which one triangle recalls the idea of another is not resemblance in the parts, but principally and emphatically in the manner in which the parts are put together. I am unable to see any mode in which this case of suggestion can be accounted for by contiguity; any mode, at least, which would fit all cases of the kind.—Ed.
35The reason assigned by the author for considering association by resemblance as a case of association by contiguity, is perhaps the least successful attempt at a generalisation and simplification of the laws of mental phenomena, to be found in the work. It ought to be remembered that the author, as the text shows, attached little importance to it. And perhaps, not thinking it important, he passed it over with a less amount of patient thought than he usually bestowed on his analyses.Objects, he thinks, remind us of other objects resembling them, because we are accustomed to see like things together. But we are also accustomed to see like things separate. When two combinations incompatible with one another are both realised in familiar experience, it requires a very great preponderance of experience on one side to determine the association specially to either. We are also much accustomed to see unlike things together; I do not mean things contrasted, but simply unlike. Unlikeness, therefore, not amounting to contrast, ought to be as much a cause of association as likeness. Besides, the fact that when we see (for instance) a sheep, we usually see more sheep than one, may cause us, when we think of a sheep, to think of an entire flock; but it does not explain why, when we see a sheep with a black mark on its forehead, we are reminded of a sheep with a similar mark, formerly seen, though we never saw two such sheep together. It does not explain why a portrait makes us think of the original, or why a stranger whom we see for the first time reminds us of a person of similar appearance whom we saw many years ago. The law by which an object reminds us of similar objects which we have been used to see along with it, must be a different law from that by which it reminds us of similar objects which we have not been used to see along with it. But it is the same law by which it reminds us of dissimilar objects which we have been used to see along with it. The sight of a sheep, if it reminds us of a flock of sheep, probably by the same law of contiguity, reminds us of a meadow; but it must be by some other law that it reminds us of a single sheep previously seen, and of the occasion on which we saw that single sheep.The attempt to resolve association by resemblance into association by contiguity must perforce be unsuccessful, inasmuch as there never could have been association by contiguity without a previous association by resemblance. Why does a sensation received this instant remind me of sensations which I formerly had (as we commonly say), along with it? I never had them along with this very sensation. I never had this sensation until now, and can never have it again. I had the former sensations in conjunction not with it, but with a sensation exactly like it. And my present sensation could not remind me of those former sensations unlike itself, unless by first reminding me of the sensation like itself, which really did coexist with them. There is thus a law of association anterior to, and presupposed by, the law of contiguity: namely, that a sensation tends to recall what is called the idea of itself, that is, the remembrance of a sensation like itself, if such has previously been experienced. This is implied in what we callrecognisinga sensation, as one which has been felt before; more correctly, as undistinguishably resembling one which has been felt before. The law in question was scientifically enunciated, and included, I believe for the first time, in the list of Laws of Association, by Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Dissertations appended to his edition of Reid: but the fact itself is recognised by the author of the Analysis, in various passages of his work; more especially in the second section of the fourteenthchapter. There is, therefore, a suggestion by resemblance—a calling up of the idea of a past sensation by a present sensation like it—which not only does not depend on association by contiguity, but is itself the foundation which association by contiguity requires for its support.When it is admitted that simple sensations remind us of one another by direct resemblance, many of the complex cases of suggestion by resemblance may be analysed into this elementary case of association by resemblance, combined with an association by contiguity. A flower, for instance, may remind us of a former flower resembling it, because the present flower exhibits to us certain qualities, that is, excites in us certain sensations, resembling and recalling to our remembrance those we had from the former flower, and these recall the entire image of the flower by the law of association by contiguity. But this explanation, though it serves for many cases of complex phenomena suggesting one another by resemblance, does not suffice for all. For, the resemblance of complex facts often consists, not solely, or principally, in likeness between the simple sensations, but far more in likeness of the manner of their combination, and it is often by this, rather than by the single features, that they recall one another. After we had seen, and well observed, a single triangle, when we afterwards saw a second there can be little doubt that it would at once remind us of the first by mere resemblance. But the suggestion would not depend on the sides or on the angles, any or all of them; for we might have seen such sides and such angles uncombined, or combined into some other figure. The resemblance by which one triangle recalls the idea of another is not resemblance in the parts, but principally and emphatically in the manner in which the parts are put together. I am unable to see any mode in which this case of suggestion can be accounted for by contiguity; any mode, at least, which would fit all cases of the kind.—Ed.
35The reason assigned by the author for considering association by resemblance as a case of association by contiguity, is perhaps the least successful attempt at a generalisation and simplification of the laws of mental phenomena, to be found in the work. It ought to be remembered that the author, as the text shows, attached little importance to it. And perhaps, not thinking it important, he passed it over with a less amount of patient thought than he usually bestowed on his analyses.
Objects, he thinks, remind us of other objects resembling them, because we are accustomed to see like things together. But we are also accustomed to see like things separate. When two combinations incompatible with one another are both realised in familiar experience, it requires a very great preponderance of experience on one side to determine the association specially to either. We are also much accustomed to see unlike things together; I do not mean things contrasted, but simply unlike. Unlikeness, therefore, not amounting to contrast, ought to be as much a cause of association as likeness. Besides, the fact that when we see (for instance) a sheep, we usually see more sheep than one, may cause us, when we think of a sheep, to think of an entire flock; but it does not explain why, when we see a sheep with a black mark on its forehead, we are reminded of a sheep with a similar mark, formerly seen, though we never saw two such sheep together. It does not explain why a portrait makes us think of the original, or why a stranger whom we see for the first time reminds us of a person of similar appearance whom we saw many years ago. The law by which an object reminds us of similar objects which we have been used to see along with it, must be a different law from that by which it reminds us of similar objects which we have not been used to see along with it. But it is the same law by which it reminds us of dissimilar objects which we have been used to see along with it. The sight of a sheep, if it reminds us of a flock of sheep, probably by the same law of contiguity, reminds us of a meadow; but it must be by some other law that it reminds us of a single sheep previously seen, and of the occasion on which we saw that single sheep.
The attempt to resolve association by resemblance into association by contiguity must perforce be unsuccessful, inasmuch as there never could have been association by contiguity without a previous association by resemblance. Why does a sensation received this instant remind me of sensations which I formerly had (as we commonly say), along with it? I never had them along with this very sensation. I never had this sensation until now, and can never have it again. I had the former sensations in conjunction not with it, but with a sensation exactly like it. And my present sensation could not remind me of those former sensations unlike itself, unless by first reminding me of the sensation like itself, which really did coexist with them. There is thus a law of association anterior to, and presupposed by, the law of contiguity: namely, that a sensation tends to recall what is called the idea of itself, that is, the remembrance of a sensation like itself, if such has previously been experienced. This is implied in what we callrecognisinga sensation, as one which has been felt before; more correctly, as undistinguishably resembling one which has been felt before. The law in question was scientifically enunciated, and included, I believe for the first time, in the list of Laws of Association, by Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Dissertations appended to his edition of Reid: but the fact itself is recognised by the author of the Analysis, in various passages of his work; more especially in the second section of the fourteenthchapter. There is, therefore, a suggestion by resemblance—a calling up of the idea of a past sensation by a present sensation like it—which not only does not depend on association by contiguity, but is itself the foundation which association by contiguity requires for its support.
When it is admitted that simple sensations remind us of one another by direct resemblance, many of the complex cases of suggestion by resemblance may be analysed into this elementary case of association by resemblance, combined with an association by contiguity. A flower, for instance, may remind us of a former flower resembling it, because the present flower exhibits to us certain qualities, that is, excites in us certain sensations, resembling and recalling to our remembrance those we had from the former flower, and these recall the entire image of the flower by the law of association by contiguity. But this explanation, though it serves for many cases of complex phenomena suggesting one another by resemblance, does not suffice for all. For, the resemblance of complex facts often consists, not solely, or principally, in likeness between the simple sensations, but far more in likeness of the manner of their combination, and it is often by this, rather than by the single features, that they recall one another. After we had seen, and well observed, a single triangle, when we afterwards saw a second there can be little doubt that it would at once remind us of the first by mere resemblance. But the suggestion would not depend on the sides or on the angles, any or all of them; for we might have seen such sides and such angles uncombined, or combined into some other figure. The resemblance by which one triangle recalls the idea of another is not resemblance in the parts, but principally and emphatically in the manner in which the parts are put together. I am unable to see any mode in which this case of suggestion can be accounted for by contiguity; any mode, at least, which would fit all cases of the kind.—Ed.
112Mr. Hume makes contrast a principle of association, but not a separate one, as he thinks it is compounded113of Resemblance and Causation. It is not necessary for us to show that this is an unsatisfactory account114of contrast. It is only necessary to observe, that, as a case of association, it is not distinct from those which we have above explained.
A dwarf suggests the idea of a giant. How? We call a dwarf a dwarf, because he departs from a certain standard. We call a giant a giant, because he departs from the same standard. This is a case, therefore, of resemblance, that is, of frequency.
Pain is said to make us think of pleasure; and this is considered a case of association by contrast. There is no doubt that pain makes us think of relief from it; because they have been conjoined, and the great vividness of the sensations makes the association strong. Relief from pain is a species of pleasure; and one pleasure leads to think of another, from the resemblance. This is a compound case, therefore, of vividness and frequency. All other cases of contrast, I believe, may be expounded in a similar manner.
I have not thought it necessary to be tedious in expounding the observations which I have thus stated; for whether the reader supposes that resemblance is, or is not, an original principle of association, will not affect our future investigations.
12. Not only do simple ideas, by strong association, run together, and form complex ideas: but a115complex idea, when the simple ideas which compose it have become so consolidated that it always appears as one, is capable of entering into combinations with other ideas, both simple and complex. Thus two complex ideas may be united together, by a strong association, and coalesce into one, in the same manner as two or more simple ideas coalesce into one. This union of two complex ideas into one, Dr. Hartley has called a duplex idea.37Two also of these duplex, or doubly compounded ideas, may unite into one; and these again into other compounds, without end. It is hardly necessary to mention, that as two complex ideas unite to form a duplex one, not only two, but more than two may so unite; and what he calls a duplex idea may be compounded of two, three, four, or any number of complex ideas.
37I have been unable to trace in Hartley the expression here ascribed to him. In every passage that I can discover, the name he gives to a combination of two or more complex ideas is that of adecomplexidea.—Ed.
37I have been unable to trace in Hartley the expression here ascribed to him. In every passage that I can discover, the name he gives to a combination of two or more complex ideas is that of adecomplexidea.—Ed.
37I have been unable to trace in Hartley the expression here ascribed to him. In every passage that I can discover, the name he gives to a combination of two or more complex ideas is that of adecomplexidea.—Ed.
Some of the most familiar objects with which we are acquainted furnish instances of these unions of complex and duplex ideas.
Brick is one complex idea, mortar is another complex idea; these ideas, with ideas of position and quantity, compose my idea of a wall. My idea of a plank is a complex idea, my idea of a rafter is a complex idea, my idea of a nail is a complex idea. These, united with the same ideas of position and quantity, compose my duplex idea of a floor. In the same manner my complex idea of glass, and wood, and others, compose my duplex idea of a window; and116these duplex ideas, united together, compose my idea of a house, which is made up of various duplex ideas. How many complex, or duplex ideas, are all united in the idea of furniture? How many more in the idea of merchandize? How many more in the idea called Every Thing?3839
38This chapter raises questions of the most fundamental kind relating to our intellectual constitution. The Association of Ideas, comprehensively viewed, involves everything connected with the mental persistence and reproduction of ideas; being offered as adequate to explain the operations named Memory, Reason, and Imagination.Conditions of the Growth of Association, or of the Retentiveness of the Mind.—A practical, as well as a theoretical, interest attaches to the precise statement of the conditions or circumstances that regulate the growth of our associations, in other words our mental culture generally. All agree in the efficacy of the two conditions mentioned in the text; the vividness of the feelings associated, and the frequency of the association, that is repetition or practice. It is well remarked, however, that the phrase “vividness of the sensations or ideas” does not convey a very precise meaning. The proper attribute of a sensation, or an idea, considered as anintellectualelement, is greater or less distinctness; when an object seen or remembered is seen or remembered distinctly and fully, and without any unusual labour or effort, there is nothing more to be desired, so far as concerns our intelligence. If, however, the object is accompanied withfeeling—with pleasure or pain—a new element is introduced, to which other epithets are applicable. A feeling is more or less strong or intense; and the addition of an intense feeling to an intellectual conception is a sum, combining both sets of attributes—distinctness and adequacy in the conception, and intensity in the feeling. An object whose perception or conception is thus accompanied with the animation of strong feeling, is called lively, or vivid;117in the absence of feeling, these epithets are unsuitable. Hence, the associating stimulus expressed by “vividness” is better expressed by the “strength of the feelings.” Any strong feeling impresses on the mind whatever is the object of it, or is in any way mixed up with it. We remember by preference the things that have given us either pleasure or pain; and the effect may be produced by mere excitement although neither pleasurable nor painful; the influence of a surprise being a case in point. Ourinterestin a thing is but another name for the pleasure that it gives us; and to inspire interest is to aid the memory. Hamilton’s Law of Preference refers to this source; and appears to exclude, or not to recognise, the efficacy of feelings not pleasurable, namely, such as are either painful or neutral. The comprehensive law should include all the feelings, although there are specific characters attaching to the influence of each of the three modes. Pleasure is the most effectual in stamping the memory, as it is the most powerful in detaining the attention and the thoughts. Pain has a conflicting operation; as affecting the will, it repels the object; but as mere excitement it retains it; we cannot forget what is disagreeable, merely because we wish to forget it. The stimulant of pain, as applied in education, is an indirect pleasure. It is not intended to make the subject of the lesson disagreeable, but to render painful all diversions from that towards other subjects; so that comparatively the most pleasing course to a pupil may be to abide by the task prescribed.The influence of the Feelings upon Retentiveness is not throughout in proportion to their degree, whether they are pleasurable, painful, or neutral. We have to introduce a modifying circumstance into the case, namely, that great strength of feeling absorbs the forces of the system, and diminishes the power available for cementing an intellectual association. A strong feeling once aroused, while inflaming the attention upon whatever is bound up with it, necessarily engages us with itself. The plastic process of fixing a train or aggregate of ideas has but a share of the energies awakened under feeling.It is possible also to stimulate attention, and thereby to118quicken memory, without the excitement of the feelings, as in pure voluntary attention. For although the will, in the last resort, is stimulated by an end (which must involve the feelings), yet we may be strongly moved without being under the excitement of the feelings that enter into the final end. Our volitions may be energetic, without the presence of strong emotions, notwithstanding that, apart from our possessing such emotions, we should not be strongly moved to action. Thus, a difference is made between the influence of the feelings and the influence of the will; both being powers to impress the memory.The two considerations now advanced, namely, the want of strict concomitance between strength of feeling and the stimulus to memory, and the operation of the will in the abeyance of present feeling, make it desirable to find some other mode of stating the element or condition that qualifies the influence of Frequency or Repetition, in the growth of memory and association. Perhaps the best mode of singling out the operative circumstance is to describe it as “Concentration of Mind;” the devotion of the mental forces to the thing to be done or remembered—the withdrawal of power from other exercises, to expend it on the exercise in hand. Every circumstance that at once rouses the mental and nervous energies, and keeps them fixed upon any subject of study or the practice of any art, is a circumstance in aid of acquisition. No fact more comprehensive, more exactly in point, can be assigned than the one now stated. What remains is to apply it in the detail, or to point out the occasions and conditions that favour, and those that obstruct, the concentration of the mental energy. It is under this view that we can best appreciate the efficacy of pleasure (interest in the subject), of pain, of mere excitement, and of voluntary attention. We can also see, as an obvious corollary, the advantage of having the mind unoccupied, or disengaged for the work, and the disadvantage of being diverted, or distracted by other objects. Fear, care, anxiety, are hostile to culture by lowering the tone or energy of the mind; while what power is left concentrates itself upon the subject matter of the anxious feeling. On the other hand, general vigour of the119system, good health, easy circumstances, are all in favour of mental improvement, provided the force thus made available can be reserved and devoted to that end.Thus the two leading conditions of the plastic process are Frequency of Repetition, and Mental Concentration. For practical purposes, these are all that we need to consider, at least as regards the same individual. We have no art or device for training either body or mind but what is comprised under one or other of these heads. There are methods of superseding the labour of new acquirement, by adapting existing acquirements to new cases; but no means can be assigned for the original construction of adhesive links, apart from these two circumstances.Still, in a large and exhaustive view of the Retentive power of the mind, we should not omit to allow for the differences between one mind and another in respect of Natural Aptitude for acquiring. When two persons engaged in the same lesson, for equal periods of time, and with about equal concentration of mind, make very unequal progress, we must admit a difference in natural or constitutional plasticity on that particular subject. Sometimes we find extraordinary progress made in acquisition generally; the same person excelling in languages, in sciences, in practical arts, and in fine arts. More commonly, however, we find an aptitude for some subject in particular, combined with deficiency in other things. One person has great mechanical acquirements, another lingual, and so on.The first case is sufficiently common to justify the assumption of degrees of acquisitive or plastic aptitude on the whole, or a variety in the cerebral endowment corresponding to the adhesion of trains of actions and ideas that have been more or less frequently brought together. If the differences among human beings are not so broad as to make this apparent, we may refer to the differences between the lower animals and man. The animals have the power of acquiring, but so limited is that power in comparison with human beings, that people have often doubted its existence.120The second case, the inequality of the same person’s progress in different subjects, may be looked at in another way. We may view it as incident to the better or worse quality, for all purposes, of the special organs concerned. Thus to take musical acquisition. This is commonly attributed to a good ear, meaning a delicate sense of musical notes, as shown in their nice discrimination. Discriminating is a different function from remembering; yet, we can only doubt that the fact of being able to discriminate acutely is accompanied by the power of remembering or retaining the impressions of the sense. The superiority of endowment that shows itself in the one function, embraces also the other. Hence we are entitled to say that the special retentiveness for any one subject, or department of training, varies with the local endowment involved: which is not to maintain an identical proposition, for the local endowment may be held as tested by delicacy of discrimination, a distinct fact from memory. Thus, a delicate sense of shades of colour would entail a good visual memory for spectacle; a delicate ear for articulation would indicate a memory for shades and varieties of pronunciation, thereby counting as a part of the verbal memory. So, delicate discrimination in the tactile muscles would be followed by rapid acquirements in manipulative or manual art.The Ultimate Analysis of the Laws of Association.—It is easy to reduce all the laws ever assigned, as governing the reproduction of our ideas, to three, Contiguity, Similarity, and Contrast. It is open to question whether these can be resolved any farther. The author has endeavoured to reduce Similarity to Contiguity, but his reasons show that he had not deeply considered the workings of similarity. Hamilton’s criticisms on the attempt (Reid, p. 914) are just and irrefragable. By far the most important examples of the working of similarity are such as, by their very nature, preclude a former contiguity: as, for example, Franklin’s identification of Electricity and lightning.There is, nevertheless, a considerable degree of subtlety in the relationship of the two principles. There may be good reasons121for treating them as distinct, but in their working they are inextricably combined. There can be no contiguity without similarity, and no similarity without contiguity. When, looking at a river, we pronounce its name, we are properly said to exemplify contiguity; the river and the name by frequent association are so united that each recalls the other. But mark the steps of the recall. What is strictly present to our view is the impression made by the river while we gaze on it. It is necessary that this impression should, by virtue of similarity or identity, re-instate the previous impression of the river, to which the previous impression of the name was contiguous. If one could suppose failure in the re-instatement of the former idea of the river, under the new presentation, there would be no opportunity given to the contiguous bond to come into operation. In that accumulation of the impressions of contiguous ideas, ending at last in a firm association, there must be a process of similarity to the extent of reviving the sum of the past at the instance of the present. This is a case of similarity that we give little heed to, because it is sure and unfailing; we concern ourselves more with what is liable to uncertainty, the acquired strength of the contiguous adhesion. Yet it strictly comes under the case of reproduction through similarity.Consider again, what may be called a case of Similarity proper, as when a portrait recalls the original. The sensuous effects possessed in common by the portrait and by its subject bring about a restoration of the idea of the subject, in spite of certain differences or discrepancies. The interest of this case is owing to the fact that a partial likeness, a likeness in unlikeness, will often reproduce a past idea; thus enabling us to assemble in the mind a number of things differing in some respects because they agree in other respects. This is not identifying a thing with itself, viewed at a former time, but assimilating one thing with other things placed far asunder in nature, and having many features of difference.Let us try and express the consecutive steps of this case of reproduction. The thing now present to the mind has certain122peculiarities in common with one or more things formerly present; as when, in a portrait, the outline and colouring resembles a subject original. These sensible effects make alive the previous recurrence of them, or put us in the cerebral and mental attitude formerly experienced by the corresponding effects of the resembling object. We are aware, by the liveliness of our impression, that we have gone in upon an old track; we have the peculiar consciousness called the consciousness of Identity or Agreement. This is one step, but not the whole. In order that the complete restoration may be effected, the features of community must be in such firm contiguous alliance with the features of difference—thespecialpart of the previous subject that the one shall reinstate the idea of the other. The points common to a present portrait and a past original must be so strongly coherent with the remaining features of the original, that the one cannot be awakened without the other following. Here, then, in the very heart of Similarity, is an indispensable bond of Contiguity; showing that it is not possible for either process to be accomplished in separation from the other. The mutual coherence of parts, now described as essential to reproduction, may be too weak for the purpose, and the recovering stroke of similarity will in that case fail.It might, therefore, be supposed that Similarity is, after all, but a mode of Contiguity, namely, the contiguity or association of the different features or parts of a complex whole. The inference is too hasty. Because contiguity is a part of the fact of the restoration of similars, it is not the entire fact. There is a distinct and characteristic step preceding the play of this mutual coherence of the parts of the thing to be recovered. The striking into the former track of the agreeing part of the new and the old, is a mental movement by itself, which the other follows, but does not do away with. The effect above described, as the consciousness of agreement or identity, the flash of a felt similarity, is real and distinct. We are conscious of it by itself; there are occasions when we have it without the other, that is to say, without the full re-instatement of the former123object in its entireness. We often aware of an identity without being able to say what is the thing identified; as when a portrait gives us the impression that we have seen the original, without enabling us to say who the original is. We have been affected by the stroke of identity or similarity; but the restoration fails from the feebleness of the contiguous adherence of the parts of the object identified. There is thus a genuine effect of the nature of pure similarity, or resemblance, and a mode of consciousness accompanying that effect; but there is not the full energy of reproduction without a concurring bond of pure contiguity. A portrait may fail to give us the consciousness of having ever seen the original. On the supposition that we have seen the original, this would be a failure of pure similarity.Thus in every act of reproducing a past mental experience, there is a complication, involving both contiguity proper and similarity proper. When the similarity amounts to identity, as when a new impression of a thing puts us in the track of the old impressions of the same thing, the effect is so sure, so obvious, so easily arrived at, that we do not need to think of it, to make a question of it. It does not prevent us from regarding the operation of recalling a name when we see the thing, or recalling a thing when we hear the name, as pure contiguity. The strength of the coherence may be deficient, and the restoration may fail on this account; it can never fail on account of insufficient similarity. No inconvenience will arise from speaking of this case as if it were Contiguity and nothing else.The situation of Similarity in Diversity is quite distinct. The diversity obstructs the operation of similarity; we cannot be sure that the new shall put us on the track of the old. It is always a question whether such similarities shall be felt at all; whether we shall experience the flash, the peculiar consciousness, of agreement in difference. It is a farther question, whether the internal coherence of the thing identified is enough to restore it in completeness. This last step may be allowed to be a case of proper contiguity; while the flash of identity struck between a present and a past, never coupled in the124mind before, is an effectsui generis, and not resolvable into any mode or incident of contiguity.The circumstances of this identifying stroke are so numerous and far-reaching as to demand a special exemplification. Some of the broadest distinctions of intellectual character can be grounded on the distinctive aptitudes of the mind for Contiguity and for Similarity.Learning, Acquisition, Memory, Habit, all designate the plastic adherence of contiguous impressions. The processes of Classification, Reasoning, Imagination, and the Inventive faculty generally, depend upon the identifying stroke of likeness in unlikeness. Some forms of intellectual strength, as a whole, are best represented by a highly energetic Adhesiveness; distinction as a learner, a follower of routine, turns upon this power. Other, and higher, forms of intelligence depend upon far-reaching strokes of similarity; the identification of likeness shrouded in diversity, expresses much of the genius of the poet, the philosopher, the man of practice.There remains the consideration of Contrast, as a link of association. It is easy to show that both Contiguity and Similarity may enter into the association of contrasts. All contrasts that we are interested in are habitually coupled in language, as light and dark, heat and cold, up and down, life and death. Again contrasts suppose a common genus, that is a generic similarity; at least until we ascend to the highest contrast of all, the subject mind, and the object or extended world. Cold and Hot are grades of the common attribute called Temperature. As these links of contiguity and similarity are present, and of considerable strength, they practically lead to the mutual suggestion of contrasting things.Still, we cannot overlook the deeper circumstance that in contrast there isrelation, and therefore mutual implication, so that the two members must always be virtually present, although they are not equally attended to. Heat has no meaning, no existence, but as a change from cold; the north implicates the south. We have two modes of regarding these relationships, which are distinguished by language, as if we125could abstract the one side from the other; that is, we think of heat apart from cold, and of the north apart from the south. But if one side is present, both must be present, and nothing is wanted but a motive, to make us reverse the conception, and bring into prominence the side that was in abeyance, cold instead of heat, south instead of north.This view of Contrast is variously expressed by Hamilton. (Reid, Note D * * *).Contrast, therefore, as an associating link, would draw from three sources, Relativity, Contiguity, and Similarity. It would also be heightened, in many instances, by the presence of strong feelings or emotions, as in the contemplation of startling changes, and the vicissitudes of things. Being one of the effects habitually introduced in Art and in Oratory, we are more than ordinarily impressed by the things so made use of—infancy beside old age, squalor following on splendour, abasement succeeding to elevation.The associating principle of Contrast cannot be put forward as a basis of distinction in intellectual character. There is no such a thing as a special aptitude for Contrasts. There may be, in certain minds given to emotion, a fondness for the impressive or emotional contrasts; but there is no intellectual gift, subsisting apart from other powers and rising and falling independently, for the mutual recall of contrasting qualities. Whenever we feel a difference we make a contrast; the two differing things, are contrasting things, and are both known in one indivisible act of thought. To be unable to bring up the contrast of a subject present to the view, is not to know the subject; we cannot possess intelligently the conception of “up,” and be oblivious to, or incapable of remembering, “down.” Forgetfulness in this department is not the snapping of a link, as in Contiguity, or the dulness that cannot reach a similitude; it is the entire blank of conception or knowledge. The north pole of a magnet cannot be in the view, and the south pole in oblivion.—B.
38This chapter raises questions of the most fundamental kind relating to our intellectual constitution. The Association of Ideas, comprehensively viewed, involves everything connected with the mental persistence and reproduction of ideas; being offered as adequate to explain the operations named Memory, Reason, and Imagination.Conditions of the Growth of Association, or of the Retentiveness of the Mind.—A practical, as well as a theoretical, interest attaches to the precise statement of the conditions or circumstances that regulate the growth of our associations, in other words our mental culture generally. All agree in the efficacy of the two conditions mentioned in the text; the vividness of the feelings associated, and the frequency of the association, that is repetition or practice. It is well remarked, however, that the phrase “vividness of the sensations or ideas” does not convey a very precise meaning. The proper attribute of a sensation, or an idea, considered as anintellectualelement, is greater or less distinctness; when an object seen or remembered is seen or remembered distinctly and fully, and without any unusual labour or effort, there is nothing more to be desired, so far as concerns our intelligence. If, however, the object is accompanied withfeeling—with pleasure or pain—a new element is introduced, to which other epithets are applicable. A feeling is more or less strong or intense; and the addition of an intense feeling to an intellectual conception is a sum, combining both sets of attributes—distinctness and adequacy in the conception, and intensity in the feeling. An object whose perception or conception is thus accompanied with the animation of strong feeling, is called lively, or vivid;117in the absence of feeling, these epithets are unsuitable. Hence, the associating stimulus expressed by “vividness” is better expressed by the “strength of the feelings.” Any strong feeling impresses on the mind whatever is the object of it, or is in any way mixed up with it. We remember by preference the things that have given us either pleasure or pain; and the effect may be produced by mere excitement although neither pleasurable nor painful; the influence of a surprise being a case in point. Ourinterestin a thing is but another name for the pleasure that it gives us; and to inspire interest is to aid the memory. Hamilton’s Law of Preference refers to this source; and appears to exclude, or not to recognise, the efficacy of feelings not pleasurable, namely, such as are either painful or neutral. The comprehensive law should include all the feelings, although there are specific characters attaching to the influence of each of the three modes. Pleasure is the most effectual in stamping the memory, as it is the most powerful in detaining the attention and the thoughts. Pain has a conflicting operation; as affecting the will, it repels the object; but as mere excitement it retains it; we cannot forget what is disagreeable, merely because we wish to forget it. The stimulant of pain, as applied in education, is an indirect pleasure. It is not intended to make the subject of the lesson disagreeable, but to render painful all diversions from that towards other subjects; so that comparatively the most pleasing course to a pupil may be to abide by the task prescribed.The influence of the Feelings upon Retentiveness is not throughout in proportion to their degree, whether they are pleasurable, painful, or neutral. We have to introduce a modifying circumstance into the case, namely, that great strength of feeling absorbs the forces of the system, and diminishes the power available for cementing an intellectual association. A strong feeling once aroused, while inflaming the attention upon whatever is bound up with it, necessarily engages us with itself. The plastic process of fixing a train or aggregate of ideas has but a share of the energies awakened under feeling.It is possible also to stimulate attention, and thereby to118quicken memory, without the excitement of the feelings, as in pure voluntary attention. For although the will, in the last resort, is stimulated by an end (which must involve the feelings), yet we may be strongly moved without being under the excitement of the feelings that enter into the final end. Our volitions may be energetic, without the presence of strong emotions, notwithstanding that, apart from our possessing such emotions, we should not be strongly moved to action. Thus, a difference is made between the influence of the feelings and the influence of the will; both being powers to impress the memory.The two considerations now advanced, namely, the want of strict concomitance between strength of feeling and the stimulus to memory, and the operation of the will in the abeyance of present feeling, make it desirable to find some other mode of stating the element or condition that qualifies the influence of Frequency or Repetition, in the growth of memory and association. Perhaps the best mode of singling out the operative circumstance is to describe it as “Concentration of Mind;” the devotion of the mental forces to the thing to be done or remembered—the withdrawal of power from other exercises, to expend it on the exercise in hand. Every circumstance that at once rouses the mental and nervous energies, and keeps them fixed upon any subject of study or the practice of any art, is a circumstance in aid of acquisition. No fact more comprehensive, more exactly in point, can be assigned than the one now stated. What remains is to apply it in the detail, or to point out the occasions and conditions that favour, and those that obstruct, the concentration of the mental energy. It is under this view that we can best appreciate the efficacy of pleasure (interest in the subject), of pain, of mere excitement, and of voluntary attention. We can also see, as an obvious corollary, the advantage of having the mind unoccupied, or disengaged for the work, and the disadvantage of being diverted, or distracted by other objects. Fear, care, anxiety, are hostile to culture by lowering the tone or energy of the mind; while what power is left concentrates itself upon the subject matter of the anxious feeling. On the other hand, general vigour of the119system, good health, easy circumstances, are all in favour of mental improvement, provided the force thus made available can be reserved and devoted to that end.Thus the two leading conditions of the plastic process are Frequency of Repetition, and Mental Concentration. For practical purposes, these are all that we need to consider, at least as regards the same individual. We have no art or device for training either body or mind but what is comprised under one or other of these heads. There are methods of superseding the labour of new acquirement, by adapting existing acquirements to new cases; but no means can be assigned for the original construction of adhesive links, apart from these two circumstances.Still, in a large and exhaustive view of the Retentive power of the mind, we should not omit to allow for the differences between one mind and another in respect of Natural Aptitude for acquiring. When two persons engaged in the same lesson, for equal periods of time, and with about equal concentration of mind, make very unequal progress, we must admit a difference in natural or constitutional plasticity on that particular subject. Sometimes we find extraordinary progress made in acquisition generally; the same person excelling in languages, in sciences, in practical arts, and in fine arts. More commonly, however, we find an aptitude for some subject in particular, combined with deficiency in other things. One person has great mechanical acquirements, another lingual, and so on.The first case is sufficiently common to justify the assumption of degrees of acquisitive or plastic aptitude on the whole, or a variety in the cerebral endowment corresponding to the adhesion of trains of actions and ideas that have been more or less frequently brought together. If the differences among human beings are not so broad as to make this apparent, we may refer to the differences between the lower animals and man. The animals have the power of acquiring, but so limited is that power in comparison with human beings, that people have often doubted its existence.120The second case, the inequality of the same person’s progress in different subjects, may be looked at in another way. We may view it as incident to the better or worse quality, for all purposes, of the special organs concerned. Thus to take musical acquisition. This is commonly attributed to a good ear, meaning a delicate sense of musical notes, as shown in their nice discrimination. Discriminating is a different function from remembering; yet, we can only doubt that the fact of being able to discriminate acutely is accompanied by the power of remembering or retaining the impressions of the sense. The superiority of endowment that shows itself in the one function, embraces also the other. Hence we are entitled to say that the special retentiveness for any one subject, or department of training, varies with the local endowment involved: which is not to maintain an identical proposition, for the local endowment may be held as tested by delicacy of discrimination, a distinct fact from memory. Thus, a delicate sense of shades of colour would entail a good visual memory for spectacle; a delicate ear for articulation would indicate a memory for shades and varieties of pronunciation, thereby counting as a part of the verbal memory. So, delicate discrimination in the tactile muscles would be followed by rapid acquirements in manipulative or manual art.The Ultimate Analysis of the Laws of Association.—It is easy to reduce all the laws ever assigned, as governing the reproduction of our ideas, to three, Contiguity, Similarity, and Contrast. It is open to question whether these can be resolved any farther. The author has endeavoured to reduce Similarity to Contiguity, but his reasons show that he had not deeply considered the workings of similarity. Hamilton’s criticisms on the attempt (Reid, p. 914) are just and irrefragable. By far the most important examples of the working of similarity are such as, by their very nature, preclude a former contiguity: as, for example, Franklin’s identification of Electricity and lightning.There is, nevertheless, a considerable degree of subtlety in the relationship of the two principles. There may be good reasons121for treating them as distinct, but in their working they are inextricably combined. There can be no contiguity without similarity, and no similarity without contiguity. When, looking at a river, we pronounce its name, we are properly said to exemplify contiguity; the river and the name by frequent association are so united that each recalls the other. But mark the steps of the recall. What is strictly present to our view is the impression made by the river while we gaze on it. It is necessary that this impression should, by virtue of similarity or identity, re-instate the previous impression of the river, to which the previous impression of the name was contiguous. If one could suppose failure in the re-instatement of the former idea of the river, under the new presentation, there would be no opportunity given to the contiguous bond to come into operation. In that accumulation of the impressions of contiguous ideas, ending at last in a firm association, there must be a process of similarity to the extent of reviving the sum of the past at the instance of the present. This is a case of similarity that we give little heed to, because it is sure and unfailing; we concern ourselves more with what is liable to uncertainty, the acquired strength of the contiguous adhesion. Yet it strictly comes under the case of reproduction through similarity.Consider again, what may be called a case of Similarity proper, as when a portrait recalls the original. The sensuous effects possessed in common by the portrait and by its subject bring about a restoration of the idea of the subject, in spite of certain differences or discrepancies. The interest of this case is owing to the fact that a partial likeness, a likeness in unlikeness, will often reproduce a past idea; thus enabling us to assemble in the mind a number of things differing in some respects because they agree in other respects. This is not identifying a thing with itself, viewed at a former time, but assimilating one thing with other things placed far asunder in nature, and having many features of difference.Let us try and express the consecutive steps of this case of reproduction. The thing now present to the mind has certain122peculiarities in common with one or more things formerly present; as when, in a portrait, the outline and colouring resembles a subject original. These sensible effects make alive the previous recurrence of them, or put us in the cerebral and mental attitude formerly experienced by the corresponding effects of the resembling object. We are aware, by the liveliness of our impression, that we have gone in upon an old track; we have the peculiar consciousness called the consciousness of Identity or Agreement. This is one step, but not the whole. In order that the complete restoration may be effected, the features of community must be in such firm contiguous alliance with the features of difference—thespecialpart of the previous subject that the one shall reinstate the idea of the other. The points common to a present portrait and a past original must be so strongly coherent with the remaining features of the original, that the one cannot be awakened without the other following. Here, then, in the very heart of Similarity, is an indispensable bond of Contiguity; showing that it is not possible for either process to be accomplished in separation from the other. The mutual coherence of parts, now described as essential to reproduction, may be too weak for the purpose, and the recovering stroke of similarity will in that case fail.It might, therefore, be supposed that Similarity is, after all, but a mode of Contiguity, namely, the contiguity or association of the different features or parts of a complex whole. The inference is too hasty. Because contiguity is a part of the fact of the restoration of similars, it is not the entire fact. There is a distinct and characteristic step preceding the play of this mutual coherence of the parts of the thing to be recovered. The striking into the former track of the agreeing part of the new and the old, is a mental movement by itself, which the other follows, but does not do away with. The effect above described, as the consciousness of agreement or identity, the flash of a felt similarity, is real and distinct. We are conscious of it by itself; there are occasions when we have it without the other, that is to say, without the full re-instatement of the former123object in its entireness. We often aware of an identity without being able to say what is the thing identified; as when a portrait gives us the impression that we have seen the original, without enabling us to say who the original is. We have been affected by the stroke of identity or similarity; but the restoration fails from the feebleness of the contiguous adherence of the parts of the object identified. There is thus a genuine effect of the nature of pure similarity, or resemblance, and a mode of consciousness accompanying that effect; but there is not the full energy of reproduction without a concurring bond of pure contiguity. A portrait may fail to give us the consciousness of having ever seen the original. On the supposition that we have seen the original, this would be a failure of pure similarity.Thus in every act of reproducing a past mental experience, there is a complication, involving both contiguity proper and similarity proper. When the similarity amounts to identity, as when a new impression of a thing puts us in the track of the old impressions of the same thing, the effect is so sure, so obvious, so easily arrived at, that we do not need to think of it, to make a question of it. It does not prevent us from regarding the operation of recalling a name when we see the thing, or recalling a thing when we hear the name, as pure contiguity. The strength of the coherence may be deficient, and the restoration may fail on this account; it can never fail on account of insufficient similarity. No inconvenience will arise from speaking of this case as if it were Contiguity and nothing else.The situation of Similarity in Diversity is quite distinct. The diversity obstructs the operation of similarity; we cannot be sure that the new shall put us on the track of the old. It is always a question whether such similarities shall be felt at all; whether we shall experience the flash, the peculiar consciousness, of agreement in difference. It is a farther question, whether the internal coherence of the thing identified is enough to restore it in completeness. This last step may be allowed to be a case of proper contiguity; while the flash of identity struck between a present and a past, never coupled in the124mind before, is an effectsui generis, and not resolvable into any mode or incident of contiguity.The circumstances of this identifying stroke are so numerous and far-reaching as to demand a special exemplification. Some of the broadest distinctions of intellectual character can be grounded on the distinctive aptitudes of the mind for Contiguity and for Similarity.Learning, Acquisition, Memory, Habit, all designate the plastic adherence of contiguous impressions. The processes of Classification, Reasoning, Imagination, and the Inventive faculty generally, depend upon the identifying stroke of likeness in unlikeness. Some forms of intellectual strength, as a whole, are best represented by a highly energetic Adhesiveness; distinction as a learner, a follower of routine, turns upon this power. Other, and higher, forms of intelligence depend upon far-reaching strokes of similarity; the identification of likeness shrouded in diversity, expresses much of the genius of the poet, the philosopher, the man of practice.There remains the consideration of Contrast, as a link of association. It is easy to show that both Contiguity and Similarity may enter into the association of contrasts. All contrasts that we are interested in are habitually coupled in language, as light and dark, heat and cold, up and down, life and death. Again contrasts suppose a common genus, that is a generic similarity; at least until we ascend to the highest contrast of all, the subject mind, and the object or extended world. Cold and Hot are grades of the common attribute called Temperature. As these links of contiguity and similarity are present, and of considerable strength, they practically lead to the mutual suggestion of contrasting things.Still, we cannot overlook the deeper circumstance that in contrast there isrelation, and therefore mutual implication, so that the two members must always be virtually present, although they are not equally attended to. Heat has no meaning, no existence, but as a change from cold; the north implicates the south. We have two modes of regarding these relationships, which are distinguished by language, as if we125could abstract the one side from the other; that is, we think of heat apart from cold, and of the north apart from the south. But if one side is present, both must be present, and nothing is wanted but a motive, to make us reverse the conception, and bring into prominence the side that was in abeyance, cold instead of heat, south instead of north.This view of Contrast is variously expressed by Hamilton. (Reid, Note D * * *).Contrast, therefore, as an associating link, would draw from three sources, Relativity, Contiguity, and Similarity. It would also be heightened, in many instances, by the presence of strong feelings or emotions, as in the contemplation of startling changes, and the vicissitudes of things. Being one of the effects habitually introduced in Art and in Oratory, we are more than ordinarily impressed by the things so made use of—infancy beside old age, squalor following on splendour, abasement succeeding to elevation.The associating principle of Contrast cannot be put forward as a basis of distinction in intellectual character. There is no such a thing as a special aptitude for Contrasts. There may be, in certain minds given to emotion, a fondness for the impressive or emotional contrasts; but there is no intellectual gift, subsisting apart from other powers and rising and falling independently, for the mutual recall of contrasting qualities. Whenever we feel a difference we make a contrast; the two differing things, are contrasting things, and are both known in one indivisible act of thought. To be unable to bring up the contrast of a subject present to the view, is not to know the subject; we cannot possess intelligently the conception of “up,” and be oblivious to, or incapable of remembering, “down.” Forgetfulness in this department is not the snapping of a link, as in Contiguity, or the dulness that cannot reach a similitude; it is the entire blank of conception or knowledge. The north pole of a magnet cannot be in the view, and the south pole in oblivion.—B.
38This chapter raises questions of the most fundamental kind relating to our intellectual constitution. The Association of Ideas, comprehensively viewed, involves everything connected with the mental persistence and reproduction of ideas; being offered as adequate to explain the operations named Memory, Reason, and Imagination.
Conditions of the Growth of Association, or of the Retentiveness of the Mind.—A practical, as well as a theoretical, interest attaches to the precise statement of the conditions or circumstances that regulate the growth of our associations, in other words our mental culture generally. All agree in the efficacy of the two conditions mentioned in the text; the vividness of the feelings associated, and the frequency of the association, that is repetition or practice. It is well remarked, however, that the phrase “vividness of the sensations or ideas” does not convey a very precise meaning. The proper attribute of a sensation, or an idea, considered as anintellectualelement, is greater or less distinctness; when an object seen or remembered is seen or remembered distinctly and fully, and without any unusual labour or effort, there is nothing more to be desired, so far as concerns our intelligence. If, however, the object is accompanied withfeeling—with pleasure or pain—a new element is introduced, to which other epithets are applicable. A feeling is more or less strong or intense; and the addition of an intense feeling to an intellectual conception is a sum, combining both sets of attributes—distinctness and adequacy in the conception, and intensity in the feeling. An object whose perception or conception is thus accompanied with the animation of strong feeling, is called lively, or vivid;117in the absence of feeling, these epithets are unsuitable. Hence, the associating stimulus expressed by “vividness” is better expressed by the “strength of the feelings.” Any strong feeling impresses on the mind whatever is the object of it, or is in any way mixed up with it. We remember by preference the things that have given us either pleasure or pain; and the effect may be produced by mere excitement although neither pleasurable nor painful; the influence of a surprise being a case in point. Ourinterestin a thing is but another name for the pleasure that it gives us; and to inspire interest is to aid the memory. Hamilton’s Law of Preference refers to this source; and appears to exclude, or not to recognise, the efficacy of feelings not pleasurable, namely, such as are either painful or neutral. The comprehensive law should include all the feelings, although there are specific characters attaching to the influence of each of the three modes. Pleasure is the most effectual in stamping the memory, as it is the most powerful in detaining the attention and the thoughts. Pain has a conflicting operation; as affecting the will, it repels the object; but as mere excitement it retains it; we cannot forget what is disagreeable, merely because we wish to forget it. The stimulant of pain, as applied in education, is an indirect pleasure. It is not intended to make the subject of the lesson disagreeable, but to render painful all diversions from that towards other subjects; so that comparatively the most pleasing course to a pupil may be to abide by the task prescribed.
The influence of the Feelings upon Retentiveness is not throughout in proportion to their degree, whether they are pleasurable, painful, or neutral. We have to introduce a modifying circumstance into the case, namely, that great strength of feeling absorbs the forces of the system, and diminishes the power available for cementing an intellectual association. A strong feeling once aroused, while inflaming the attention upon whatever is bound up with it, necessarily engages us with itself. The plastic process of fixing a train or aggregate of ideas has but a share of the energies awakened under feeling.
It is possible also to stimulate attention, and thereby to118quicken memory, without the excitement of the feelings, as in pure voluntary attention. For although the will, in the last resort, is stimulated by an end (which must involve the feelings), yet we may be strongly moved without being under the excitement of the feelings that enter into the final end. Our volitions may be energetic, without the presence of strong emotions, notwithstanding that, apart from our possessing such emotions, we should not be strongly moved to action. Thus, a difference is made between the influence of the feelings and the influence of the will; both being powers to impress the memory.
The two considerations now advanced, namely, the want of strict concomitance between strength of feeling and the stimulus to memory, and the operation of the will in the abeyance of present feeling, make it desirable to find some other mode of stating the element or condition that qualifies the influence of Frequency or Repetition, in the growth of memory and association. Perhaps the best mode of singling out the operative circumstance is to describe it as “Concentration of Mind;” the devotion of the mental forces to the thing to be done or remembered—the withdrawal of power from other exercises, to expend it on the exercise in hand. Every circumstance that at once rouses the mental and nervous energies, and keeps them fixed upon any subject of study or the practice of any art, is a circumstance in aid of acquisition. No fact more comprehensive, more exactly in point, can be assigned than the one now stated. What remains is to apply it in the detail, or to point out the occasions and conditions that favour, and those that obstruct, the concentration of the mental energy. It is under this view that we can best appreciate the efficacy of pleasure (interest in the subject), of pain, of mere excitement, and of voluntary attention. We can also see, as an obvious corollary, the advantage of having the mind unoccupied, or disengaged for the work, and the disadvantage of being diverted, or distracted by other objects. Fear, care, anxiety, are hostile to culture by lowering the tone or energy of the mind; while what power is left concentrates itself upon the subject matter of the anxious feeling. On the other hand, general vigour of the119system, good health, easy circumstances, are all in favour of mental improvement, provided the force thus made available can be reserved and devoted to that end.
Thus the two leading conditions of the plastic process are Frequency of Repetition, and Mental Concentration. For practical purposes, these are all that we need to consider, at least as regards the same individual. We have no art or device for training either body or mind but what is comprised under one or other of these heads. There are methods of superseding the labour of new acquirement, by adapting existing acquirements to new cases; but no means can be assigned for the original construction of adhesive links, apart from these two circumstances.
Still, in a large and exhaustive view of the Retentive power of the mind, we should not omit to allow for the differences between one mind and another in respect of Natural Aptitude for acquiring. When two persons engaged in the same lesson, for equal periods of time, and with about equal concentration of mind, make very unequal progress, we must admit a difference in natural or constitutional plasticity on that particular subject. Sometimes we find extraordinary progress made in acquisition generally; the same person excelling in languages, in sciences, in practical arts, and in fine arts. More commonly, however, we find an aptitude for some subject in particular, combined with deficiency in other things. One person has great mechanical acquirements, another lingual, and so on.
The first case is sufficiently common to justify the assumption of degrees of acquisitive or plastic aptitude on the whole, or a variety in the cerebral endowment corresponding to the adhesion of trains of actions and ideas that have been more or less frequently brought together. If the differences among human beings are not so broad as to make this apparent, we may refer to the differences between the lower animals and man. The animals have the power of acquiring, but so limited is that power in comparison with human beings, that people have often doubted its existence.
120The second case, the inequality of the same person’s progress in different subjects, may be looked at in another way. We may view it as incident to the better or worse quality, for all purposes, of the special organs concerned. Thus to take musical acquisition. This is commonly attributed to a good ear, meaning a delicate sense of musical notes, as shown in their nice discrimination. Discriminating is a different function from remembering; yet, we can only doubt that the fact of being able to discriminate acutely is accompanied by the power of remembering or retaining the impressions of the sense. The superiority of endowment that shows itself in the one function, embraces also the other. Hence we are entitled to say that the special retentiveness for any one subject, or department of training, varies with the local endowment involved: which is not to maintain an identical proposition, for the local endowment may be held as tested by delicacy of discrimination, a distinct fact from memory. Thus, a delicate sense of shades of colour would entail a good visual memory for spectacle; a delicate ear for articulation would indicate a memory for shades and varieties of pronunciation, thereby counting as a part of the verbal memory. So, delicate discrimination in the tactile muscles would be followed by rapid acquirements in manipulative or manual art.
The Ultimate Analysis of the Laws of Association.—It is easy to reduce all the laws ever assigned, as governing the reproduction of our ideas, to three, Contiguity, Similarity, and Contrast. It is open to question whether these can be resolved any farther. The author has endeavoured to reduce Similarity to Contiguity, but his reasons show that he had not deeply considered the workings of similarity. Hamilton’s criticisms on the attempt (Reid, p. 914) are just and irrefragable. By far the most important examples of the working of similarity are such as, by their very nature, preclude a former contiguity: as, for example, Franklin’s identification of Electricity and lightning.
There is, nevertheless, a considerable degree of subtlety in the relationship of the two principles. There may be good reasons121for treating them as distinct, but in their working they are inextricably combined. There can be no contiguity without similarity, and no similarity without contiguity. When, looking at a river, we pronounce its name, we are properly said to exemplify contiguity; the river and the name by frequent association are so united that each recalls the other. But mark the steps of the recall. What is strictly present to our view is the impression made by the river while we gaze on it. It is necessary that this impression should, by virtue of similarity or identity, re-instate the previous impression of the river, to which the previous impression of the name was contiguous. If one could suppose failure in the re-instatement of the former idea of the river, under the new presentation, there would be no opportunity given to the contiguous bond to come into operation. In that accumulation of the impressions of contiguous ideas, ending at last in a firm association, there must be a process of similarity to the extent of reviving the sum of the past at the instance of the present. This is a case of similarity that we give little heed to, because it is sure and unfailing; we concern ourselves more with what is liable to uncertainty, the acquired strength of the contiguous adhesion. Yet it strictly comes under the case of reproduction through similarity.
Consider again, what may be called a case of Similarity proper, as when a portrait recalls the original. The sensuous effects possessed in common by the portrait and by its subject bring about a restoration of the idea of the subject, in spite of certain differences or discrepancies. The interest of this case is owing to the fact that a partial likeness, a likeness in unlikeness, will often reproduce a past idea; thus enabling us to assemble in the mind a number of things differing in some respects because they agree in other respects. This is not identifying a thing with itself, viewed at a former time, but assimilating one thing with other things placed far asunder in nature, and having many features of difference.
Let us try and express the consecutive steps of this case of reproduction. The thing now present to the mind has certain122peculiarities in common with one or more things formerly present; as when, in a portrait, the outline and colouring resembles a subject original. These sensible effects make alive the previous recurrence of them, or put us in the cerebral and mental attitude formerly experienced by the corresponding effects of the resembling object. We are aware, by the liveliness of our impression, that we have gone in upon an old track; we have the peculiar consciousness called the consciousness of Identity or Agreement. This is one step, but not the whole. In order that the complete restoration may be effected, the features of community must be in such firm contiguous alliance with the features of difference—thespecialpart of the previous subject that the one shall reinstate the idea of the other. The points common to a present portrait and a past original must be so strongly coherent with the remaining features of the original, that the one cannot be awakened without the other following. Here, then, in the very heart of Similarity, is an indispensable bond of Contiguity; showing that it is not possible for either process to be accomplished in separation from the other. The mutual coherence of parts, now described as essential to reproduction, may be too weak for the purpose, and the recovering stroke of similarity will in that case fail.
It might, therefore, be supposed that Similarity is, after all, but a mode of Contiguity, namely, the contiguity or association of the different features or parts of a complex whole. The inference is too hasty. Because contiguity is a part of the fact of the restoration of similars, it is not the entire fact. There is a distinct and characteristic step preceding the play of this mutual coherence of the parts of the thing to be recovered. The striking into the former track of the agreeing part of the new and the old, is a mental movement by itself, which the other follows, but does not do away with. The effect above described, as the consciousness of agreement or identity, the flash of a felt similarity, is real and distinct. We are conscious of it by itself; there are occasions when we have it without the other, that is to say, without the full re-instatement of the former123object in its entireness. We often aware of an identity without being able to say what is the thing identified; as when a portrait gives us the impression that we have seen the original, without enabling us to say who the original is. We have been affected by the stroke of identity or similarity; but the restoration fails from the feebleness of the contiguous adherence of the parts of the object identified. There is thus a genuine effect of the nature of pure similarity, or resemblance, and a mode of consciousness accompanying that effect; but there is not the full energy of reproduction without a concurring bond of pure contiguity. A portrait may fail to give us the consciousness of having ever seen the original. On the supposition that we have seen the original, this would be a failure of pure similarity.
Thus in every act of reproducing a past mental experience, there is a complication, involving both contiguity proper and similarity proper. When the similarity amounts to identity, as when a new impression of a thing puts us in the track of the old impressions of the same thing, the effect is so sure, so obvious, so easily arrived at, that we do not need to think of it, to make a question of it. It does not prevent us from regarding the operation of recalling a name when we see the thing, or recalling a thing when we hear the name, as pure contiguity. The strength of the coherence may be deficient, and the restoration may fail on this account; it can never fail on account of insufficient similarity. No inconvenience will arise from speaking of this case as if it were Contiguity and nothing else.
The situation of Similarity in Diversity is quite distinct. The diversity obstructs the operation of similarity; we cannot be sure that the new shall put us on the track of the old. It is always a question whether such similarities shall be felt at all; whether we shall experience the flash, the peculiar consciousness, of agreement in difference. It is a farther question, whether the internal coherence of the thing identified is enough to restore it in completeness. This last step may be allowed to be a case of proper contiguity; while the flash of identity struck between a present and a past, never coupled in the124mind before, is an effectsui generis, and not resolvable into any mode or incident of contiguity.
The circumstances of this identifying stroke are so numerous and far-reaching as to demand a special exemplification. Some of the broadest distinctions of intellectual character can be grounded on the distinctive aptitudes of the mind for Contiguity and for Similarity.
Learning, Acquisition, Memory, Habit, all designate the plastic adherence of contiguous impressions. The processes of Classification, Reasoning, Imagination, and the Inventive faculty generally, depend upon the identifying stroke of likeness in unlikeness. Some forms of intellectual strength, as a whole, are best represented by a highly energetic Adhesiveness; distinction as a learner, a follower of routine, turns upon this power. Other, and higher, forms of intelligence depend upon far-reaching strokes of similarity; the identification of likeness shrouded in diversity, expresses much of the genius of the poet, the philosopher, the man of practice.
There remains the consideration of Contrast, as a link of association. It is easy to show that both Contiguity and Similarity may enter into the association of contrasts. All contrasts that we are interested in are habitually coupled in language, as light and dark, heat and cold, up and down, life and death. Again contrasts suppose a common genus, that is a generic similarity; at least until we ascend to the highest contrast of all, the subject mind, and the object or extended world. Cold and Hot are grades of the common attribute called Temperature. As these links of contiguity and similarity are present, and of considerable strength, they practically lead to the mutual suggestion of contrasting things.
Still, we cannot overlook the deeper circumstance that in contrast there isrelation, and therefore mutual implication, so that the two members must always be virtually present, although they are not equally attended to. Heat has no meaning, no existence, but as a change from cold; the north implicates the south. We have two modes of regarding these relationships, which are distinguished by language, as if we125could abstract the one side from the other; that is, we think of heat apart from cold, and of the north apart from the south. But if one side is present, both must be present, and nothing is wanted but a motive, to make us reverse the conception, and bring into prominence the side that was in abeyance, cold instead of heat, south instead of north.
This view of Contrast is variously expressed by Hamilton. (Reid, Note D * * *).
Contrast, therefore, as an associating link, would draw from three sources, Relativity, Contiguity, and Similarity. It would also be heightened, in many instances, by the presence of strong feelings or emotions, as in the contemplation of startling changes, and the vicissitudes of things. Being one of the effects habitually introduced in Art and in Oratory, we are more than ordinarily impressed by the things so made use of—infancy beside old age, squalor following on splendour, abasement succeeding to elevation.
The associating principle of Contrast cannot be put forward as a basis of distinction in intellectual character. There is no such a thing as a special aptitude for Contrasts. There may be, in certain minds given to emotion, a fondness for the impressive or emotional contrasts; but there is no intellectual gift, subsisting apart from other powers and rising and falling independently, for the mutual recall of contrasting qualities. Whenever we feel a difference we make a contrast; the two differing things, are contrasting things, and are both known in one indivisible act of thought. To be unable to bring up the contrast of a subject present to the view, is not to know the subject; we cannot possess intelligently the conception of “up,” and be oblivious to, or incapable of remembering, “down.” Forgetfulness in this department is not the snapping of a link, as in Contiguity, or the dulness that cannot reach a similitude; it is the entire blank of conception or knowledge. The north pole of a magnet cannot be in the view, and the south pole in oblivion.—B.
39The author and Mr. Bain agree in rejecting Contrast as an independent principle of association. I think they might126have gone further, and denied it even as a derivative one. All the cases considered as examples of it seem to me to depend on something else. I greatly doubt if the sight or thought of a dwarf has intrinsically any tendency to recall the idea of a giant. Things certainly do remind us of their own absence, because (as pointed out by Mr. Bain) we are only conscious of their presence by comparison with their absence; and for a further reason, arising out of the former, viz. that, in our practical judgments, we are led to think of the case of their presence and the case of their absence by one and the same act of thought, having commonly to choose between the two. But it does not seem to me that things have any special tendency to remind us of their positive opposites. Black does not remind us of white more than of red or green. If light reminds us of darkness, it is because darkness is the mere negation, or absence, of light. The case of heat and cold is more complex. The sensation of heat recalls to us the absence of that sensation: if the sensation amounts to pain, it calls up the idea of relief from it; that is, of its absence, associated by contiguity with the pleasant feeling which accompanies the change. But cold is not the mere absence of heat; it is itself a positive sensation. If heat suggests to us the idea of the sensation of cold, it is not because of the contrast, but because the close connection which exists between the outward conditions of both, and the consequent identity of the means we employ for regulating them, cause the thought of cold and that of heat to be frequently presented to us in contiguity.—Ed.
39The author and Mr. Bain agree in rejecting Contrast as an independent principle of association. I think they might126have gone further, and denied it even as a derivative one. All the cases considered as examples of it seem to me to depend on something else. I greatly doubt if the sight or thought of a dwarf has intrinsically any tendency to recall the idea of a giant. Things certainly do remind us of their own absence, because (as pointed out by Mr. Bain) we are only conscious of their presence by comparison with their absence; and for a further reason, arising out of the former, viz. that, in our practical judgments, we are led to think of the case of their presence and the case of their absence by one and the same act of thought, having commonly to choose between the two. But it does not seem to me that things have any special tendency to remind us of their positive opposites. Black does not remind us of white more than of red or green. If light reminds us of darkness, it is because darkness is the mere negation, or absence, of light. The case of heat and cold is more complex. The sensation of heat recalls to us the absence of that sensation: if the sensation amounts to pain, it calls up the idea of relief from it; that is, of its absence, associated by contiguity with the pleasant feeling which accompanies the change. But cold is not the mere absence of heat; it is itself a positive sensation. If heat suggests to us the idea of the sensation of cold, it is not because of the contrast, but because the close connection which exists between the outward conditions of both, and the consequent identity of the means we employ for regulating them, cause the thought of cold and that of heat to be frequently presented to us in contiguity.—Ed.
39The author and Mr. Bain agree in rejecting Contrast as an independent principle of association. I think they might126have gone further, and denied it even as a derivative one. All the cases considered as examples of it seem to me to depend on something else. I greatly doubt if the sight or thought of a dwarf has intrinsically any tendency to recall the idea of a giant. Things certainly do remind us of their own absence, because (as pointed out by Mr. Bain) we are only conscious of their presence by comparison with their absence; and for a further reason, arising out of the former, viz. that, in our practical judgments, we are led to think of the case of their presence and the case of their absence by one and the same act of thought, having commonly to choose between the two. But it does not seem to me that things have any special tendency to remind us of their positive opposites. Black does not remind us of white more than of red or green. If light reminds us of darkness, it is because darkness is the mere negation, or absence, of light. The case of heat and cold is more complex. The sensation of heat recalls to us the absence of that sensation: if the sensation amounts to pain, it calls up the idea of relief from it; that is, of its absence, associated by contiguity with the pleasant feeling which accompanies the change. But cold is not the mere absence of heat; it is itself a positive sensation. If heat suggests to us the idea of the sensation of cold, it is not because of the contrast, but because the close connection which exists between the outward conditions of both, and the consequent identity of the means we employ for regulating them, cause the thought of cold and that of heat to be frequently presented to us in contiguity.—Ed.
127
“I endeavour, as much as I can, to deliver myself from those fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourselves, by taking words for things. It helps not our ignorance to feign a knowledge where we have none, by making a noise with sounds without clear and distinct significations. Names made at pleasure, neither alter the nature of things, nor make us understand them, but as they are signs of, and stand for, determined ideas.”—Locke, Hum. Und.b. ii. ch. 13, § 18.
WEhave now surveyed the more simple and obvious phenomena of the human mind. We have seen, first, that we haveSENSATIONS; secondly, that we haveIDEAS, the copies of those sensations; thirdly, that those ideas are sometimesSIMPLE, the copies of one sensation; sometimesCOMPLEX, the copies of several sensations so combined as to appear not several ideas, but one idea; and, fourthly, that we haveTRAINSof those ideas, or one succeeding another without end.
These are simple facts of our nature, attested by experience; and my chief object in fixing upon them the attention of the reader has been, to convey to him that accurate and steady conception of them, which is requisite for the successful prosecution of the subsequent inquiries.
128After delineating the simple and elementary states of consciousness, it follows, in order, that we should endeavour to show what is contained in those that are complex. But in all the more complicated cases of human consciousness something of the process of Naming is involved. These cases, of course, cannot be unfolded, till the artifice of Naming is made known. This, therefore, is necessarily an intermediate inquiry; and one to which it is necessary that we should devote a particular degree of attention.
There are two purposes, both of great importance, for which marks of our ideas, and sensations; or signs by which they may be denoted; are necessary. One of these purposes is, That we maybe able to make known to others what passes within us. The other is, That we may secure to ourselves the knowledge of what at any preceding time has passed in our minds.
The sensations and ideas of one man are hidden from all other men; unless they have recourse to some expedient for disclosing them. We cannot convey to another man our sensations and ideas directly. Our means of intercourse with other men are through their senses exclusively. We must therefore choose someSENSIBLE OBJECTS, asSIGNSof our inward feelings. If two men agree, that each shall use a certain sensible sign, when one of them means to make known to the other that he has a certain sensation, or idea, they, in this, and in no other way, can communicate a knowledge of those feelings to one another.
Almost all the advantages, which man possesses above the inferior animals, arise from his power of acting in combination with his fellows; and of accomplishing, by the united efforts of numbers, what could129not be accomplished by the detached efforts of individuals. Without the power of communicating to one another their sensations and ideas, this co-operation would be impossible. The importance, therefore, of the invention of signs, or marks, by which alone that communication can be effected, is obvious.
Among sensible objects, those alone which are addressed to the senses of seeing and hearing have sufficient precision and variety to be adapted to this end. The language of Action, as it has been called, that is, certain gesticulations and motions, has very generally, especially among rude people, whose spoken language is scanty, been found in use to indicate certain states, generally complicated states, of mind. But, for precision, variety, and rapidity, the flexibility of the voice presented such obvious advantages, not to mention that visible signs must be altogether useless in the dark, that sounds, among all the varieties of our species, have been assumed as the principal medium by which their sensations and ideas were made known to one another.
There can be little doubt that, of the two uses of marks, Communicating our thoughts, and Recording them, the advantage of the first would be the earliest felt; and that signs for Communicating would be long invented, before any person would see the advantage of Recording his thoughts. After the use of signs for Communication had become familiar, it would not fail, in time, to appear that signs might be employed for Recordation also; and that, from this use of them, the highest advantages might be derived.
In respect to those advantages, the following particulars are to be observed.
1301. We cannot recall any idea, or train of ideas, at will. Thoughts come into the mind unbidden. If they did not come unbidden, they must have been in the mind before they came into it; which is a contradiction. You cannot bid a thought come into the mind, without knowing that which you bid; but to know a thought is to have the thought: the knowledge of the thought, and the thought’s being in the mind, are not two things but one and the same thing, under different names.
If we cannot recall at pleasure a single idea, we are not less unable to recall a train. Every person knows how evanescent his thoughts are, and how impossible it is for him to begin at the beginning of a past train, if it is not a train of the individual objects familiar to his senses, and go on to the end, neither leaving out any of the items which composed it, nor allowing any which did not belong to it, to enter in.
2. It is most obvious that, by ideas alone, the events which are passed, are to us any thing. If the objects which we have seen, heard, smelt, tasted, and touched, left no traces of themselves; if the immediate sensation were every thing, and a blank ensued when the sensation ended, the past would be to us as if it had never been. Yesterday would be as unknown as the months we passed in the womb, or the myriads of years before we were born.
3. It is only by our ideas of the past, that we have any power of anticipating the future. And if we had no power of anticipating the future, we should have no principle of action, but the physical impulses, which we have in common with the brutes. This great law of our nature, the anticipation of the future from the131past, will be fully illustrated in asubsequentpart of this inquiry: at present, all that is required is, the admission, which will probably not be refused, of this general truth: That the order, in which events have been observed to take place, is the order in which they are expected to take place; that the order in which they have taken place is testified to us only by our ideas; and that upon the correctness, with which they are so testified, depends the faculty we possess of converting the powers of nature into the instruments of our will; and of bringing to pass the events which we desire.
4. But all this power depends upon the order of our ideas. The importance, therefore, is unspeakable, of being able to insure the order of our ideas; to make, in other words, the order of a train of ideas correspond unerringly with a train of past sensations. We have not, however, a direct command over the train of our ideas. A train of ideas may have passed in our minds corresponding to events of great importance; but that train will not pass again, unvaried, except in very simple cases, without the use ofexpedients.
5. The difference between the occasions of ourIDEAS, and the occasions of ourSENSATIONS, affords a resource for this purpose. Over the occasions of our sensations; we have an extensive power. We can command the smell of a rose, the hearing of a bell, the sight of a tree, the sensation of heat or of cold, and so on. Over the occasions of our ideas we have little or no direct power. Our ideas come and go. There is a perpetual train of them, one succeeding another; but we cannot will any link in that chain of ideas; each link is determined by the foregoing; and every man knows, how impossible132it is, by mere willing, to make such a train as he desires. Thoughts obtrude themselves without his bidding; and thoughts which he is in quest of will not arise.
By the power, however, which we have over the occasions of our sensations, we can make sure of having a train of sensations exactly the same as we have had before. This affords us the means of having a train of ideas exactly the same as we have had before. If we choose a number of sensible objects, and make use of them as marks of our ideas, we can ensure any succession which we please of the sensible objects; and, by the association between them and the ideas, a corresponding succession of the ideas.
6. To one of the two sets of occasions, upon which Signs are thus useful,evanescentSigns are the best adapted;permanentsigns are absolutely necessary for the other. For the purposes of speech, or immediate communication, sounds are the most convenient marks. Sounds, however, perish in the making. But for the purpose of retracing a train of ideas, which we have formerly had, it is necessary we should have marks which do not perish. Marks, addressed to the sight, or the touch, have the requisite permanence; and, of the two, those addressed to the eye have the advantage. Of marks addressed to the eye, two kinds have been adopted; either marks immediately of the ideas intended to be recalled; such as the picture-writing, or hieroglyphics, of some nations: or, visible marks, by letters, of the audible marks employed in oral communication. This latter kind has been found the most convenient, and in use among the largest, and most intelligent portion of our species.
133According to this scheme, spoken language is the use of immediate marks of the ideas; written language, is the use of secondary marks of the ideas. The written marks are only signs of the audible marks; the audible marks, are signs of the ideas.40
40This exposition of Naming in its most general aspect, needs neither explanation nor comment. It is one of those specimens of clear and vigorous statement, going straight to the heart of the matter, and dwelling on it just long enough and no longer than necessary, in which the Analysis abounds.—Ed.
40This exposition of Naming in its most general aspect, needs neither explanation nor comment. It is one of those specimens of clear and vigorous statement, going straight to the heart of the matter, and dwelling on it just long enough and no longer than necessary, in which the Analysis abounds.—Ed.
40This exposition of Naming in its most general aspect, needs neither explanation nor comment. It is one of those specimens of clear and vigorous statement, going straight to the heart of the matter, and dwelling on it just long enough and no longer than necessary, in which the Analysis abounds.—Ed.
134
The power of Language essentially consists, in two things; first, in our having marks of ourSENSATIONS, andIDEAS: and, secondly, in so arranging them, that they may correctly denote aTRAINof those mental states or feelings. It is evident, that if we convey to others the ideas which pass in our own minds, and also convey them in the order in which they pass, the business ofCOMMUNICATIONis completed. And, if we establish the means of reviving the ideas which we have formerly had, and also of reviving them in the order in which we formerly had them, the business ofRECORDATIONis completed. We now proceed to show, by what contrivances, the expedient of Marking is rendered efficient to those several ends.
The primary importance to men, of being able to make known to one another theirSENSATIONS, made them in all probability begin with inventing marks for that purpose; in other words, making Names for theirSENSATIONS. Two modes presented themselves. One was to give a name to each single sensation. Another was to bestow a name on a cluster of sensations, whenever they were such as occur in a cluster. Of this latter class, are all names of what are called External Objects; rose, water, stone, and so on. Each of these names is the mark of as many sensations (sight, touch, smell, taste, sound) as we are said to derive from those objects. The name rose, is the135mark of a sensation of colour, a sensation of shape, a sensation of touch, a sensation of smell, all in conjunction. The name water, is the mark of a sensation of colour, a sensation of touch, a sensation of taste, and other sensations, regarded not separately, but as a compound.41
41It is not intended to be understood that all this complex meaning entered into the names as originally given. The process of naming seems to have been this: Each object was designated by a term expressive of some one prominent quality, and of that only. Thusroseis referred with every probability to the same root as the adjectivered(compare Greekῥόδον, a rose,ἑρυθρὸςred, Germanroth, Latinrutilus), and thus meant “the ruddy” (flower). Other objects would doubtless also be called “ruddy,” and would dispute the epithet with the rose; but by a process of natural selection, each would settle down in possession of the term found best suited to distinguish it; which would thus cease to be an attributive, and become a name substantive with a complex connotation derived from association. All names of objects whose origin can be traced are found to be thus simple in their primary signification. The stars (Sans.staras) were so called because they were “strewers” (of light).—F.
41It is not intended to be understood that all this complex meaning entered into the names as originally given. The process of naming seems to have been this: Each object was designated by a term expressive of some one prominent quality, and of that only. Thusroseis referred with every probability to the same root as the adjectivered(compare Greekῥόδον, a rose,ἑρυθρὸςred, Germanroth, Latinrutilus), and thus meant “the ruddy” (flower). Other objects would doubtless also be called “ruddy,” and would dispute the epithet with the rose; but by a process of natural selection, each would settle down in possession of the term found best suited to distinguish it; which would thus cease to be an attributive, and become a name substantive with a complex connotation derived from association. All names of objects whose origin can be traced are found to be thus simple in their primary signification. The stars (Sans.staras) were so called because they were “strewers” (of light).—F.
41It is not intended to be understood that all this complex meaning entered into the names as originally given. The process of naming seems to have been this: Each object was designated by a term expressive of some one prominent quality, and of that only. Thusroseis referred with every probability to the same root as the adjectivered(compare Greekῥόδον, a rose,ἑρυθρὸςred, Germanroth, Latinrutilus), and thus meant “the ruddy” (flower). Other objects would doubtless also be called “ruddy,” and would dispute the epithet with the rose; but by a process of natural selection, each would settle down in possession of the term found best suited to distinguish it; which would thus cease to be an attributive, and become a name substantive with a complex connotation derived from association. All names of objects whose origin can be traced are found to be thus simple in their primary signification. The stars (Sans.staras) were so called because they were “strewers” (of light).—F.
There is a convenience in giving a single mark to any number of sensations, which we thus have in clusters; because there is hence a great saving of marks. The sensations of sight, of touch, of smell, and so on, derived from a rose, might have received marks, and have been enumerated, one by one; but the term rose, performs all this much more expeditiously, and also more certainly.
The occasions, however, are perpetual, on which we need marks for sensations, not in clusters, but taken separately. And language is supplied with136names of this description. We have the terms, red, green, hot, cold, sweet, bitter, hard, soft, noise, stench, composing in the whole a numerous class. For many sensations, however, we have not names in one word; but make a name out of two or more words: thus, for the sensation of hearing, derived from a trumpet, we have only the name, “sound of a trumpet;” in the same manner, we have “smell of a rose,” “taste of an apple,” “sight of a tree,” “feeling of velvet.”
Of those names which denote clusters of sensations, it is obvious (but still very necessary) to remark, that some include a greater, some a lesser number of sensations. Thus, stone includes only sensations of touch, and sight. Apple, beside sensations of touch and sight, includes sensations of smell and taste.
We not only give names to clusters of sensations, but to clusters of clusters; that is, to a number of minor clusters, united into a greater cluster. Thus we give the name wood to a particular cluster of sensations, the name canvas to another, the name rope to another. To these clusters, and many others, joined together in one great cluster, we give the name ship. To a number of these great clusters united into one, we give the name fleet, and so on. How great a number of clusters are united in the term House? And how many more in the term City?
Sensations being infinitely numerous, all cannot receive marks or signs. A selection must be made. Only those which are the most important are named.
Names, to be useful, cannot exceed a certain number. They could not otherwise be remembered. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that each name should accomplish as much as possible. To this end,137the greater number of names stand, not for individuals only, but classes. Thus the terms red, sweet, hot, loud, are names, not of one sensation only, but of classes of sensations; that is, every sensation of a particular kind. Thus also the term, rose, is not the name of one single cluster, but of every cluster coming under a certain description. As rose denotes one class, stone denotes another, iron another, ox another, and so on.42