Chapter 79 of 88 · 933 words · ~5 min read

Chapter III

, pp. 82-5.

[479] I strongly advise the student to read his Senses and Intellect, pp. 544-556.

[480] Time and Space, p. 266. Compare Coleridge: "The true practical general law of association is this: that whatever makes certain parts of a total impression more vivid or distinct than the rest will determine the mind to recall these, in preference to others equally linked together by the common condition of contemporaeity or of _contiguity_. But the will itself, by confining and intensifying the attention, may arbitrarily give vividness or distinctness to any object whatsoever." (Biographia Litteraria, Chap. v.)

[481] Leviathan, pt. i, chap. iii, _init._

[482] I refer to a recency of a few hours. Mr. Galton found that experiences from boyhood and youth were more likely to be suggested by words seen at random than experiences of later years. See his highly interesting account of experiments in his Inquiries into Human Faculty, pp. 191-203.

[483] For other instances see Wahle, in Vierteljsch. f. Wiss. Phil., ix, 144-417 (1885).

[484] I retain the title of association by similarity in order not to depart from common usage. The reader will observe, however, that my nomenclature is not based on the same principle throughout. Impartial redintegration connotes neural processes; similarity is an objective relation perceived by the mind; ordinary or mixed association is a merely denotative word. _Total recall, partial recall,_ and _focalized recall,_ of associates, would be better terms. But as the _denotation_ of the latter word is almost identical with that of association by similarity, I think it better to sacrifice propriety to popularity, and to keep the latter well-worn phrase.

[485] No one has described this process better than Hobbes: "Sometimes a man seeks what he hath lost; and from that place and time wherein he misses it, his mind runs back from place to place and time to time to and where and when he had it; that is to say, to find some certain and limited time and place, in which to begin a method of seeking. Again, from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it. This we call _Remembrance_, or calling to mind. Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a jewel, or as a spaniel ranges the field till he find a scent, or as a man should run over the alphabet to start a rhyme." (Leviathan, 165, p. 10.)

[486] Theory of Practice, vol. i, p. 394.

[487] _Ibid._ p. 394.

[488] All association is called redintegration by Hodgson.

[489] _Ibid._ p. 400. Compare Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 377. "The outgoings of the mind are necessarily random; the end alone is the thing that is clear to the view, and with that there is a perception of the fitness of every passing suggestion. The volitional energy keeps up the attention on the active search; and the moment that anything in point rises before the mind, it springs upon that like a wild beast upon its prey."

[490] Compare what is said of the principle of Similarity by F. H. Bradley, Principles of Logic, pp. 294 ff.; E. Rabier, Psychologie, 187 ff.; Paulhan, Critique Philosophique, 2me Série, i, 458; Rabier, _ibid._ 460; Pillon, _ibid._ ii, 55; B. P. Bowne, Introduction to Psych. Theory, 92; Ward, Encyclop. Britt. art. Psychology, p. 60; Wahle, Vierteljahrsch. f. wiss. Philos., ix, 426-431.

[491] Dr. McCosh is accordingly only logical when he sinks similarity in what he calls the _Law of Correlation_, according to which, when we have discovered _a relation between things_, the idea of one tends to bring up the others, (Psychology, the Cognitive Powers, p. 130). The relations mentioned by this author are Identity, Whole and Parts, Resemblance, Space, Time, Quantity, Active Property, and Cause and Effect. If perceived relations among objects are to be treated as grounds for their appearance before the mind, similarity has of course no right to an exclusive, or even to a predominant, place.

[492] Cf. Bain, Senses and Intellect, 504 ff.; J. S. Mill, Note 39 to J. Mill's Analysis; Lipps, Grundtatsachen, 97.

[493] See, for farther details, Hamilton's Reid, Appendices D** and D***; and L. Ferri, La Psychologie de l'Association (Paris, 1883). Also Robertson, art. Association in Encyclop. Britannica.

[494] Treatise of Human nature, part i,. § iv.

[495] Observations on Man (London, 1749).

[496] Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829).

[497] Hartley's Theory, 2d ed. (1790) p. xxvii.

[498] [Current, that is, in France.--W. J.]

[499] La Psychologie Angloise, p. 242.

[500] Priestley, _op. cit._ p. xxx.

[501] Review of Bains's Psychology, by J.S. Mill, in Edinb. Review, Oct. 1, 1859, p. 293.

[502] Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J.S. Mill's edition, vol. i, p. 111.

[503] On the Associability of Relations between Feelings, in Principles of Psychology, vol. i, p. 259. It is impossible to regard the "cohering of each feeling with previously-experienced feelings of the same class, order, genus, species, and, so far as may be, the same variety," which Spencer calls (p. 257) 'the sole process of association of feelings,' as any equivalent for what is commonly known as Association by similarity.

[504] The Senses and the Intellect, pp. 491-3.

[505] See his Time and Space, chapter v , and his Theory of Practice, §§ 53 to 57.

[506] Psychologie als Wissenschaft (1824), 2.

[507] Prof. Ribot, in