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, OF
ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.
actions with sensations and ideas. The helmsman
steering a ship associates in his mind each deviation
of the needle from the proper point with the specific
muscular exertion to be applied to the wheel to
rectify the ship’s direction. The workman fabricat-
ing in wood, metal, or stone, acquires a firm connec-
tion between each aspect of the material and the
muscular power to be applied to bring it one step
nearer the desired form. The power of copying
anything we see, as in writing, drawing, moulding,
&c., when completely mastered, is made up of asso-
ciations between a visible appearance, and the train
of movements calculated to reproduce it. After
practice, all this is done, as it is called, mechani-
cally, or without those operations of considering,
willing, and remembering directions, that are essen-
tial to the learner in a new art. The associations
that grow up after a certain amount of practice, are
in this case associations between movements and
appearances to the eye, or sensations of sight. In
the greater number of crafts, the eye is the guid-
ing sense to the operator, but not in all. Some-
times the effect is vocal, as in performing music, and
in making and tuning musical instruments, in speak-
ing, &e. In other arts, the touch is the guiding sense,
and in some, as in cookery, the taste and smell direct
| the operator. Each accomplished workman has in
his mind many hundreds, not to say thousands, of
couples or aggregates of definite movements with
other movements and with sensations, contracted in
the course of his apprenticeship to his calling.
If we inquire into the circumstances that favour and
promote this extensive circle of acquisitions, we shall
find several that may be named as of importance.
In the first place, @ natural activity of temperament,
or an abundant flow of power to the active mem-
bers, as shewn in a great and various mobility of
the frame, is a good basis of bodily acquirements.
‘When the force of the system runs feebly towards
the muscular framework, being perhaps expended
in other ways, as in the thinking powers, more time
is requisite to attain difficult mechanical arts.
Another important circumstance is the acuteness or
delicacy of the sense involved in the operation. A
keen eye, sensitive to minute degrees of effect, is
wanted in all the various occupations that turn on
visible appearances ; a good ear is indispensable to
music and the arts of producing sounds ; and so on.
‘With a naturally dull sensibility to flavour, no man
can easily become a good cook, or a taster of tea or
wine. The third consideration is the natural power
of adhesive association belonging to the individual
character. Some minds have originally a more
powerful adhesiveness than others, either for things
generally, or for special departments. We see this
when a number of boys come together at school, and
in apprentices learning together. Some are always
found taking the start of the rest in rapidity of
acquirement ; and although the reason may be found
in some of the other circumstances now mentioned,
yet observation shews that when everything else is
allowed for, there remain natural differences in the
rapidity with which the adhesive bond is cemented ;
some acquiring without effort what others take both
time and labour to accomplish. The fourth princi-
pal circumstance is the inierest taken in the work,
or the degree to which it engages the feelings of the
learner. This is a material consideration, account-
ing for the acquisitions made in matters that we
have a strong taste for without our having a pre-
eminence in those other points that constitute
natural capacity. These four conditions apply more
or less to acquisition generally.
A detailed exemplification of this great principle
of our nature might be given through all the depart-
ments of the human intellect. The acquirements
of speech, as already said, contain a wide range of
instances. The adhesion of language is partly in
the vocal organs, partly in the ear, and partly in the
eye, when we come to written and printed charac-
ters. The associations of names with things, with
actions (as in obeying direction and command),
and with other names (in acquiring foreign lan-
guages), are a gradual growth favoured by such con-
ditions as the above. The acquirements in Science,
Fine Art, and Business, and in everything that con-
stitutes skill or knowledge, proceed upon this plastic
property of the mind. It also enlarges the sphere
of our pleasures and pains. There are connections
established in the mind between our states of feeling
and the things that have often accompanied them,
so that the accompaniment shall have power to
revive the feeling. It is thus that we contract affec-
tions, both benevolent and malevolent, towards pers
sons and things, our friends, our home, our country,
our property, our pursuits.
This power of stirring up dependent associations
to an extent that may be almost called unlimited
(although there are limitations), is peculiar to the
animal organisation. Nothing parallel to it occurs
in the mineral or vegetable world. It is a property
of mind alone, and has its seat in the nervous tissue.
We know that growth or change is requisite to the
progress of the adhesion; for it proceeds mosb
rapidly in youth, health, and nutrition, and decays
in old age, and during exhaustion and disease. And
even to keep our acquisitions from fading away, it is
requisite that they should be occasionally revived.
A language acquired in early years may be utterly
lost by disuse. Sustained practice seems particularly
necessary in early education; children’s acquisitions
are very liable to disintegrate, if not kept up and
confirmed by new additions.
Law of Stmilarity—This may be expressed as
follows :
Present Actions, Sensations, Thoughts, and Emo-
tions tend to revive their LikE among previous
impressions.
If the mind worked only by the principle of con-
tiguity, nothing would ever occur to us except in
some connection already formed. But some explanas
tion is necessary as to the precise relationship sub-
sisting between the two distinct forces of mental
resuscitation, in order to shew at once their distinct-
ness and their connection. When the cohesive link
between any two contiguous actions, sensations, or
ideas, is confirmed by a new occurrence or repetition,
it is perfectly obvious that the present impression
must revive the sum-total of the past impressions, or
reinstate the whole mental condition left on the
occasion immediately preceding. Thus, if T am dis-
ciplining myself in the act of drawing a round figure
with my hand, any present effort must recall the
state of the muscular and nervous action, or the pre-
cise bent acquired at the end of the previous effort,
while that effort had to restore the condition at the
end of the one preceding, and so on. But this rein-
statement of a former condition by a present ach
of the same kind, is really and truly a case of the
principle before us, or of like recalling like; and
without such recall, the progressive adhesion of
contiguous things would be impossible. It would
appear, therefore, that similarity is tacitly assumed
in the operation of contiguity, and is indispensable
to the process by which our acquisitions are gradually
built up. Why, then, do we set up the associating
force of likeness as something independent and dis-
tinct? To answer this question, we must advert to
the fact, that in those cases where the same impres-
sion is deepened by every new repetition, the old and
the new are not merely similar, they are identical,
and the resuscitation takes place withoub fi;lg and
