" advanced thinking." 10 § 9. It is against such opponents that the syllogism is right. The doctrine of copula and terms which it cherishes is in defensible, but it is right in demanding an identity in reason ing. The middle is an identity which connects the differences, and, being such an identity, the middle is an universal. In this point again the syllogism is right. For though the major premise is a superstition, one premise at least must be uni versal or else there can be no inference at all. We have here again a condition necessary to reasoning.
§ 10. (ii) We saw in the second chapter of Book I., and later on again in Chapter VI. § 39, that in the end no judg ment is really particular.11 They are all universal. And we might content ourselves here with recalling the result we there have reached, but, perhaps at the risk of superfluity, we may add some further remarks on the subject. If one of the premises were not universal, how could they both have a com mon identity? The term B must be shared by both the premises. It is a single content in two different contexts. But, CHAP. VI TWO CONDITIONS OF INFERENCE 295 since thus it is universal, at least one premise must have the same character.
This simple consideration is, I think, sufficient for any one who has put himself at the right point of view. But not withstanding all our previous discussions, there no doubt will be readers still unwilling or unable to follow us in this argu ment. " In ' A precedes B and B precedes C ' can B," we shall hear, "be really universal? Nay even in the syllogism, if we take the third figure, is the middle term really an universal? It is so technically because it is distributed, or understood in its full extension, but these technical distinctions have long ago been thrown overboard, and with them has gone the uni versality of singulars." I will briefly reply to the above objec tion.
§ II. An universal judgment is one that holds of any subject which is a synthesis of differences. It is a proposition the truth of which is not confined to any single this. The subject extends beyond the judgment, and, where the subject goes, the judgment is true. In this sense we have seen that all judgments are universal. But we are limited here to a simpler issue, for we have to show, given a valid inference, that at least one premise is universal. It is quite enough, as we have just remarked, to consider the identity of the middle term: but a more detailed exposition may perhaps be wel come.
There are certain cases which call for no discussion. Where the middle term is an abstract attribute, and this forms the subject of one of the premises, there one premise must be allowed to be universal.* The difficulty which is felt arises from those cases where the middle term is a singular, or where it is not the ostensible subject of either premise. Take for instance " A is to right of B, and B of C, and therefore A of C," or " A and C have the note B in common, and therefore C is in tune with A, and both related by the identity of B." How in such infer ences as these can we show that one premise must be universal?
* In order to bring arguments into this form we may freely convert any negative judgments. Thus in the second figure we may convert as required, negative premises or conclusions. The case presents no difficulty.12 296 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. Pi. I § 12. Unless our previous discussions have led us quite wrong, such a question as this can be readily answered. " B is to right of C " is an universal judgment because B is an identity which has the differences of its spatial relations to A and C.ia It transcends the context B — C and is therefore universal. Or, from another point of view, the relation B — C is true of a subject which extends itself beyond those limits, and is the identical subject of which the relation A — B is also true. If you take the relations as qualifying B, then B is the universal which exhibits these differences. Or again if you go somewhat further back, then the unity of the common space is the genuine subject of which these relations are diverse attributes. We can always find an identical subject although that subject need not be apparent. In " Caesar is angry and Caesar is silent, and therefore silence may accom pany anger," it is the grammatical subject which supplies the universal within whose identity the synthesis holds good. But where from " A has a certain note B and C has also the self same note," we infer a relation between A and C, it is doubt ful where the actual subject lies. If we are willing to accept the grammatical subject, then in " C has the note B," C is our universal. For C is disturbed from its original context and expanded ideally so as to form a whole with A. And, if it were not universal, it could not be treated as a subject waiting to receive a predicate beyond its original given existence.* This would be the right interpretation if A and C are to be considered as subjects. But it is better here, I think, to take the middle as the actual subject of both the premises. B is the universal of which we predicate the difference B — A and the difference B — C, and it is the bond of identity which interrelates the whole.
§ 13. We shall see hereafter that every inference may be taken as holding within the identity of one subject (Book III. Part I. Chap. VI. § 34), and if we take this view it is obvious that the subject of both premises is universal. For the present it may prove sufficient to remember that, inference being an ideal construction and involving therefore an ideal centre, one premise must be taken as true beyond the limits of a par- * Of course if you suppose the relation A — C to be a perception got simply from the given, then there is no inference and cadit qu&stio.
CHAP. VI TWO CONDITIONS OF INFERENCE ticular subject. If we keep hold of this reflection we shall not be shaken by any puzzles which are laid before us. In the previous Book I have endeavoured to anticipate and to cut the root of those difficulties which are the most likely to be raised, and it is to the discussion of that Book that I must refer back the reader who is still inclined to hesitate.
In the ensuing Part of the present Book we shall criticize some inadequate views of inference, and shall begin with that belief which is most opposed to the doctrines set forth in the present Chapter.
ADDITIONAL NOTES 1 On Similarity, Likeness, and Identity, see the Indexes, to this volume and to Appearance and Essays.
2 " What seems the same is the same." It should be " is so far the same." Error as to the exact point of sameness remains possible. And after " diversity " should perhaps have come " further " or "added". What must be rejected everywhere is the idea of a simi larity which does not imply sameness. The " Axiom " — so far as it is an axiom — holds obviously also in Metaphysics. On the ultimate dif ficulty as to Identity, see Essays, Index.
3 These points have been taken up by me in later works. There is here a partial failure to realize the true conclusion that, just as terms and relations are neither present at the beginning of knowledge, so both alike are subordinated and transformed in the ultimate end. Terms and relations are (as is seen in this volume) alike abstractions, and (we must add) are, each alike, unreal as such.
* " The content of the given has always two sides." We must re member here that, if so, Immediate Experience or Feeling must not be called "given." See Bk. III. I. Chap. VII, and Appearance and Essays.
With regard (three lines below) to "metaphysically irreducible," we can not possibly (I should say) "reduce" these "elements." But we can know that in the ultimate whole they lose their characters, as such, and so far as irreducible.
5 "Under the same conditions." What is true of B once is true of B always under the same conditions. And, if you object that the different conditions must both be true of B, that must be admitted. It points to the conclusion that, while mere B — A and mere B — ( are in the end abstractions and neither in the end true, both are. still true relatively. We have to assume a concrete whole containing still further conditions such as to modify these terms and to unite them in something higher. But in this whole, we ^ must remember, con ditions and terms cease in the end, as such, to exist.
298 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. Px. I 6 " It is the abstraction." It would be better to say " the universal," because the identity may perhaps be that of an organic individual whole, and, so far, not "abstract."
7 " Is not predicated categorically." " Unconditionally " would be better.
8 " Is not identical." And even in the case of a single shed, where it remains throughout one and the same, it still is qualified by its temporal diversity, so as to be also so far different, and, so far again, not indiscernible.
9 " It is frivolous to say, etc." " Frivolous " may perhaps in some cases go too far, but " irrational " would, I think, hold everywhere. If you keep to change as perceived, then within that perception you have identity in diversity, and you have ideality, though so far you do not abstract it. Either that, or your perception is not the percep tion of change.
On the relation of Continuity to Identity, see further Appearance, the Index and the Note on p. 616.
10 " Advanced thinking." The above tirade, if unnecessary, was in 1883, I still think, wholly justifiable.
11 " No judgment is really particular." We may put it thus, that all judgments are of content, and that no content sticks in the mere "this." See Appearance, Index. And further, on Designation, see Essays, Index. The lesser conclusion as to one premiss is, however, sufficient here. Cf. Bosanquet, Logic, II, pp. 203-4.
12 This footnote might without loss have been omitted.
13 " Because B is an identity, etc." " Because, in making the infer ence, B is used as an identity, etc.," would have been better. And so below, in " For C is disturbed, etc.," we should perhaps insert after C the words "in the inference."
BOOK II.— PART II CHAPTER I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS x § I. The end we had before us in the first part of this Book was to give a general account of inference. The account was m a certain sense provisional, since the examples it dealt with did not pretend to illustrate every kind of inference. But within those limits the result we arrived at seemed irref ragably The end we have before us in this Second Part, is the criticism and refutation of certain theories which are out of harmony with the conclusion we have reached.
The title of this chapter calls for explanation. "The Association of Ideas," it may be objected, "is not so much a theory as a fact; a fact which on the one hand is quite indisputable, and which on the other hand can be discrepant with no theory except a theory which runs counter to fact." But the objection would rest on an entire misunderstanding. The psychological fact of "Association" is of course un questionable. The account of that fact which is given by the orthodox English philosophy, is in my judgment not only questionable but false. And, beside being false, it is incom patible with any tolerably accurate theory of reasoning. For the universality and identity, which we saw were necessary for every inference, do not exist in the theory of " Experience." We are offered in their stead a fictitious substitute, which does not exist and therefore can not work, and which would not work even if it existed.
§2. "Inseparable Association," and the "Chemistry of Ideas," are phrases which are only too familiar to most of us. They recall a controversy which has served in some measure to obscure the questions it professed to elucidate. But the more refined developements of the Association doctrine do 3OO THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II not immediately concern us here.* For they have no direct bearing on the theory of inference; and it is solely as it touches the subject of reasoning that we have here to do with Association. We may confine our attention to the common doctrine, as exemplified in the ordinary working of the Laws of Resemblance and Contiguity.
§ 3. The " association of ideas " is a phrase which may be taken to express a well-known psychological fact. And if taken so, it is nothing but a title. The fact, which it stands for, is a familiar experience, and the meaning of the title is not proposed as an accurate theory of that fact. It is a name which must not be pressed into a doctrine.
But, as understood by the Philosophy of Experience, the " association of ideas " has long ceased to be a way of marking a thing which we all admit has real existence. It has become the battle-cry of a school, and a metaphysical doctrine and theory of things. It contains a belief as to the nature of the mind, or at least as to the mode in which the mind works, which is irreconcileable with the views we have already adopted. Hence if " association " is to stand for a mere psychological fact, then of course, like every one else, I believe in it; and I propose to give here the explanation of that fact. But, if " association " means that view of the fact which has been embraced by a certain school, then I do not believe in it; and I propose to show that in this latter sense " association " has no real existence. It has not only been extended to take in phenomena which can not properly come within its limits, but within any limits, however narrow, it is a false view of things.
§ 4. The word Association, I suppose, implies properly some kind of voluntary union. That signification of course disappears, but it leaves a shade of meaning behind. For things are not associated by their own necessity, and by virtue of some internal connection. Such a group as the family, and even the state, can hardly be called associations in any strict sense. Association implies chance, that is, it depends on circumstances external to that which is conjoined. And so, when we use the term, we must be taken to suggest that, if A and B had not been associated, they would nevertheless * We shall append some remarks at the end of this chapter, CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 30!
have been A and B. For the conditions, which happened to bring them together, do not follow in fact, nor are deducible in idea, from the existence or character of mere A and B. We may perhaps explain by a reference to the hypothetical judgment. In such a judgment, if the condition is known,2 you assert not a conjunction but always a connection. But in a categorical judgment of perception, and that means in a hypothetical judgment where the condition is unknown, you assert a conjunction and not a connection. The former word corresponds to Association. The conjunction with B is pre dicated of A on the strength of a condition, that does not come into the subject, but is imported by the force of such circumstances as, in their relation to A, are chance.
Association thus comes to mean chance-conjunction, and in our mental history we find of course very often that ideas are conjoined by the merest accident. If you take these ideas and consider them by themselves, you can find no con nection and no reason for their union. Mere circumstances, which, so far as the ideas are concerned, might never have existed, did bring them together. And a union caused by such chance-conjunction is the common meaning of Mental Association. In this sense of the term it answers to that which, I suppose, we all admit to be fact; but it conveys no theory of any kind whatever. It makes no assertion as to the nature of ideas, and it makes no assertion as to the laws of their reproduction. It calls attention to one fact among others. It does not profess to reduce well-nigh everything in the mind but sensations, impressions, or feelings, to this single fact.
§ 5. The school of Experience, in its more consistent de velopment, has turned the metaphorical expression of one fact into a theory which may be said to cover all. It has a doctrine as to the ultimate constituents of mind. They are particular feelings and particular ideas, in either case repellent units. And they have absolutely no internal bond of con nection. There is no ground common to the different units, which could serve as a real basis for their union. Univer sality and identity are derided as fictions. In the procession of these units we may separate two trains, the train of sen sations and the train of ideas; but these all are separate individual realities. " All our distinct perceptions are distinct 3O2 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II existences, and the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences" (Hume). The philosophy of Experience is psychological Atomism.
There is nothing which the atoms possess in common, and there could be no " real connection " between them. They are conjoined by the agency of chance or fate. That im pressions should come to us in a certain arrangement, and should in some cases precede feebler counterparts of them selves — this springs from the unknown necessity of a nature, which we can not say is the nature of the units. And the secondary conjunction of impressions with ideas and of ideas with one another, what is this but the accident of Association, whose laws are nothing but general expressions for certain recurring kinds of irrational combination? Destiny and chance are two names of one lord that sways the procession of fleet ing units. In their short-lived occupation of that void which is the soul, they are combined by the accident of presentation or by the fate of association. And the " final inexplicability " of J. S. Mill may recall an echo of the " free will " of Epikurus.
§ 6. Having thus anticipated by a sweeping theory the nature of everything that is to be experienced, the school for the future, so long as it keeps true to the metaphysical doc trine on which it stands, may call itself the Philosophy of Experience. And it is also analytical 3; for does it not assume that every complex phenomenon of the mind is resolvable into the units which its theory has established? Its first principles no doubt are never analyzed; but analysis, it is obvious, must be broken off somewhere. If the " analytical school " is con tent to stop, then the limit of human thinking has been reached. If the Philosophy of Experience is content with the result, then surely the product of analysis must be fact. Analysis in the future will consist in the attempt to reconstruct syn thetically the phenomena of the mind from elements gained in accordance with first principles, and according to the Laws which first principles have established (cf. Book III. Part I. Chap. VI. §10). It is hardly necessary that in every case the existence of each element should be verified a posteriori. If, for the explanation of visual extension, it were first neces sary to verify in actual observation the fact of colour-sensa- CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 303 tions devoid of all extension, it is possible that the analysis could not be performed. And, since that analysis has been firmly established, it is clear that its basis can not be unreal. If we confine ourselves to the limits and the method of the school of Experience, we may be sure of one thing; if we are true to Experience we must be true to fact.
§ 7. We can appreciate now the nature of the claim which is laid to the titles of " experience " and " analysis." But we must hasten to examine the character of those Laws which rule the void and which move ideas. They answer, in the psychical empty space, to what is called " cohesion " or " at traction " in the external void (Hume, Treatise, I. I. 4). The two main principles are the law of Contiguity, and the law of Similarity or Agreement.
I. " Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring together or in close succession, tend to grow together, or cohere, in such a way that, when any one of them is after wards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea." Bain, Senses, p. 327.
II. "Present Actions, Sensations, Thoughts, or Emotions tend to revive their LIKE among previous Impressions, or States." Ibid.p.4$7- Or, to put the same thing in the opposite order, laws the first is, that similar ideas tend to excite one another. The second is, that when two impressions have been frequently experienced (or even thought of) either simultaneously or in immediate succession, then whenever one of these impressions, or the idea of it, recurs, it tends to excite the idea of the other." J. S. Mill, Logic, II. p. 44°, Ed. IX.
A briefer, and on the whole more accurate expression, would perhaps be this; Mental units which have co-existed cohere, and mental units which are like recall one ano least in image.
88 In saying that I entirely and utterly reject each one of these statements, I may be taken to deny the existence of fact. But (to repeat once more a distinction I have drawn) what I find it impossible to make myself believe is not fact which these formula may be taken as loosely Beating- It is on the contrary their theory of that fact which I can n swallow And I have no insurmountable objection to the use 304 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II of such statements; but I can not for one moment allow that they are true.
I shall give hereafter in greater detail those reasons which lead me to believe that these laws are nothing but fictions. But the main ground of objection may be stated at once. The ideas which are recalled according to these laws are particular existences. Individual atoms are the units of asso ciation. And I should maintain, on the contrary, that in all reproduction what operates everywhere is a common identity. No particular ideas are ever associated or ever could be. What is associated is and must be always universal.
It will be found, I think, the most convenient course, if I first give some account of the way in which I conceive association is effected, and then attempt to show that the method, commonly accepted as fact, is wholly fictitious.
§ 9. In the previous Book (p. 34, foil.) I have to some ex tent anticipated this discussion, and, trusting that the result to which we there came may be recalled by the reader, I may perhaps be here allowed to be brief. I have no hope of persuading the orthodox believer, and others may be willing to help in working out the sketch of a doctrine.
The main Law of Reproduction may be laid down thus; Any part of a single state of mind tends, if reproduced, to re-instate the remainder; or Any element tends to reproduce those elements with which it has formed one state of mind. This may be called the law of Redintegration. For we may take this name from Sir W. Hamilton (Reid, p. 897), having found nothing else that we could well take.
There are several points in the formula which call for explanation. We might ask, in the first place, What is a single state of mind? Does it exclude succession? It certainly does not do so. It may be further defined as any psychical com plex which is present together, presence signifying presenta tion, a certain direct relation to the mind which does not imply succession in time. As I have endeavoured (p. 53) to throw some light on the meaning of this term, I must be excused from a further discussion of it here.
In the second place the " parts " of this present state need not be either perceptions or ideas. For the formula includes CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 305 every possible kind of mental element; and this is the reason why we can not accept the principle as we find it laid down by Wolff and others. I will not here ask, if in the end it is not possible that association is confined to intellectual or perceptive elements (vid. Book III. I. Chap. III. §§20-22). It is better for ordinary purposes to suppose that it also ap plies to desires and feelings. But subject to this correction we may adopt, if we please, Wolff's statement of the law.
" Si quse simul percepimus et unius perceptio denuo pro- ducatur, sive sensuum sive imaginationis vi; imaginatio pro- ducit et perceptionem alterius — seu quod perinde est — per ceptio praeterita integra recurrit, cujus prsesens continet partem" (Psych. Emp. § 104).
Maas, following Wolff, has thus formulated the principle. " Given an idea or perception, then all those ideas, which be long with it to one total perceptive state, may immediately associate themselves with it, and no other ideas can do so." Or " Every idea, or perception, recalls to the mind its total perceptive context" (Versuch, Verb. Ausg. 1797, § 13).
This law of Redintegration, we must bear in mind, does not exclude any succession of events which comes as a whole before the mind; and it is not to be confined to perceptions and ideas.
§ 10. The law of redintegration is a very different thing from the law of contiguity, as that is understood by the school of Experience. Superficially alike, they are separated by the chasm that divides irreconcilable views of the world. For contiguity is cohesion between psychical units, and its elements are particular existing phenomena. What it couples is the actual individual impression or image, as such. It is not asso ciation between universals. But Redintegration is not any thing else. For it never re-instates the particular fact, can not deal with anything that could be a phenomenon, or could ever exist. It does not couple psychical units, but is entirely confined to what is universal.
We should find it hard to overstate the enormous diver gence of these two interpretations of the fact of association. Contiguity asserts a conjunction between existences, integration asserts a connection between universals, which as such do not exist. What operates in the first is an external 306 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. Px. II relation between individuals. What works in the second is an ideal identity within the individuals. The first deals with the that, and the second with the what. The first unites facts, and the second mere content.
According to the view which to me seems the truth, to talk of an association between psychical particulars is to utter mere nonsense. These particulars in the first place have got no permanence; their life endures for a fleeting moment. In the second place they can never have more than one life; when they are dead they are done with.4 There is no Hades where they wait in disconsolate exile, till Association an nounces resurrection and recall. When the fact is bodily buried in the past, no miracle opens the mouth of the grave and calls up to the light a perished reality, unchanged by the processes that rule in nature. These touching beliefs of a pious legend may babble in the tradition of a senile psychology, or contort themselves in the metaphysics of some frantic dogma, but philosophy must register them and sigh and pass on.
There is nothing we know which can warrant the belief that a particular fact can survive its moment, or that, when it is past, it can ever live again. We know it is true in our actual experience that reproduction presents us with particular images; but to assert that these are the perished originals is to demand a miracle to support our false beliefs. We have absolutely no kind of warrant in experience for our assurance, that what comes into the mind by Association is the particular as we had it. For the particular fact is made particular by an elaborate context and a detailed content. And this is not the context or content which comes back. What is recalled has not only got different relations; itself is different. It has lost some features, and some clothing of its qualities, and it has acquired some new ones. If then there is a resurrection assuredly what rises must be the ghost and not the individual. And if the ghost is not content with its spiritual body, it must come with some members which are not its own. In the hurry of the moment, we have reason to suspect, that the bodies of the dead may be used as common stock.
But if we are willing to throw over our orthodox creed, we may escape with less demand on our faith. The doctrine of