CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 307 Redintegration does not ask us to subscribe to the belief that what is past exists over again. It offers a simpler explanation of the facts. Given any presentation X, which has a content such as...abode..., it asserts that the oneness of this presentation is in a certain sense a connection of its content. The fact of the presentation absolutely disappears. What is left behind is a mental result,5 into the ultimate meta physical nature of which we do not here enquire. But this result is not a phenomenon, not a particular image or relation of such images. It is an alteration of the mind, which shows itself to us as a tendency to pass from content to content. It is a connection, not between this a and this &, or this c and this d, but between the universals a and &, or c and d. It is a quality of the mind which manifests itself in the fact that, if we have one part of the content which appeared in X, then— although everything which particularized that content in X, and gave it existence, has disappeared— this bare universal a'b, c, or d, when given with a different set of particulars, may re-instate by its ideal identity any other of the universals, a, b, c, or d. It will recall it certainly in a particular clothing, but this clothing will be determined by present mental circum stances, and will not be the clothing of its past existence. And this particular clothing, again and in the second place, is not the bond which works in the reproduction. What works is the connection between the universals, and the basis of that work ing is the ideal identity of some element in what is present am in what is past.
§ ii I have illustrated my meaning already by anticipa tion (p. 35), and shall illustrate it hereafter. At present must hasten to meet an objection. I maintain that all asso ciation is between universals, and that no other associate exists Every kind of reproduction, in my judgment, takes place by virtue of identity plus the connection of universals. "And do you really," there may here come a protest, you really believe this holds good with emotions? If castor- oil has made me sick once, so that I can not see it or even think of it without uneasiness, is this too a «™^J^J5 universals?" I reply without hesitation that beheve t » so; and that I must believe this or else accept a ^miracle a miracle moreover which is not in harmony with the facts it 308 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. Pi. II is invoked to explain. You believe then, I feel inclined to reply, that the actual feelings, which accompanied your vomit ing, have risen from the dead in a paler form once more to trouble you. I could not credit that even if it answered to the facts. And it does not answer, since the new feeling is clearly different from the old one. The old feeling was the event it was, by its presence in a certain series of events. It had a number of accompaniments, conditions, and circum stances, which belonged to it as this feeling. The psycho logical environment was in great part different. Nay, if we could observe it, we should probably find that its actual in ternal content has varied. We should see degrees or shades of quality, which in the two cases would probably not be the same. Your miraculous supposition is therefore not even a fiction which will work.
And if you say that, by the sameness of the feeling, you mean a feeling which is the same in kind, and for all practical purposes one with the other, this is exactly the thesis which I wish to establish, and which you have objected to. The feelings of sickness are the same in the main, that is, they have an identical content, which is the same although the contexts are different. But, if so, is it not, I would ask, admitted that what is reproduced is not the particular but is the universal? The first conjunction of castor-oil and sick ness has no longer the smallest existence as fact. But it gave rise to a connection of elements in the mind, which elements are an idealized part of the content of this perished fact. The new presentation of castor-oil is a fact which is certainly not the old fact; yet it has a content which is partly the same. The presence of this identical universal supplies the antecedent to the hypothetical connection of elements in the mind, and this then passes from hypothesis into actual fact. In other words the ideal identity of this castor-oil with that castor-oil recovers ideally, and in an universal form, another element of the original context, And, so far as mere reproduction goes, nothing but the universal could ever be called up. It is the fresh presentation which adds detail to the reproduced ele ment. This new perception re-particularizes the universal, and does so in a way which will not be the old way, and in many cases will be strikingly different. But such re-particularization CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 309 (if the term may be allowed) is not association, and is not reproduction. For though the new particular feeling of sick ness is no doubt the result of reproduction, yet it never was associated, and it can not have been reproduced, since it exists now for the first time. You may say that by a miracle the old feeling of sickness without detriment to its sameness has been changed en route; but this very change and this very difference is the denial of your doctrine, unless your doctrine too is from time to time changed by a parallel miracle.
I do not say that we should be right to reduce all repro duction to logical redintegration.6 That is a point on which I shall touch hereafter (Book III. I. Chap. III. §20). It does not concern us here. For it is not necessary to believe that the " idea " of a feeling is a logical idea, and that it is a con scious or even an unconscious symbol. What must however be believed is that it is an universal. And this need give rise to not the smallest psychological difficulty. Whatever differences may separate the various kinds of psychical phe nomena, they are all alike in one point. They all have con tent 7 as well as existence. They are not confined to the "that," but each has a "what," since there is a complex quality and relations of quality.* And, this being so, we have all that is required for the formation of universals. For an identity of content in different contexts is and must be an universal, whether we are dealing with perceptions or feelings or volitions.
§ 12. To suppose the presence and the operation of uni versals in all reproduction, introduces a unity into our view of the soul. It enables us to interpret all stages of mind as the growth of one principle. We can thus accept without abridgment the very highest phenomena, and we can show their root in the lowest and rudest beginnings of the soul. We may say that experience will begin when a present per ception has one part of its content identical with a past, and when this common universal re-instates another part of the original context. But that past element most certainly does not reappear in its particular form. It too is universal, and it is the connection of these universals which operates in the mind. Hence the content of the perception, which is now * Quality at this stage covers quantity.
3IO THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II present, is extended by means of this ideal synthesis, and, itself individual, individualizes the result. This true account is in harmony with fact. But, on the other hand, to suppose that one or more particular feelings or images are magically recalled and adhere to the perception, is directly contrary to the plain facts of observation. For these separate particulars are palpably absent; and in order to explain their obvious absence it is necessary to invoke a Law of Obliviscence, by which their details may again be shorn off. But this Law of Obliviscence has no title to exist in the shape which is given to it, except that it is demanded by an erroneous theory (vid. inf. §25). A miracle is first invoked to explain the facts, and then a fiction introduced to square the facts to the miracle.
But the unviolated facts support redintegration by identity. In a rudimentary soul a present sensation has its content in creased by internal extension. There are not several facts before the mind, but there is a single fact whose content, after enlargement, consists in part of an unconscious inference. The sensation is extended by an ideal supplement, and this supplement, through union with the individual sensation, be comes for the mind individual fact. On this view there is no psychical phenomenon which intervenes between the sensa tion and the resulting perception. We have not to postulate the irrelevant and conflicting detail of particular images, and have no need to rid ourselves of this palpable fiction by any arbitrary Law. Or again, if the result of the new sensation be desire or action, our theory still maintains its superiority. Let us however try to exhibit this in detail.
What is the fact to be explained? It is, I think, this. A sensation Ab has once led to an action Cd; and now a sensation E& (the same with A in respect of &) is presented. E& is then followed by an action ~Fd, which in respect of d is identical with Cd. Such is the fact, and we have two com peting explanations. On the first and incorrect interpretation E& calls up a particular image of Ab. The latter is associated with the particular idea of an action Cd, and Cd produces Fd. The transition is thus, E& — Ab — Cd — ¥d; and this transition is discrete from atom to atom. This is the first interpretation. On the other, Eb directly redintegrates df and Ebd directly produces EbdF. The transition may be stated as Eb — d — F; CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 3! I but, since b and d are universals and are not psychical phe nomena, the actual transition is unbroken from E to F. Now which of these explanations accords best with fact? The fact is that the supposed intermediate units, A& and Cd, can not be verified in observation. Their presence is deduced a priori, and is not pointed out a posteriori. We are then asked to believe that their presence exists though we can not see it; for it is hidden by the Laws of Obliviscence. But this mys terious agency has itself been manufactured a priori. It again can not be verified in actual experience. Hence we have first a principle which produces something other than our fact, and then an arbitrary invention to patch up this mistake. Such is the first interpretation; and let us look at the second. On that, I will not say that nothing is asserted either more or less than what can be observed, but I will say this. Not only is one principle used throughout, and that one sufficient to explain the facts, but there is no result, and not the fraction of a phenomenon, postulated by this principle, but what can be shown a posteriori. And, even apart from all question of truth and falsehood, a theory which demands two compensating hypotheses, must surely be rejected in favour of a theory, which works as well with one single hypothesis.
§ 13. But I shall be told, " This statement of the case is absurd. In the first place, and apart from truth and falsehood, the theory you advocate does not cover the facts. It fails to explain the suggestion of similars. Again and in the second place, the hypothesis you adopt is demonstrably false. And a single hypothesis is not admissible if it is insufficient, if it is not true, and if a true explanation is within our reach, answer, In the first place, as I shall soon point out, the reduction of suggestion to redintegration is an accomplished fact. And in the second place the falsity of redintegration can not be shown; but on the other hand what can be demon strated is, that your hypothesis is false. For (i) there is no such thing as Association by Contiguity; (ii) there is no such thing as Association by Similarity. I will try to make both o these last points quite plain, and will then return to de the true explanation.
§ 14 (i) Let us begin with Contiguity. What is the true view? The true doctrine is that, when elements have co- 312 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II existed, they tend to be connected. What does this mean? It means that if (say) in a perception A the elements p and y are conjoined, the mind gets a tendency to join one to the other whenever either reappears. But what are P and y? They are universals. They have been detached from their original environment, and to some extent stripped of their particular qualities. They are not individual images. Thus if I have seen a black man stabbed with a sword in a certain street at a certain time and under certain conditions, what is left in the mind is not a connection between these special sensations, or between special images which are their feebler counterparts. I might shudder when I saw a white cow threatened with a butcher's knife at another time and place and under different conditions. For what is associated is not the images, it is always universals or types, which as such have no real existence, even in the mind. This is the true view. We will pass to the consideration of the erroneous doctrine.
There is not much doubt, I think, as to what that doc trine really is. But its adherents allow themselves a looseness of statement which is sometimes excessive; and we hardly know the point at which their mythology becomes conscious. We are at times led to think that past perceptions continue to exist, and on occasion rise to be seen of men. For observe the definition.
" Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring to gether or in close succession, tend to grow together, or co here, in such a way that, when any one of them is afterwards presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up in idea." " When two impressions have been frequently experi enced (or even thought of) either simultaneously or in im mediate succession, then whenever one of these impressions, or the idea of it, recurs, it tends to excite the idea of the other."
A definition is not the place where one looks for fancy, but for actual belief. But consider these phrases, " when any one of them is afterwards presented" " whenever one of these im pressions recurs." Are they feasible unless the writer believes in the coarsest form of subterranean existence and of the Resurrection of the Body? But neither of the writers pro fesses to hold that belief. They both repudiate it. And yet CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 313 that does not prevent both of them from speaking as if they accepted it in full, and at least one of them from reasoning on the assumption of its truth.* § 15. This point perhaps may be dismissed as a mere ques tion of statement; for there is no doubt that our authors would stoutly deny that the past impression is recalled to life. " Whenever one of these impressions, or the idea of it, re curs " are words that must be used in a popular sense. Then what is the exact sense? Are we to amend the formula by writing simply, " whenever the idea of one of these impres sions recurs "?
Even so we are still in the land of mythology. The " ideas " that are meant are particular existences. The fleet ing impressions in their passage through the void throw off feebler counterparts, shed pale doubles of themselves. And the idea, like the impression, is a particular unit; it is no uni versal but an actual phenomenon. It certainly is called " the idea of the impression," but this phrase does not mean that the two have any substantial identity. It means that one fol lows the other in time, and in fainter traces shows a similar detail. But if this is what is meant, it is not what is said.
" Whenever," we are told, " the idea of it recurs." But the idea, like the impression, exists only for a moment. Then how can it " recur " unless it is the same; and how can it be the same unless it has remained? We may figure to ourselves the faithful ghost, haunting the place where the body is not, and called up to the light by the spell of Association. But we surely must know that these pious legends are not literally true. For the image, like the sensation, endures but for a moment. And if the impression does not "recur/; then the idea does not "recur"; since in this respect there i ference between them.
It is mere mythology to talk of the copy, which the im pression has sloughed off, persisting in the world and preser ing its identity through the flux of change. The word recurs *I refer to J. S. Mill. See his Hamilton, Chap. XI. and 314 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II We must call them " different ideas of the impression." And here, I think, we are approaching danger. For we naturally consider that, in a case of association, there is some one con nection throughout all the instances. We can hardly help be lieving, and talking as if we believed, that when (as we should like to say) something " recurs," then something else " recurs " also. But we must strip off this illusion, or wear it only when we come before the public. There is nothing that recurs. The original impression is one mental unit, the first idea is another, the second idea is a third passing atom, and so on for ever. There is no real bond which unites them together. There is no common internal identity, which is the same in all and recurs amid change. If we call them " the ideas of one impression," even this is mere fable. We have a likeness no doubt, in all these cases. A hundred images, or more it may be, with all their differences and all their particularity, are yet each of them particular in such a way that they are all like each other, and all like the impression. This is startling, I admit, but even this does not warrant us in considering any one to be the same as the other, and united by holding the one substance of their prototype. If we desire a legend which perhaps may be harmless, we may call them all " ideas of the impression " in the sense that, like Abraham, the impression while it lived had them all in its loins. For no vehicle conveys the eternal verities half so well as does the labyrinth of a fantastic genealogy, with its one-sided begettings and ab normal parturition.
§ 16. " Whenever one of these impressions, or the idea of it, recurs, it tends to excite the idea of the other." This is what we started from. What are we left with? " Impres sions " is gone: " recurs " is gone: " idea of it " is gone. It seems that we must thus amend our formula, " Whenever an idea like one of these impressions occurs, it tends to excite the idea of the other." This surely will stand: this at last must be true. Unfortunately not so; for it still says too much and must be further cut down; and yet already it has begun to say too little, and will now no longer cover the facts. But I will at present keep to the too much. The phrase " to excite the idea of the other " must at once be corrected. It should run "to excite an idea like the other." And we must CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 315 further amend the beginning of our formula. For " when two impressions have been frequently experienced" is quite mythological. // two impressions were " frequently experi enced," they would be two no longer. The phrase is nonsen sical, unless several experiences are one experience: and that we know is not true. We must alter this also, and in our final correction the law must be stated.
" When we have experienced (or even thought of) several pairs of impressions (simultaneous or successive), which pairs of impressions are like one another; then whenever an idea occurs which is like all the impressions on one side of these pairs, it tends to excite an idea which is like all the impressions on the other side."
This I believe to be the meaning of Association by Con tiguity. And at this point perhaps it may occur to us to ask, what is it that is contiguous, and what is it that is associated? The impressions are not associated; I presume that is ob vious. They are conjoined in presentation, just like anything else we perceive together is conjoined. It is the ideas which are associated, since one, as we see, can bring up another. But then in what sense are the ideas contiguous? They are now successive, or simultaneous, because of the contiguity. Contiguity conjoins them, and it would be nonsense to ^say that they become conjoined because already they are contigu ous. For if they are contiguous, then both must be there, and how can one call in the other? And if they are not contigu ous, then it is not their contiguity which brings them together. This consideration seems to me quite palpable; but the result is fatal to the Law of Contiguity.
The law operates by means of and through contiguity, and therefore presupposes it. But there is no contiguity save that of the impressions. It must be then the contiguity of impressions which works. Because they were together once, the ideas come together now. But, if so, what becomes of association? For the impressions are not associated, and association is, if anywhere, between a present and an absent idea What is associated was therefore not contiguous, and what was contiguous is now not associated. Association and contiguitv fall hopelessly asunder; and hence let our law b never so' real, it can not be the Law of Association by Con- 3l6 THE PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC BOOK II. PT. II tiguity. In short, the whole thing comes to this. If impres sions have been contiguous, then ideas which are like them now tend to excite one another. And for myself, I can not see how in any intelligible sense this is the association of ideas.
§ 17. And now (to come to the other side of the failure) if we state the law in this corrected form, it will not cover the facts of the case. For commonly an impression is what is first given, and then this impression calls up an idea. Thus if one fire has already been felt to be hot, then, if another fire is seen, the idea heat comes. Thus an idea is excited by what is not an idea, and by what never has been contiguous to anything. We must once more and finally thus amend our formula, "If any mental units have been contiguous, then any others which resemble them may excite one another." There is not left here a vestige of association. And the union of the ele ments somehow takes place by virtue of the past contiguity of something else.
§ 1 8. Association by contiguity may be taken as exploded. But the philosophy of Experience is, to some extent at least, prepared for this result. It will admit so much, that mere contiguity will not work by itself. And it proposes to sup port it by another agent. There is no such thing, it is ready to allow, as association by bare contiguity. All reproduction in a certain sense depends on similarity.
" 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 co-exist 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." " There is, therefore, a suggestion by resemblance — a calling up of the idea of a CHAP. I THE THEORY OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 317 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." J. S. Mill, on James Mill, I. 112, 113.
"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 con tiguity; 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 oppor tunity given to the contiguous bond to come into operation." Bain, ibid. p. 121.
Let us try to understand this amended doctrine. In the first place we must remember that, when identity is spoken of, it is not really mecmt. What is meant is more or less of similarity. And this point must not be lost sight of.
In the second place I must be allowed to complain of a serious inaccuracy in the extract I have quoted from Professor Bain. It surely is nonsense to talk of " re-instating the previous impression," and I must add that in this context the nonsense seems inexcusable. And again in the first of the ex tracts there is ambiguity. The " remembrance of a sensation," we must clearly understand, does not revive the sensation itself, and does not establish any actual relation with that mental unit which no longer exists. If this is not so, and if a psy chical phenomenon can maintain or recover its existence and identity through the flux of events, then the whole theory from which the school of Association starts has been tacitly thrown over.
But, if an impression when past is done with, if it is really non-existent, then not only can it not be re-instated bodily, but itself can not even be re-instated in idea. The fact which is covered by the delusive phrase " idea of it," is merely the fact that a sensation came first, and then subsequently there