certed hours, the friends, who possessed this happy telegraph, were supposed to be able to communicate to each other their feelings, with the same accuracy and confidence as when they were together. "For when the different images of things, By chance combin'd have struck the attentive soul Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd Then, though disjoin'd by kingdoms, though, the main A song, a flower, a name, at once restore To temples, courts, or fields,—with all the band By these mysterious ties, the busy power What then are these mysterious ties ?-or, to state the question more philosophically, what are the general circumstances which regulate the successions of our ideas? That there is some regularity in these successions, must, as I have already remarked, have been felt by every one; and there are many references to such regularity in the works of philosophers of every age. The most striking ancient reference, however, to any general circumstances, or laws of suggestion, though the enumeration of these is hinted, rather than developed at any length,-is that which you will find in a passage, quoted by Dr. Beattie and Mr. Stewart, from Aristotle. It is a passage, explanatory of the process by which, in voluntary reminiscence, we endeavour to discover the idea of which we are in search. We are said to hunt for it-(Ongsjoμsv is the word in the original)-among other ideas, either of objects existing at present, or at some former time; and from their resemblance, contrariety, VOL. L "Painted-ORIG. + Pleasures of Imagination, Book III. v. 312–352. and contiguityἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν, ἢ ἄλλου τινὸς, καὶ ἀφ ̓ ὁμοίου, ἢ ἐναντίου, ἢ του συνέγγυς. Διὰ τοῦτο γινεταὶ ἡ ἀνάμνησις.* This brief enumeration of the general circumstances which direct us in reminiscence is worthy of our attention on its own account; and is not less remarkable on account of the very close resemblance which it bears to the arrangement afterwards made by Mr. Hume, though there is no reason to believe that the modern philosopher was at all acquainted with the classification which had, at so great a distance of time, anticipated his own. I must remark, however, that though it would be in the highest degree unjust to the well-known liberality and frankness of Mr. Hume's character, to suppose him to have been aware of any enumeration of the general circumstances on which suggestion appears to depend, prior to that which he has himself given us, his attempt was far from being so original as he supposed. I do not allude merely to the passage of Aristotle, already quoted, nor to a corresponding passage, which I might have quoted, from one of the most celebrated of his commentators, Dr. Thomas Aquinas, but to various passages which I have found in the works of writers of much more recent date, in which the influence of resemblance and contiguity, the two generic circumstances to which, on his own principles, his own triple division should have been reduced, is particularly pointed out. Thus, to take an example from an elementary work of a very eminent author, Ernesti, published in the year 1734,--his Initia Doctrine Solidioris,-with what precision has he laid down those very laws of association of which Mr. Hume speaks. After stating the general fact of suggestion, or association, under the Latin term phantasia, he proceeds to state the principles which guide it. All the variety of these internal successions of our ideas, he says, may be reduced to the following law. When one image is present in the mind, it may suggest the image of some absent object-either of one that is similar in some respect to that already present-or of one of which the present is a partor of one which has been present together with it on some former occasion. "Hujus autem phantasia lex hæc est; Præsentibus animo rerum imaginibus quibuscunque, recurrere et redire ad animum possunt rerum absentium olinque perceptarum imagices, præsentibus similes, vel quarum, quæ sunt præsentes, partes sunt,-vel denique, quas cum præsentibus simul hausimus."t Even the arrangemcat, is stated by Mr. Hume, is not expressed in more formal terms. But as it is to his arrangement the philosophers of our own country are accustomed to refer, in treating of association, the importance thus attached to it gives a preferable claim to our fuller discussion. It is stated by him briefly in two paragraphs of his Essay on the Association of Ideas. "Though it be too obvious to escape observation," he says, "that different ideas are connected together, I do not find that any philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of association; a subject, however, that seems worthy of curiosity. To me there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas, viz. resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause or effect. "That these principles serve to connect ideas, will not, I believe, be much doubted. A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original. The mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an inquiry *Aristot. de Memor. and Reminisc. c. ii. v. II. p. 86. Edit. Du Val + De Mente Humana, C. 1. Sect. xvi. p. 138, 139. or discourse concerning the others. And if we think of a wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows it. But that the enumeration is complete, and that there are no other principles of association except these, may be difficult to prove to the satisfaction of the reader or even to a man's own satisfaction. All we can do, in such cases, is to run over several instances, and examine carefully the principle which binds the different thoughts to each other, never stopping, till we render the principle as general as possible. The more instances we examine, and the more care we employ, the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration which we form from the whole is complete and entire."* On these paragraphs of Mr. Hume, a few obvious criticisms present themselves. In the first place, however, I must observe,-to quality in some degree the severity of the remarks which may be made on his classification, -that it is evident, from the very language now quoted to you, that he is far from bringing forward his classification as complete. He states, indeed, that it appears to him, that there are no other principles of connexion among our ideas than the three which he has mentioned; but he adds, that though the reality of their influence as connecting principles will not, he believes, be much doubted, it may still be difficult to prove, to the satisfaction of his reader, or even of himself, that the enumeration is complete; and he recommends, in consequence, a careful examination of every instance of sugges‐ tion, in the successive trains of our ideas, that other principles, if any such there be, may be detected. But to proceed to the actual classification, as presented to us by Mr. Hume. A note, which he has added to the paragraph that contains his system, affords perhaps as striking an instance as is to be found in the history of science of that illusion, which the excessive love of simplicity tends to produce, even in the most acute and subtile philosopher, so as to blind, to the most manifest inconsistencies, in his own arrangement, those powers of critical discernment which would have flushed instant detection on inconsistencies far less glaringly apparent in the speculations of another. After stating, that there appear to him to be only the three principles of connexion already mentioned, Mr. Hume adds, in a note,--as an instance of other connexions apparently different from these three, which may, notwithstanding, be reduced to them, "Contrast or contrariety, also, is a species of connexion among ideas. But it may perhaps be considered as a mixture of causation and resem‐ blance. Where two objects are contrary, the one destroys the other, i. e. is the cause of its annihilation, and the idea of the annihilation of an object implies the idea of its former existence." When we hear or read for the first time this little theory of the suggestions of contrast, there is, perhaps, no one who does not feel some difficulty in believing it to be a genuine speculation of that powerful mind which produced it. Contrast, says Mr. Hume, is a mixture of causation and resemblance. An object, when contrasted with another, destroys it. In destruction there is causation; and we cannot conceive destruction, without having the idea of former existence. Thus, to take an instance-Mr. Hume does not deny, that the idea of a dwarf may suggest, by contrast, the idea of a giant; but he says that the idea of a dwarf suggests the idea of a giant, because the idea of a dwarf destroys the idea of a giant, and thus, by the connecting • Hume's Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sect. III. principle of causation involved in all destruction, may suggest the idea destroyed; and he adds, as an additional reason for the suggestion, that the idea of the annihilation of a giant implies the idea of the former existence of a giant. And all this strange and complicated analysis, this explanation, not of the obscurum per obscurius, which is a much more intelligible paralogism, but of the lucidum per obscurum, is seriously brought forward by its very acute author, as illustrating the simple and familiar fact of the suggestion of opposites, in contrast, by opposites. In the first place, I may remark, that in Mr. Hume's view of contrast, it is not easy to discover what the resemblance is of which he speaks, in a case in which the objects in themselves are said by him to be so contrary, that the one absolutely destroys the other by this contrariety alone; and, indeed, if there be truly this mixed resemblance in contrast, what need is there of having recourse to annihilation or causation at all, to account for the suggestion, since the resemblance alone in this, as in every other case, might be sufficient to explain the suggestion, without the necessity of any separate division;-as the likeness of a single feature in the countenance of a stranger, is sufficient to bring before us in conception the friend whom he resembles, though the resemblance be in the single feature only. In the second place, there is no truth, if, indeed, there be any meaning whatever, in the assertion that in contrast one of the objects destroys the other; for, so far is the idea of the dwarf from destroying the idea of the giant, that, in the actual case supposed, it is the very reason of the existence of the second idea; nay, the very supposition of a perceived contrast implies that there is no such annihilation; for both ideas must be present to the mind together, or they could not appear either similar or dissimilar, that is to say, could not be known by us as contrasted, or contrary, in any respect. It is, indeed, not very easy to conceive, how a mind so acute as that of Mr. Hume should not have discovered that grossest of all logical and physical errors, involved in his explanation, that it accounts for the existence of a feeling, by supposing it previously to exist as the cause of itself. If, as he says, the idea of the annihilation of an object implies the idea of its former existence-an assertion which is by no means so favourable as he thinks to his own theory-it must surely be admitted, that no annihilation can take place before the existence of that which is to be annihilated. Whether, therefore, we suppose, that the idea of the dwarf, which suggests the idea of the giant, annihilates that idea, or is itself annihilated by it, the two ideas of the dwarf and the giant must have existed before the annihilation of either. The suggestion, in short, which is the difficulty, and the only difficulty to be explained, must have completely taken place, before the principle can even be imagined to operate, on which the suggestion itself is said to depend. Such minute criticism, however, is perhaps more than it is necessary to give to a doctrine so obviously false, even sanctioned as it is by so very eminent a name. LECTURE XXXV. ON MR. HUME'S CLASSIFICATION OF THE CAUSES OF ASSOCIATE FEELINGS, CONCLUDED-PRIMARY LAWS OF SUGGESTION--I. RESEMBLANCE. In the conclusion of my last Lecture, gentlemen, I offered some remarks on Mr. Hume's classification of the circumstances on which he supposes our associate trains of thought to depend, and, particularly, on the strange attempt which he made, in conformity with this arrangement, to reduce contrast, as a connecting principle of our ideas, into causation and resemblance,—an attempt which, as we have seen, explains nothing,and explains nothing with most laborious incongruity. Of such mistakes of such a mind, it should, as I have already remarked, be the natural tendency to inspire us with more diffidence in our own judgment, and more indulgent toleration for the want of discernment in others, which, in the intercourse of life, we must often have to discover and lament. Above all, as the most instructive lesson which can be derived from them, they should teach us the folly of attaching ourselves implicitly to great names; since, in adopting the whole system of opinions, even of the most acute philosophers, we may be in danger of embracing tenets, the absurdity of which, though altogether unobserved by their illustrious authors, minds of a much humbler class might, perhaps, have been swifter to perceive, and which, if they had first occurred to ourselves, in our own speculations, unsanctioned by authority, we should probably not have hesitated a single moment in rejecting. To the threefold division which Mr. Hume has made, of the principles of association in the trains of our ideas, as consisting in resemblance, contiguity, and causation, there is an obvious objection of a very different kind, not founded on excessive simplicity, the love of which might more naturally be supposed to have misled him, but on its redundancy, according to the very principles of his own theory. Causation, far from being opposed to contiguity, so as to form a separate class, is, in truth, the most exquisite species of proximity in time,-and in most cases of contiguity in place also,-which could be adduced; because it is not a proximity depending on casual circumstances, and consequently liable to be broken, as these circumstances may exist apart,-but one which depends only on the mere existence of the two objects that are related to each other as cause and effect, and therefore fixed and never failing. Other objects may sometimes be proximate; but a cause and effect,-are always proximate, and must be proximate, and are, indeed, classed in that relation, merely from this constant proximity. On his own principles, therefore, the three connexions of our ideas should indisputably be reduced to two. To speak of resemblance, contiguity, and causation, as three distinct classes, is, with Mr. Hume's view of causation, and, indeed, with every view of it, as if a mathematician should divide lines into straight, curved, and circular. The inhabitants of China are said to have made a proverbial division of the human race, into men, women, and ChiWith their view of their own importance, we understand the proud superiority of the distinction which they have made. But this sarcastic insolence would surely have been absurdity itself, if they had not intended it to nese. |