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his individual experience. We all know, not only that our minds are susceptible of new states, but what is more, that this capability of new states is not fortuitous, but has its laws. Therefore, we not only say, that our thoughts and feelings succeed each other, but that this antecedence and sequence is in a regular train. To this regular and established consecution of the states of the mind, we give the name of MENTAL ASSOCIATION.

Illustrations of this important principle, which exerts an influence over the emotions and desires as well as over the thoughts, are without number. Mr. Hobbes relates, in his political treatise of the Leviathan, that he was once in company, where the conversation turned on the English Civil War. A person abruptly asked, in the course of the conversation, what was the value of a Roman denarius ? Such a question, so remote from the general direction of the conversation, had the appearance not only of great abruptness, but of impertinence. Mr. Hobbes says, that, on a little reflection, he was able to trace the train of thought, which suggested the question. The original subject of discourse naturally introduced the history of king Charles; the king naturally suggested the treachery of those, who surrendered him up to his enemies; the treachery of these persons readily introduced to the mind the treachery of Judas Iscariot; the conduct of Judas was associated with the thirty pieces of silver, and as the Romans occupied Judea at the time of the crucifixion of the Savior, the pieces of silver were associated with the Roman denarii.

When I was travelling through the wilds of America, (says the eloquent Chateaubriand,) I was not a little surprized to hear, that I had a countryman established as a resident, at some distance in the woods. I visited him with eagerness, and found him employed in pointing some stakes at the door of his hut. He cast a look towards me, which was cold enough, and continued his work, but the moment I addressed him in French, he started at the recollection of his country, and the big tear stood in his eye. These well known accents suddenly roused, in the heart of the old man, all the sensations of his infancy.

* Chateaubriand's recollections of Italy, England, and America.

The emperor Napoleon, whose present cares might be supposed to have greatly weakened the chain of thought and feeling, that bound him to the past, is said to have once expressed himself thus. "Last Sunday evening, in the general silence of nature, I was walking in these grounds, [of Malmaison.] The sound of the church-bell of Ruel fell upon my ear, and renewed all the impressions of my youth. I was profoundly affected, such is the power of early associations."* -Such illustrations, which appeal to every one's consciousness in confirmation of their truth, show what association is.

§. 217. Of the general laws of association.

In regard to Association, all that we know is the fact, that our thoughts and feelings, under certain circumstances, appear together and keep each other company. We do not undertake to explain, why it is, that association, in the circumstances appropriate to its manifestation, has an existence. We know the simple fact; and if it be an ultimate principle in our mental constitution, as we have no reason to doubt that it is, we can know nothing more.

Association, as thus understood, has its laws. By the Laws of association, we mean no other than the general designation of those circumstances, under which the regular consecution of mental states, which has been mentioned, occurs. The following may be named as among the Primary, or more important of those laws, although it is not necessary to take upon us to assert, either that the enumeration is complete, or that some better arrangement of them might not be proposed, viz., RESEMBLANCE, CONTRAST, CONTIGUITY in time and place, and CAUSE and EFFECT.

§. 218. Resemblance the first general law of association.

New trains of ideas and new emotions are occasioned by Resemblance; but when we say, that they are occasioned in this way, all that is meant is, that there is a new state of mind, immediately subsequent to the perception of the resembling object. Of the efficient cause of this new state of mind under these circumstances, we can only say, the Creator of the soul has seen fit to appoint this connection' in its

* Scott's Life of Napoleon, vol. 11, chap. XXXIV,

operations, without our being able, or deeming it necessary to give any further explanation. A traveller, wandering in a foreign land, finds himself in the course of his sojournings in the midst of aspects of nature not unlike those, where he has formerly resided, and the fact of this resemblance becomes the antecedent to new states of mind. There is distinctly brought before him the scenery, which he has left, his own woods, his waters, and his home. The enterprising Lander, in giving an account of one of his excursions in Africa, expresses himself thus: "The foliage exhibited every variety and tint of green, from the sombre shade of the melancholy yew to the lively verdure of the poplar and young oak. For myself, I was delighted with the agreeable ramble; and imagined that I could distinguish among the notes of the songsters of the grove, the swelling strains of the English skylark and thrush, and the more gentle warbling of the finch and linnet. It was indeed a brilliant morning, teeming with life and beauty; and recalled to my memory a thousand affecting associations of sanguine boyhood, when I was thoughtless and happy. "

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The result is the same in any other case, whenever there is a resemblance between what we now, experience, and what we have previously experienced. We have been acquainted, for instance, at some former period with a person whose features appeared to us to possess some peculiarity, a breadth and openness of the forehead, an uncommon expression of the eye, or some other striking mark ;-to-day we meet a stranger in the crowd, by which we are surrounded, whose features are of a somewhat similar cast, and the resemblance at once vividly suggests the likeness of our old acquaintance.

Nor is the association, which is based upon resemblance, limited to objects of sight. Objects, which are addressed to the sense of hearing, are recalled in the same way.

"How soft the music of those village bells,

"Falling at intervals upon the ear.

"With easy force it opens all the cells

"Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard

“A kindred melody, the scene recurs,

"And with it all its pleasures and its pains."

§. 219. Resemblance in every particular not necessary.

It is not necessary that the RESEMBLANCE should be complete in every particular, in order to its being a principle or law of association. It so happens, (to use an illustration of Brown,*) that we see a painted portrait of a female countenance, which is adorned with a ruff of a peculiar breadth and display; and we are, in consequence, immediately reminded of queen Elizabeth. Not because there is any resemblance between the features before us and those of the English sovereign, but because in all the painted representations, which we have seen of her, she is uniformly set off with this peculiarity of dress, with a ruff like that, which we now see. Here the resemblance between the suggesting thing and that which is suggested, is not a complete resemblance, does not exist in all the particulars, in which they may be compared together, but is limited to a part of the dress.

That a single resembling circumstance, (and perhaps one of no great importance,) should so readily suggest the complete conception of another object or scene, which is made up of a great variety of parts, seems to admit of some explanation in this way. We take, for example, an individual ;the idea which we form of the individual is a complex one, made up of the forehead, eyes, lips, hair, general figure, dress, &c. These separate, subordinate ideas, when combined together and viewed as a whole, have a near analogy to any of our ideas, which are compounded, and are capable of being resolved into elements more simple. When, therefore, we witness a ruff of a size and decoration more than ordinary, we are at once reminded of that ornament in the habiliments of the British queen; and this on the ground of Resemblance. But this article in the decorations of her person is the foundation of only one part of a very complex state of mind, which embraces the features and the general appearance. As there has been a long continued co-existence of those separate parts, which make up this complex state, the recurrence to the mind of one part or of one idea is necessarily attended with the recurrence of all the others.

§. 220. Of resemblance in the effects produced. Resemblance operates, as an associating principle, not * Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. xxxv.

only when there is a likeness or similarity in the things themselves, but also when there is a resemblance in the effects, which are produced upon the mind. The ocean, for instance, when greatly agitated by the winds, and threatening every moment to overwhelm us, produces in the mind an emotion, similar to that, which is caused by the presence of an angry man, who is able to do us harm. And in consequence of this similarity in the effects produced, it is sometimes the case that they reciprocally bring each other to our recollection.

Dark woods, hanging over the brow of a mountain, cause in us a feeling of awe and wonder, like that, which we feel, when we behold, approaching us, some aged person, whose form is venerable for his years, and whose name is renowned for wisdom and justice. It is in reference to this view of the principle, on which we are remarking, that the following comparison is introduced in Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination.

"Mark the sable woods,

"That shade sublime yon mountain's nodding brow;
"With what religious awe the solemn scene

"Commands your steps! As if the reverend form

"Of Minos or of Numa should forsake

"The Elysian seats, and down the embowering glade
"Move to your pausing eye."

As we are so constituted, that all nature produces in us certain effects, causes certain emotions, similar to those, which are caused in us in our intercourse with our fellowbeings, it so happens that, in virtue of this fact, the natural world becomes living, animated, operative. The ocean is in anger; the sky smiles; the cliff frowns; the aged woods are venerable; the earth and its productions are no longer a dead mass, but have an existence, a soul, an agency.We see here the foundation of metaphorical language; and it is here, that we are to look for the principles, by which we are to determine the propriety or impropriety of its use.

§. 221. Contrast the second general or primary law.

CONTRAST is another law or principle, by which our successive mental states are suggested; or, in other terms, when there are two objects, or events, or situations of a character

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