the evidence of consciousness itself, that, as the perceptions originally coexisted, or were immediately successive, some mysterious connexion of those states of mind might be formed at the time of this coexistence, or immediate proximity, that might deserve to be expressed by the particular name of association,-in consequence of which connexion, the one state afterwards was to induce the other. But when there has been no such coexistence or succession,-as in the case of the first suggestions of contrast,-what association can there have been on which the suggestions may be supposed to have depended? The association, in such a case, is manifestly nothing more than the momentary influence of the tendency of the suggestion itself; and to say that the suggestion depends on association, is the same thing as it would be to say, that suggestion depends upon suggestion. It depends, indeed, on the relation of the suggesting object to the object suggested,--as similar, opposite, contiguous in time or place, or in some other way related,--the tendency to suggest relative feelings after relative feelings being one of the original susceptibilities of the mind, essential to its very nature,--but it depends on nothing more; and an object, therefore, the very moment of our first perception of it, may suggest some object that is related to it in one or other of these ways as readily, as after we have perceived it a thousand times; though it surely would be a very strange use of a very common term to speak of any previous association in this case, and to say, that objects were associated before they had existence, as they must have been, if this first suggestion had depended on any prior union, or process of any kind.

I need not repeat, that my argument, in this discussion, proceeds on that universal opinion of philosophers, in which our suggestions are considered as of various classes, and not on that more subtile analysis, by which I have endeavoured to show, that there may possibly be only a finer species of proximity in all, though in this case, too, it is equally evident, that the process of association, if it were gratuitously supposed as something different from the original feelings themselves, would be at once equally hypothetical and equally inefficacious for explaining the subsequent suggestions. That an object seen for the first time does suggest many relative conceptions, no one surely will deny; and this single conside ration, I cannot but think,-if the distinction universally made, of various principles of suggestion, be admitted,―should, of itself, have led to juster notions of our trains of thought. It appears to me, indeed, as I have said on that view of our suggestions, to be absolutely decisive of the question; since,

whatever might be supposed in other cases, in this case, at least, there cannot have been any previous connexion of that which suggests with that which is suggested. It proves, that the tendency of the mind, in suggestion, is not to exist successively in states which have been previously associated, but simply to exist in successive states, which have to each other certain relations, permanent or accidental,-those relations which, in former Lectures, were considered by us, as reducible to certain primary laws of suggestion.

I am aware that this long argument, on a single point, and that, in itself, not a very interesting one, must have appeared to you rather a heavy tax upon your patience. But, though it is a point not very interesting in itself, or in the sort of discussion and illustration which it admits, it is one which is very interesting, in the applications that may be made of it; particularly as a clear view of the distinction which I wish to impress on your minds, will free you from much misconception, which has clouded the language and opinion of philosophers on this subject, and will prepare you, I flatter myself, for admitting, more readily, that simple arrangement of the intellectual phenomena, which I have ventured to submit to you.

In some former severe discussions like the present, I endeavoured to extract for you some little consolation, from that very fortitude of attention which the discussion required,pointing out to you the advantage of questions of this kind, in training the mind to those habits of serious thought and patient investigation, which, considered in their primary relation to the intellectual character, are of infinitely greater importance than the instruction which the question itself may afford. "Generosos animos labor nutrit." In the discipline of reason, as in the training of the athlete, it is not for a single victory, which it may give to the youthful champion, that the combat is to be valued, but for that knitting of the joints, and hardening of the muscles, that quickness of eyes and collectedness of effort, which it is forming for the struggles of more illustrious fields.

That the perception of a giant, which never before had coexisted with the idea of a dwarf, should yet be sufficient, without some prior association, to induce that idea, may seem very wonderful; but wonderful as it is, it is really not more mysterious, than if the two ideas had coexisted, or succeeded each other, innumerable times. The great mystery is in the simple fact of the recurrence or spontaneous rise of any idea, without the recurrence of the external cause which produced it, and when that external cause has ceased, perhaps, to have any exstence. This fact, however, we must admit, whatever be our

theory; and it is all which is necessary to the one theory: while the other, by supposing, or vaguely implying some actual union or association, prior to the suggestion, introduces a new mystery, and, in consequence of the very mystery which it introduces, renders the phenomena, which it professes to explain, still more difficult to be conceived; since the association, which it supposes to be necessary to the suggestion, must, on that supposition, in many cases, be the effect of that very suggestion, to which it is supposed to give rise.

You will now then, I hope, perceive,-or, I flatter myself, may already have perceived, without the necessity of so much repetition of the argument,—the reasons which led me to prefer the term suggestion to association, as a more accurate general term, for all the spontaneous successions of our thought; since, by making the suggestion itself to depend on an association or combination of ideas prior to it, we should not merely have assumed the reality of a process, of which we have no consciousness whatever, but should have excluded, by the impossibility of such previous combination, many of the most important classes of suggestions,-every suggestion that arises from the relations of objects which we perceive for the first time, and, indeed, every suggestion that does not belong, in the strictest sense, to Mr. Hume's single class of contiguity in time.

That our suggestions do not follow each other loosely and confusedly, is no proof of prior associations in the mind, but merely of the general constitutional tendency of the mind, to exist, successively, in states that have certain relations to each other. There is nothing in the nature of our original perceptions, which could enable us to infer this regularity and limitation of our subsequent trains of thought. We learn these from experience alone; and experience does not teach us, that there is any such intervening process of mysterious union, as is supposed, but only, that when the mind has been affected in a certain manner, so as to have one perception or conception, it is, successively, and of itself, affected in certain other manners, so as to have no other relative conceptions. If the association of ideas be understood to mean nothing more than this succession of ideas arising without an external cause, and involving no prior union of the ideas suggesting and suggested,-nor, in short, any influence previous to that which operates at the moment of the suggestion itself, though it would certainly, with this limited meaning, (which excludes what is commonly meant by the term association,) be a very awkward phrase, still, if it were always understood in this limited sense alone, it might be used with safety. But in this sense, the VOL. II.-L

only sense in which it can be used without error,-it must always be remembered, that the association of ideas denotes as much the successions of ideas of objects which never have existed together before, as the successions of ideas of objects which have been perceived together, that there are not two separate mental processes, therefore, following perception, and necessary to the succession,-one by which ideas are primarily associated, and another by which they are subsequently suggested, but that the association is, in truth, only another word for the fact of the suggestion itself. All this however, being admitted, it may perhaps be said,-what advantage is to be gained from the use of a similar term, or even from the more accurate distinction which such a term denotes ?

The principal advantage that is to be derived from it, is the great simplification which it allows of the phenomena by the removal of much of that mystery, which a more complicated theory had made to hang over some of the processes of thought. When suggestion was supposed to depend on former associations of ideas, and when, in many cases, it must have been felt to be difficult, or rather impossible, to discover any coexistence or immediate succession of the primary perceptions, by which such association could be supposed to be formed; it could scarcely fail to happen,-as, indeed, truly took place, that many cumbrous distinctions and still more cumbrous hypotheses, would be formed, to account for the apparent anomalies.

It is the use of this unfortunate phrase, indeed, rather than of the simpler term suggestion, which appears to me to have filled our intellectual systems with the names of so many superfluous powers. The supposed necessity in our trains of thought, of some previous association, of course rendered it necessary, that the conceptions ascribed to this cause, should be such as before existed in a similar form, since, without this previous existence, they could not be supposed to admit of previous connexion; and, therefore, when the suggestions were very different, so as to have the semblance almost of a new creation, it became necessary to invent some new power distinct from that of association, to which they might be ascribed. What was in truth a mere simple suggestion, flowing from the same laws with other suggestions, became in this manner something more, and was ranked as a product of fancy, or imagination, nothing being so easy as the invention of a new name. A similar illusion gave rise to the supposition of various other intellectual powers,-or, at least, favoured greatly the admission of such powers, by the difficulty of accountfor suggestions which could not have arisen from previ

ous associations; and one simple power or susceptibility of the mind was thus metamorphosed into various powers, all distinct from each other, and distinct from that power of which they were only modifications.

The chief circumstances which probably led to the belief of some actual union or association of ideas, previous to sugges tion, I conceive to have been the peculiar importance of that order of suggestions, of which proximity, and therefore former coexistence, or immediate succession of the direct objects of thought, are the distinguishing characteristic. If there had been no such order of suggestions as this, but conception had followed conception merely according to the other relations, such as those of analogy or contrast, we never should have thought of any association, or other prior influence, distinct from the suggestion itself. But, when objects perceived together, or in immediate succession, arise again together, or in immediate succession, as if linked by some invisible bonds, it is a very natural illusion, that the suggestion itself should seem to depend on a mysterious union of this kind. The illusion is greatly strengthened by these circumstances, that it is to the relation of direct proximity of objects, we have recourse, in all those processes of thought, which have commonly been termed recollections, or voluntary reminiscences. We think of all the variety of events that happened at the time at which we know, that the same event, now forgotten by us, occurred, and we pursue this whole series, through its details, as if expecting to discover some tie that may give into our hand the fugitive feeling, which we wish to detect. The suggestion which we desire, does probably at length occur, in consequence of this process; and we are hence very naturally accustomed to look back to a period preceding the suggestion, as to the real source of the suggestion itself.

It must be remembered too, that although the mind were truly susceptible of the influence in its trains of thought, of va rious relations of a different kind, as well as those of contiguity, even these suggestions, though originally different, would seem, at length, reducible to this one paramount order; because, after the first suggestion which might have arisen from mere analogy or contrast, a real contiguity, in point of time, would be formed of the suggesting and suggested conception, which had become proximate in succession; and the same suggestion, therefore, when it recurred, might seem to have arisen as much from this contiguity, in a prior train of thought, as from the contrast or analogy, which of themselves might