CHAP. IV. should not jection of cause re consisting of facts observed by the vivisection of inferior animals, facts connected with diseased conditions of the human brain, and a variety of facts connected with peculiarities of memory and imagination. Thus the hypothesis is connected with many difficulties and obscure problems which cannot as yet be said to be finally solved. These difficulties, however, should not lead to the rejection of the hypothesis. The law of gravitation, which is now so universally accepted, hypothesis. was originally only an hypothesis founded upon very indirect evidence, and relating to bodies apparently so remotely connected with one another, that a man of ordinary intelligence in the days of Newton would probably have thought it absurd. Nearly all the great laws of the operation of physical forces have been slowly and laboriously established by the skilful guesses of men of genius being applied to the explanation of observed facts. The impossibility of directly observing unconscious cerebration, or cerebration of any kind, therefore, ought not to be conclusive against the acceptance of the hypothesis; and yet more, if this hypothesis be entertained, there is room for farther discovery, whereas in the mental hypothesis there is none. What is beyond the reach of consciousness the psychologist, as such, can never examine. But the method and the skill of the physiologist are likely to improve as time goes on; and consequently we may hope that much additional light may in future be thrown upon the obscure problems concerning the conditions of mental activity. In the meantime we have nothing more than an hypothesis ; CHAP. IV. Meaning of laws. but no psychologist who is uninfluenced by prejudice will deprecate the time when the hypothesis may be recognised as an established law. SECTION II. LAWS OF REPRESENTATION. § 95. Every one is familiar with that condition of mind which we call reverie. In moments of quiet repose, when there is nothing to agitate or disturb us, there appear before consciousness numberless and varied images of sights and sounds, of persons and things, of places and periods of life, of feelings and thoughts of events long since past, of possible events still to come. These phantasms come and go apparently altogether independent of any effort on our part. They are spontaneous. But at other times, when we have some object to accomplish, something to call forth our activity, we are able to control the representations of the fancy, to banish certain phantasms from consciousness and to call up others, to give attention to some and to disregard others. In this case the representation of phantasms is under the control of our will-it is voluntary. Now, in the study of the spontaneous and voluntary representations of the mind, the first problem which presents itself to the psychologist is to determine the laws according to which phantasms either spontaneously appear or, by an effort of will, are made to appear before consciousness. And here it must be observed that there is liability of confusion from not adhering closely to the problem to be solved. The word law should here indicate a general statement of the order or relations observed amongst the facts given; whereas it has been taken to mean an exposition of the nature or mode of operation of the cause by which the facts are supposed to be produced. Adopting the former sense, we proceed to state the laws of representation which have been formulated by psychologists under the name of laws of association. CHAP. IV. SECT. II. stated. § 96. The special laws of association which have Laws been laid down are usually stated to be seven in number; co-existence or consecution in time; contiguity in space; dependence as cause and effect, means and end, whole and part; resemblance or contrast; produced by the same power, or conversant about the same object; signified and signifying; designated by the same sound. Illustrations of the connection between ideas thus related to one another will readily occur to every one, but the following may be taken as examples: trated. In perception those sensations which are usually Illus felt together, or in immediate succession, have a bond of association formed between them. Hence, an actual sensation which has previously been felt at the same time as a number of other actual sensations, when it is again experienced, brings along with it the phantasms or ideas of the other possible sensations of the group. So in more complex experience, persons and places and events that have been once conjoined together in our knowledge are always likely to be thought of together at subsequent times. CHAP. IV. SECT. II. From the process of perception also many illustrations of the influence of contiguity in space in forming associated groups might be drawn. In truth, co-existence in time and contiguity in space are usually combined together; those objects which we have known at the same time have usually been close together in space, and both might be combined under one relation, that of contiguity in general. In the next law-that of dependence, as of an effect upon its cause, an end upon its means- -we have also a kind of contiguity. If we take the phenomenal view of causation, considering the cause of one phenomenon to be an immediately preceding phenomenon, this law may be completely reduced to the preceding one of contiguity in time and place. We say, for example, that fire is the cause of heat. If this means that the bright coloured flame which we see is the cause of the sensation of heat which we feel, there is in the relation nothing but contiguity. But if it means that there is some real objective force which is at once the cause of the flame which we see and of the heat which we feel, there is something more in the connection between a coloured flame and a feeling of heat than mere contiguity in time and place. Thus the possibility of reducing the causal relation to one of contiguity depends upon the view of the nature of the causal relation which we take. If it only is a relation between phenomena, it is nothing but a special form of the law of contiguity, in which an antecedent phenomenon called a cause is joined in our thoughts with a SECT. II. consequent phenomenon called an effect. If it is a CHAP. IV. relation believed to exist between that which is a phenomenon and that which is not a phenomenon, although the former is always associated with the latter, the connection of the two in thought exists, not because of frequent experience, but because of being given in an original or very primitive inference. As this latter is the view which we have maintained,* we cannot reduce the causal relation to that of contiguity. The relations of similarity and contrast have very powerful effect in recalling previous objects of intuition to the mind. A single sensation of any kind leads us to think of any similar sensation of the same sense which we have previously experienced. So a whole complex of sensations which we have formed into an object leads us to think of other similar objects. Illustrations of this are so numerous and familiar that we need not specify. So when similarity is made conspicuous by its absence—that is, when objects are strikingly in contrast with one another—the one has a strong tendency to recall the other. The other relations of things produced by the same power or conversant about the same object, of signified and signifying, of things designated by the same sound, are so obviously reducible to one or other of the preceding that we need not give to them special attention. In addition to those which have been mentioned, there are many other special * See §§ 36, 88. |