As stated, Hume’s associationism was mostly a way of determining the functional profile of Ideas. But we have not yet said what it is for two Ideas to be associated (for that  see section 4). Instead, one can see Hume’s contribution as introducing a very influential type of learning—associative learning—for Hume’s theory purports to explain how we learn to associate certain Ideas. We can abstract away from Hume’s framework of ideas and his account of the specific relations that underlie associative learning, and state the theory of associative learning more generally: if two contents of experiences, X and Y, instantiate some associative relation, R, then those contents will become associated, so that future activations of X will tend to bring about activations of Y. The associationist then has to explain what relation R amounts to. The Humean form of associative learning (where R is equated with cause and effect, contiguity, or resemblance) has been hugely influential, informing the accounts of those such as Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill,  and Alexander Bain (see, e.g., the entries on  John Stuart Mill and  19th Century Scottish Philosophy).[7]