title: Liberty and necessity; in which are considered the laws of association of ideas, the meaning of the word will, and the true intent of punishment.
text: •> & o X Kf, t ^> *A 5 ' . \V % * ' ' 1 </ - A * c ^ '71/ 4° £©, S" pkrtg mtb ^mssitg; IN WHICH ARE CONSIDERED THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, THE MEANING OP THE WORD WILL, TRUE INTENT OF PUNISHMENT. BY HENRY "CARLETON, LATE ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA. Jiov. 2>0 PHILADELPHIA: PARRY AND McMILLAN. 1857. ^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. HKNRY B. A8HMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, George Street above Eleventh. PREFACE. All questions in sciences founded on facts, are settled by an appeal to the facts themselves. Hence our knowledge of Astronomy, Optics, Chemistry, Geology and Mechanics, is continually enlarged by the discovery of additional facts, while in the department of Theology, the question of Liberty and Necessity still rests on hypothesis where it stood two thousand years ago. The disputants on both sides ascribe every action to the agency of a power they call the Will ; but what determines the Will to act, is the point upon which the whole controversy turns. On one side it is affirmed that nothing determines the Will — that it determines itself — that it is a spontaneity which can act without cause of action, and can choose among motives without reason or preference. The necessarians do not understand this logic. They affirm that the Will is always determined by the strongest motive, or judgment of the mind, which they say is the only guide of conduct vouchsafed to man. IV PREFACE. The difficulty lies in substituting hypothesis for facts, under the belief that facts could not be affirmed of mind as well as of matter, whereas we know nothing of matter but from a con- sciousness derived through the senses, and from the same con- sciousness only, do we know what takes place in the mind. The evidence of fact in both cases is the same. There is no true knowledge but in consciousness. That we feel pity, love, hatred, malice and resentment, are as truly facts as that iron sinks in water, or that rain falls from the clouds, and unless we are conscious of these and all other facts we possess, we could have no knowledge of them whatever. When a jury is convinced by the testimony of a witness, their conviction is as much a fact, as the existence of the wit- ness himself. The sensations caused by the light and heat of the sun, are a3 truly facts as the existence of that luminary in the heavens. That the features of one person do necessarily remind us of those of another, merely by the force of resemblance, is a fact known to every man from his own experience. So the existence of any judgment, opinion or belief, attest- ed by consciousness,, is as truly a fact as any occurrence in the external world. All phenomena of mind, therefore, being so many facts, every question in mental philosophy may be settled as in other sciences, by an appeal to the facts themselves. Moreover, the immediate antecedents to these phenomena, are sensations, ideas and their combinations, which can be distinctly traced from their first elements up to those perceptions and judgments of the mind, that are the true and sole causes of action. I do not pretend to have discovered what wai not known PREFACE. V before. My aim has been to direct attention to truths we already possess : and if, as I trust it shall appear, that all phenomena of mind are so many facts ; that ideas act upon the mind, and not the mind upon ideas ; that all their combi- nations are formed by their own laws of aggregation, and that the mind cannot command or originate an idea for itself, then all further doubt upon the question of Liberty and Necessity must cease. If I possess any knowledge of my subject, it is mostly the fruit of twenty-five years experience at the Bar, and of obser- vation while on the Bench. The Bar is one of the best schools for the study of the mind — an argument is but a train of associated ideas ; conviction, judgment, execution are its direct consequences. For the first just hint on the association of ideas and the true meaning of the word Will, I am indebted to a treatise on the Mind, by James Mill ; and if it should appear that he has fallen into an occasional error, yet there is enough of truth in his work, if followed to its legitimate results, to place him among the first metaphysicians of any age. Weary of theory and hypothesis, and shut out from the free use of books from a defective vision, I sought and attained the truth in the phenomena of my own mind. Every man possess- es the same means of information within himself. All books written on the Mind from the time of Aristotle until now, can teach him nothing beyond what his own consciousness attests to be true. When he is thirsty. he drinks; the desire for water he knows to be the sole cause of action. This is nature. Such an agent as the Will is defined to be, has no place in the human mind. If in the following pages I have necessarily employed the 1* VI PREFACE. term Will in the sense in which it is used by writers and in common speech, it was that I might show that the true causes of action existed independently of its agency. Whether or no I have truly stated the phenomena of mind as they occur, is merely a question of fact, to be tested by every man's own consciousness, and not by argument. CONTENTS. ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. CHAPTER I. PAGE. Elements of knowledge are few, but capable of almost endless com- binations 9 Inventions are simply combinations of ideas familiar to all 11 We think from necessity * 11 Ideas and sensations undefinable 12, 13 The soul, the percipient of all knowledge, can give no account of itself 14 Immutable laws inferred from a succession of like phenomena. ... 15, 16, 17 Delegated laws 19 Laws of thought : Ideas precede volition, and not volition ideas.. . 19, 20, 21 They are active in dreams where there is no volition, and are go- verned by inherent laws 21, 22 Mental philosophy an induction from facts ; true causes of associa- tion first known to Mr. Hume 22, 23 CHAPTER II. CONTIGUITY, CAUSE OF ASSOCIATION. Ideas bound up in words 25, 26, 27 Every definition must contain the precise number of ideas that enter the word 27 Ideas bound up in words, continued 28 Ideas suggested by the position of objects 29 Ideas suggest one another, illustrated by conversation 30, 31, 32 Geography, history, mere associations of ideas 32 Contiguity, source of tedious stories and long harangues 33, 34, 35 Why a concise style pleases 85 Do sensations and ideas make different impressions among them- selves 36 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE. CHAPTER III. Resemblance, fertile source of associations — comparison 37, 38, 39, 40 Mind, passive under resemblances, as under sensations 41 Classification is altogether from natural resemblances — is made for us and not by us, we do not accept or reject 41, 42 CHAPTER IV. Associations from cause and effect 43, 44 The past becomes the interpreter of the future in physics and morals 44, 45, 46 Science propagates itself, as in geology, astronomy, gravitation, light, &c 46, 47, 48, 49 Ideas are the offspring of our wants, never of the will. 50, 51, 52 Genius, what 53, 54 Spontaneous associations, vagaries 54, 55, 56 Imagination, no such faculty exists 57, 58 CHAPTER V. Attention is not in the power of the will — it is measured by the interest felt in the object — ideas cannot be viewed separately and detained in the mind 59, 60, 61, 62, 63 CHAPTER VI. Memory never under the control of the will 65 To remember or forget is not in our power 66, 70 The mind essentially passive until aroused by sensations or ideas. 71, 72 To reason, is to perceive, unavoidably, the forms and relations of ideas as they arise to the mind. Illustrations — instructions to representatives, lawyers and j udg6s — no opinion can stand still in philosophy, laws or creeds of religion 73, 77 WILL. CHAPTER VII. The qucHtion of liberty and necessity of easy solution 81 A ut horn di.sagreo in their definitions of the will 82 Edwards' opinions examined, and shown to be contradictory 82, 83 His doctrine of moral necessity 83, 84 CONTENTS. IX PAGE. COUSIN Places motive or preference on the same basis with. Edwards 84 BIELFIELD Affirms that the understanding errs, and the will embraces the errors 85 LOCKE Thinks that the power of the will is limited to action — that it obeys the determination of the j udgment 85 MALEBRANCHE Thinks that it is the province of the will to reason, and of the un- derstanding to perceive 85 RE ID, CLARK Ej HOBBES Say that the will is the last dictate of the understanding 86 Gall and Spurzheim adopt the same opinion 86 DR. BROWN Says that action follows immediately upon desire alone, and that he is never conscious of such a power as the will 86 Payne and Young are inclined to the same opinion. 86 HUME Ascribes the power of new perceptions to the will — his opinion ex- amined 87, 88 AIME MARTIN Has revived the Manichean notion of two wills, spiritual and ani- mal SS Cousin's perplexity increases at every attempt to define the will. . S9 After making it every thing and nothing, he proceeds to define its powers 89, 90 A disciple of Mr. Cousin, a professor in an American University, gives a still more fearful account of the will, it acts because it is able to act, and always without cause 90, 92 When a Freewiller is pressed for proof, he retreats behind his con- sciousness, as an enthusiast does for inspiration 91 They nevertheless act from motives as other men 92 If motives move the will to move the man, as the necessarians say, why not let motives act directly ? nature never employs two causes for one effect 93 CONTENTS. PAGE. By choosing the weaker motive, the will acts against the cause of action 94 The power that chooses must judge, hence the will becomes the " I," the "me," the "man" 95 That men could have done otherwise than they did, under the same circumstances, is a delusion often exposed 95, 96 TRIAL AND DEFENCE OP THE GUILTY BARBER FOR MURDER, BEFORE A TRIBUNAL, WHOSE JUDGES, JURY AND ADVOCATE WERE ALL FREE- WILLERS. The address of counsel in defence, sets out fully their practical doc- trines 97, 106 Charge of the court ; acquittal of the barber 106, 107 VOLITION, CHOICE, FACULTY. If choice lie in the determination of the mind, it cannot lie in a faculty of the mind — it is the mind itself that chooses, reasons, hears, sees — faculty is thus made an entity 108, 109, 110 Though Mr. Locke warns us that by faculty he means only a mode of thinking, yet he relapses into the same error with Edwards — metaphysicians seldom fail to treat the will as an agent dwelling in the inner man, and such is their belief 110, 111, 112 The power exerted over the mind by sensations and ideas, the true and direct causes of action 112, 113, 114 SENSATIONS, CAUSES OF ACTION. Every one knows that his mind, when passive, is suddenly aroused by sensations, &c, the progress of sensations until they termi- nate in action — among sensations the strongest always pre- vails , 114, 115 IDEAS, CAUSES OF ACTION. Their power perceived on our features as well as in action 115, 118 CHOICE CONTINUED. Choice, nothing more than an agreeable impression made necessa- rily upon the mind, through the senses or from information derived from others — various illustrations — choice implies ne- cessarily the best — it is made for us and not by us — as in the perception of the greatest apparent good in which the will has no concern 118, 125 15 1 LI I B»j OPINION. Absurd notion on this subject — belief, not in our power — it is an oli'ect, testimony the cause 126, 127, 128 CONTENTS. XI Varies its aspect with the progress of evidence — it is necessarily to every man what it appears to be 128, 129 CAUSES OF ACTION — CONTINUED. Every one knows the causes of action on the minutest occasions — on subjects of magnitude, he pauses for further light which the subjects themselves are sure to bring by their own associa- tions 13 PURPOSE. When a man acts directly from the force of conviction, that is what is meant by the will in common speech 131 A fixed purpose carried into effect, cannot be explained by a rapid succession of volitions 131, 132 Succession of actions explained by a succession of thoughts 132, 133 The opinions of Locke and Edwards would have been unassail- able, had they ascribed all action to the power of sensations and ideas — the interposition of the will does not vary the effect 133 Comment on the Encyclopedia Britannica 134 Change of action, illustrated by change of opinion in a voter 134, 135, 136 PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS Between a necessarian, a Freewiller, a lesser motive man, and a disciple of Dr. Brown at a dinner table 136, 137 FACTS — PHENOMENA. The only forces that can disturb the mind are sensations, ideas, and their combinations; these are so many facts through which alone the truth can be known 13S, 139 The best book on metaphysics is every man's own mind — Descartes, Hobbes 139 GREATEST APPARENT GOOD. The desire of pleasure, whether virtuous or vicious, is the motive power — it is as gravitation to matter, inseparable 140 Pleasure and pain are our masters — opinion of Jeremy Bentham. . 140 Will and pleasure, convertible terms 141 Pleasure, sole spring of action ; but philosophers, unable to con- ceive how it could produce action, have contrived an auxilia- ry agent, the will, which renders the subject still more obscure 142, 143, 144 If we substitute desire for will, we shall perceive it to be the ne- cessary cause of action in all breathing things 144 Xll CONTENTS. PUNISHMENT. CHAPTER VIII. According to the Freewillers, punishment would he mere revenge for an act in which motive had no part 147, 148 Just among necessarians, since the motive can be changed 148 SIN AND CRIME EXIST OP NECESSITY. The best solution of the question of liberty and necessity found in the history of man That he sins from necessity, we have the same proofs as of any fixed law of nature Upon this known principle of human nature, legislators enact pen- alties against crime before committed Freewillers enact no penalty, for motives do not govern the will.. All physical and moral evil exist of necessity, and must therefore have entered the providence of God at the creation Idle speculations of theologians on the existence of evil The innocent are confounded with the guilty in all the dispensa- tions of Providence, whether physical or moral — errors of judgment, fatal to the innocent Presumption of divines in an attempt to apologize for evil. God can do no wrong ; he can commit no sin — no standard above himself. Punishment causes a change of motive, therefore, a remedy for sin and crime Upon this principle rests the codes of all nations and the denuncia- tions of Scripture Upon the same principle all children are disciplined and educated. LAWS ARE REMEDIAL. Lawgivers aim at the prevention of crime by countervailing mo- tives 161 If the disease of mind be not cured, the wrong doer is cut off from society as a patient is by bodily disease 161 The Egyptians treated ignorance as a disease of the mind — educa- tion was the cure. The moderns aim at the same result by more ample instruction 162, 163 Jf evils come by the dispensations of Providence, let us not com- plain, He has provided the remedy 164 Conclusion 165 149 149 150 150 151, 152 152 153. ,154 154, ,155 156, 157 158 159 159, ,160 OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. CHAPTER I. OF THE ELEMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE. Writers agree that external objects act of necessity through the senses, and that all the elements of knowledge are thus forced upon the mind by laws it cannot resist. Impressions from without are called sensa- tions, and when revived in memory, are called ideas ; and although the original stock may be small, yet will it appear inexhaustible when we consider that colors, sounds, and tastes, afford gradations almost without end ; that there is no limit to the variations of form which are but the inflections of aline; that all the varieties of plants on the globe are composed of four con- stituent gases; that the multiplied modes of architecture, of machinery, or of the vehicles in which we traverse sea or land, are shaped of timber cut from the forest, of marble from the quarry, or of iron dug from the earth; that the continual addition of an unit will measure the dis- 2 10 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. tance to the sun ; that of twelve digits only, four hundred and seventy millions of combina- tions may be formed; that the varied sounds of all languages, all the wisdom and learning of man, can be expressed by the combinations of the letters of the alphabet; that twenty-four bells would yield a greater number of sounds than could be struck in the longest life ; that the science of geometry is reared upon a few definitions, each succeeding problem standing on its predecessor, and however lofty the fabric, that the same elements are discoverable at the summit that entered at the base ; that the pro- foundest investigations of the mathematician or astronomer, the highest conceptions of the poet or orator, those ever varying modes and forms of speech that instruct and delight, may all be traced to a few primary thoughts, common alike to the ignorant and the wise. From the same humble sources, genius continues to draw new and elevated beauties, although Ovid complain- ed that preceding poets had appropriated all the graces of speech to themselves, and left none for their successors. COMBINATIONS NOT INVENTIONS. A clock or telescope is said to be an inven- tion; but when examined in its details, the ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 11 combination only turns out to be new, while the component ideas were as familiar to the age of Solomon as now. " There is nothing new under the sun," is as true of ideas as of things ; and he who first ap- plied the power of steam to machinery, could no more create a thought for himself than he could the metal of which the engine was made ; and if our descendants should hereafter contrive the means of travelling on the winds, it would nofrbe an invention, but a new arrangement of ideas already in store, as a new order of archi- tecture may be devised out of materials already in possession. Hence science and art will ever continue to advance, since their constituent ele- ments must, by their own movement, present other combinations, unexhausted and inexhaust- ible to the latest generations to come ; and when complex ideas, which become elemental by use, shall enter the associations, they must accele- rate the development of new and lofty truths that shall as far transcend the wisdom of the present age, as the Principia of Newton did the astronomy of the Egyptians or Greeks. WE THINK FROM NECESSITY. Every one is conscious of trains of ideas that pass across his mind in unbroken succession, in- 12 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. dependently of his will. They come unbidden, often unwelcome, guests, that take possession of the mind, where they continue to combine, dissolve, and depart, from the moment we are awake until we again subside into sleep. To think, is to perceive the forms and relations they present; and as we cannot refuse to perceive them, so are we made to think in spite of our- selves. IDEAS AND SENSATIONS INDEFINABLE. What are sensations and ideas? If, as is said, they exist only in consciousness, how shall we explain their re-appearance after they cease to exist? They can be neither matter nor spirit ; and it is inconceivable how they can be attributes of either. Plato thought they were coeval with matter ; Malbranche and Berkley ascribed them to the immediate agency of the Deity ; Leibnitz ima- gined they were a part of the harmonies of na- ture, subsisting independently of mind or body ; Hobbes, Priestly, and Cooper, thought they arose from the mere organization of matter ; Kant dis- covered them slumbering in the reason ; Victor Cousin supposed them to be real existences; Locke confounds them with sensations; Mill defines them to be copies of impressions receiv- ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 13 ed from objects without; and, since the time of Dr. Brown, most of the Scotch and English writers consider them as so many states of mind, no matter from what source derived. Whatever they may be, atoms or attributes, species, forms, images, phantom or shade, something or no- thing ; by whatever name they are called, sen- sations, ideas, thoughts, conceptions, or percep- tions, they are the disturbing forces that arouse and direct every movement of the soul. We are conscious of their existence — and here all inquiry must end. To define them is impos- sible, since every definition must consist of terms previously understood, or the definition itself will be unintelligible. Nevertheless they are the vehicles of all the knowledge we possess; they instruct us in the past, the present, and the future, in the forms and qualities of bodies, motions and magnitudes of the planets, measure time and space, solve the mysteries of the tides, but reveal not themselves. Though the most subtle and evanescent of all things, yet are they made obedient in speech, bound up in books, en- graven on brass, rendered visible in the produc- tions of art, in the steam engine, in the con- struction of fleets and cities, temples and palaces — reason, judgment, opinion, imagination, creed, religion, law, and philosophy, are but so 9* 14 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. many different forms of thought ; as we think, so are we gay or sad, virtuous or vicious, wise or foolish, Jew or Gentile, Mahometan, heretic, infidel or Christian. In thought only do we seem to exist, for when we lie down in sleep we become extinct to ourselves and the world around us. THE SOUL. The soul too, the passive recipient of thought, is as ignorant of its own nature as of the thoughts themselves. It can perceive the manner in which its ideas are required, but when interro- gated, What art thou ? it makes no reply. It cannot explain its own organization, or whether it be organized or not; whether it be a mere point, or composed of parts, is an attribute or subject. It can give no account of its beginning or end, or define that consciousness by which it mea- sures its own duration. It takes cognizance of its own properties as it does those of matter, but is equally ignorant of the basis in which they reside. Physiologists say it inhabits the head, but they have not fixed its precise locality. The Greeks supposed it to be a compound substance ; the Chaldeans, a lucid fire diffused through the body; while Phrenologists assign ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 15 its faculties to distinct compartments of the brain. It can settle none of these questions for itself. It perceives from necessity, and impels to action according to its perceptions, and when exhausted by fatigue, its functions are restored by sleep, which is a suspension of them all. It is equally at fault when it looks into the body, its temporary home. It finds itself provided with organs of hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling, but knows not how they convey tidings from without. The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs respire, the stomach digests ; it observes these phenomena, but perceives not their causes. There is but one cause, that great Incompre- hensible Being who created and governs the Universe according to his own good pleasure; whose laws extend throughout the whole com- pass of matter and mind, ever and immutably the same. IMMUTABLE LAWS. From the uniform course of phenomena in the material world, we infer the existence of immutable laws : for the same reason we are bound to infer their existence in the department of mind. The tides uniformly obey the moon, heavy bodies continue to fall to the earth, rivers 16 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. to flow to the sea, heat to revive vegetation, to raise vapor into clouds, lightning to explode, rains to descend, plants and animals to multiply, decay and die, from the beginning as now. As in matter, so in mind; the elements of knowledge continue to come to us, as to our ancestors, through their appointed channels; ideas combine and form images now as in the minds of Homer and David, numbers and fig- ures in geometry, present the same relations as they did to Euclid ; and in similar circumstan- ces men have uniformly thought and acted alike in all ages of the world. The history of man is but the history of his mind; action is the offspring of ideas; Alex- ander conceived the conquest of Asia, before he embarked in the enterprise ; all those plots, wars and revolutions that overturn kingdoms and states ; all the actions, pursuits and works of man, whether for good or for evil, are but the outward expression of thoughts within. If, therefore, our thoughts were not regulated by uniform laws, mankind could not become the subjects of government, human or divine ; or, if their actions were the offspring of a self-deter- mining will, they would be equally beyond the control of the Deity, whose foreknowledge lies ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 17 only in His power to execute what Himself had decreed should come to pass.* SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. That class of waiters who resolve all pheno- mena of mind or matter into the immediate act of God, will hardly affirm that He prompts men to the commission of crime ; yet such must be their doctrine, as it is incredible that a part of the same mind should be governed by a par- ticular providence, and the rest left to some antagonist power; that all rivers should flow to the sea; that heavy bodies and light should sink or swim by a particular providence; that the specific gravity of gold, silver, iron or lead, and of all things else sold by weight, should be the exact measure of the Divine power, exerted upon each towards the centre of the earth, or that a special providence should fashion every drop that falls from the clouds ; trace the lines and colors of every blade of grass ; superintend the flight of every insect at the tropics or the poles — a doctrine not in harmony with the great- ness of God, since it denies Him the power to * Hence John Scotus, who is greatly lauded for his wisdom, affirms that God could not foresee the existence of sin, since he had not decreed it, and consequently there could be no pre- destination of the wicked, who could not be known until after the offence committed. 18 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. impart necessary laws for the government of His own creation. Whatever may be the theories of philosophers, the course of events proclaim the existence of invariable laws which, every man's own expe- rience compels him to believe. In practical life no one supposes that fire burns wood, or cooks his food; that the blood circulates, or the stomach digests by a particular providence ; that men defraud each other; that a mother loves her children ; or that the blow of the assassin is by the agency of a particular providence. Nor do we ever ascribe the actions of animals to a par- ticular providence, but suppose the dog barks, the horse neighs, the bird sings ; that the lamb is gentle and the tiger ferocious, each by a law appointed to their kind. The artisan never ascribes the motion in the wheels of a watch to the special act of Providence, but to the main- spring, in which he knows the power to reside. The physician never imagines that opium causes sleep, that arsenic poisons ; or the chemist that oxygen rusts iron, that alkalis neutralize acids, or that the mercury rises in the sun, or falls in the shade by a special providence. No advo- cate supposes he ever gained a bad cause or lost a good one, or that the jury pronounced a verdict, or the judge his decree, by a special ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 19 providence ; nor does the law-giver enact penal- ties against the act of God, but against crime, which he believes to come of a propensity in- herent in the constitution of man. DELEGATED LAWS. All changes in matter and mind do, no doubt, take place in obedience to the will of Grocl ; not by particular acts, but by delegated laws, as a clock continues its motion under the pressure of weights in the absence of the mechanic, or the decrees of a monarch are enforced without his immediate agency. But it is said that the effect would be the same, whether the world were governed by uniform laws, or by a series of particular acts. Not so j for under a government of particular acts, no rule of conduct could be prescribed, or law violated, since none could exist. LAWS OF THOUGHT. Tired of conjecture, metaphysicians begin to regard the phenomena of mind as so many facts, from which to infer the existence of uniform laws ; and enough is already known to encourage the belief that the laws of thought will soon be as well understood as the fall of bodies or mo- tion of fluids. 20 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. Ideas take forcible possession of the mind as soon as we are awake; we cannot deny them admission, arrest their progress, or expel them, if we would. We know not whence they come or whither they go ; whether they expire or de- part, are revived or return. Nevertheless, most writers are persuaded, and the masses of man- kind universally believe, that their thoughts, like so many slaves, come at their bidding. No- thing can be further from the truth ; for ideas not present to the mind cannot be perceived ; and what is not perceived cannot be the subject of command. A man cannot command his hat or his cloak, unless the idea of his hat or cloak were already in his mind ; the idea must pre- cede the command, and not the command the idea, as truly as light must precede vision, and not vision light. Ideas are always first in the order of time, they precede volition, and not volition ideas ; hence we have no power to choose what ideas shall enter the mind. They come to us as travellers arrive at an inn, or people pass along a street, we know not the next man until he appears ; so we cannot perceive the next idea in the train, until it is actually in the mind, when it is too late to for- bid its entrance there. For the same reason, every change of topic, ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 21 or subject of reflection, must arise by its own laws of association, or from impressions from without, and never by any effort of our own. We cannot, for example, change the conversa- tion from the properties of light to those of gold, unless the idea of gold had first entered the mind. Trains of ideas can only be broken up by introducing others in their stead ; but what command have we over thoughts unper- ceived and not in the mind ? Let him who thinks otherwise, make the trial for himself, and he will laugh at his own folly in attempting what he discovers to be a mere absurdity. In the absence of all other proofs, the associations of ideas in dreams establishes their spontaneous movement beyond all possi- bility of a doubt. They often combine into images of the highest beauty, reason out a diffi- cult case, revive the memory of distant objects, excite to tears or to laughter, or startle us by misshapen forms and unreal dangers, in all of which it is not pretended the will takes any part whatever, or that any idea can arise from chance. To one who has not studied the subject, our thoughts may seem to wander at hazard rather than by established law. A gentleman once inveighed against the in- 3 22 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. gratitude of Brutus towards Caesar ; the thought gave rise to new trains of ideas, that ran by regular gradation into the mode of making wa- fers. They presently turned upon the sudden death of a child, and in a moment thereafter, became ludicrous, even to laughter. They next dwelt for a time upon mere trifles, metal buttons and silk hats, when suddenly they grappled with the abuses of power and the Hungarian Revolu- tion. Yet not an idea arose from chance ; and however rapid and divergent the transitions, a skillful observer might have detected the law of connection. MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, AN INDUCTION FROM FACTS. All phenomena of mind are so many facts, of which we have as distinct a consciousness as of any occurrence derived through the senses from without. In facts alone consist all we can know of the human mind. That various ideas are instantly associated around any object when its name is pronounced; as a house, a tree, or the ocean, we have the same evidence as of the existence of the objects themselves. That ideas are associated and bound up in words; or are knit together by repetition, as in the alphabet, or inflections of a verb, is known to every schoolboy; but of that ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 23 subtile ligature that holds them together, or that mysterious movement by which they multiply themselves, we shall ever remain ignorant until the power that perceives shall explain the nature of its own perceptions. The subject of associ- ation of ideas was first noticed by Aristotle and afterwards by Hobbes in what he called " dis- course of mind or coherence of conception;" but it was Mr. Hume who first detected the true causes of association to be " contiguity in time and place, resemblance and cause and effect/' terms not altogether appropriate, but which must serve our purpose until better can be devised. CHAPTER II. CONTIGUITY IN TIME AND PLACE IDEAS BOUND UP IN WORDS, ETC. Ideas associated with any object, rise irresist- ibly to the mind, at the thought of the object itself. Pronounce the name Cato, and the virtues of that Roman, his struggles for the liberties of his country, his flight before Caesar and suicide at Utica, will be instantaneously revived in the memory without any effort of the mind itself. So the word "Greece" will draw in its train, its geographical position, com- ponent states, cities, ports, islands, inhabitants, poets, philosophers, heroes and battles, from the time of Cecrops until its conquest by the Romans. Every thing known or written upon its history lies bound up in that word "Greece." At ; the thought of the American Revolution, its causes, armies, commanders, wars, its pro- gress, vicissitudes and termination, pass across the mind as the scenes in a drama. The word " Italy" instantly presents an en- 3* 26 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. tire picture of that country — its form, limits, the surrounding sea, its climate ; mountains stretching its entire length; its rivers, the Ti- ber, Arno, and Po ; its cities, Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples — their aque- ducts, streets, pavement, architecture, and a multitude of other objects, flash across the mind with a rapidity that no utterance can over- take. When a traveller speaks of England, the entire island with Scotland on the north, Ire- land on the west, its hills and valleys, pleasure grounds, cultivated fields, canals and railways — London with its palaces, churches, and bridges, and the multitudes that roll like rivers along the streets — start up to view spontaneously, as a sudden creation. Ideas are provided for us, we do not provide them for ourselves ; they come to us by laws we did not make, and can- not control. And such is the rapidity of their movement, that while we listen to a speaker in public debate, we often find time, without losing a word he utters, to draw upon the histories of different countries, for illustrations he had over- looked — to criticise his style and manner ; to anticipate his conclusions, and often to argue his cause against him, with those very associa- tions he had unconsciously raised in our minds. ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 27 IDEAS BOUND UP IN WORDS, CONTINUED. When from the pulpit we hear of Baptism, Repentance, Predestination, Justification, Atone- ment, each word is a treatise in itself. By the terms inheritance, trover, equity, injunction, the advocate brings his whole library to the con- test, as a general his forces to the field. DEFINITIONS. All knowledge lies in the just association of ideas. King, subject, master, servant, husband, wife, virtue, vice, longitude, equator, gravita- tion, sympathy, piety, patriotism, are but so many groups of ideas held together by associa- tion; the words alone reveal the nature and functions of each. Every definition, to be cor- rect, must contain the precise number of ideas that enter the combination : the addition or sub- traction of a single thought would entirely over- throw the force of the term. Words, which are the representatives of ideas, must multiply and expand with the ideas themselves ; hence dic- tionaries must, for the same reason, be in a state of perpetual growth and reproduction. IDEAS BOUND UP IN WORDS, CONTINUED. The names of substances, as gold, iron, wood, stone, bread, apple, opium, sugar, are groups of 28 ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. ideas bound up in words, as are the properties in the substances themselves. The associations, when once formed, are not easily dissolved. The idea of sweetness does not lose its hold on sugar and pass over to opium, else we could not distinguish food from poison, or one sub- stance from another. Nor are the associations formed by an effort of our own. When a plough- man is told, for the first time, that gold is heavier than iron, the idea attaches itself to his notion of gold, and becomes the representative of a permanent property. The sight of an ac- quaintance will revive the images of his entire family. We inquire of the progress of one child in music, of another in Latin, of the acci- dent that befell the third : — more, the position of his house and contiguous buildings, its apart- ments, furniture, and ornaments, irresistibly rise to the memory. At the next moment we meet a friend from the West : " When did you ar- rive?" " Yesterday, in a steamer from Pitts- burg." Instantly the Ohio presents itself with all its varied scenery — hills, rocks, towns, and cities ; next, the Mississippi — its muddy waters, alluvial banks, moveable sands, islands, tower- ing cypresses balancing their mossy arms in the breeze, with a hundred other characteristic fea- tures of that wonderful stream. ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 29 IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THE POSITION OF OBJECTS, ETC. Nature is always great, but never more so than in the means by which she keeps us continu- ally informed of the true position of objects, upon which our preservation depends. A pilot steers his ship by the association of ideas. When first he perceives the distant light, the bearings, depths and windings of the channel, the rocks, bars, islands, shallows, and path marked for his ship, immediately rise before him in the relations they hold in nature. 