certain Processes of the Human Understanding. 95 



Hitherto the examples discussed have been more viewed as means of ascer- 

 taining a result, than for any interest of their own. I should, however, not have 

 pursued them into so detailed a discussion, were there not applications to be made 

 of more general interest and importance. 



Before entering upon the application of the theory thus arrived at, to the ex- 

 planation of more complicated phenomena, it may be advisable to clear away a 

 slight difficulty which may otherwise appear to embarrass the language which 

 I am compelled to use in common with other writers who have taken different 

 views. Had I adopted a purely theoretical method, this explanation must have 

 commenced my statement, in the regular form of definitions : the method here 

 adopted has necessarily transferred these definitions to the conclusion : they are, 

 m fact, the questions under discussion. 



In common with Mr. Stewart's, the theory here explained involves the as- 

 sertion of one law of operation pursued through different stages, in each of which, 

 its results, though in principle the same, are apparently different, and actually tend 

 to different uses. In these different stages, this operation has acquired different 

 names ; a circumstance which, while in ordinary language it undoubtedly contri- 

 butes to clearness, tends, at the same time, to baffle the metaphysical inquirer. 

 The river which winds through a hundred realms, is distinctly referred to these 

 varied localities, by the hundred names, which only help to confuse the general 

 map. 



The term, association, is here used to signify the process by which ideas are 

 combined, through all the stages of this operation. It is assumed to be the ten- 

 dency of the mind to recal together, and permanently combine, oft recurring ideas 

 or phenomena. As by repetition the effect of this tendency is increased, a conse- 

 quence is that it must be experienced in different stages of progress : of these are 

 the several classes of suggestion, in which one idea leads to the successive recur- 

 rence of another, which has been in some way associated with it. The next dis- 

 tinguishable stage, is that which it has been the purpose of this Essay to illus- 

 trate, and which, for distinctness, I have called combinations, or complex ideas 

 of that kind which are formed by association* 



* There are two distinct classes of complex ideas; viz., those framed by association, and those 

 acquired from the immediate constitution of things. 



