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Rev. James Wits on accidental Association. 93 
because it effects what is otherwise not easily done: it enables us to eliminate 
some of those causes which might otherwise be assumed. Every one who looks 
back to the earliest scenes of recollection may recall numerous moments and scenes 
connected with them, which mast appear to start out from the surrounding 
obscurity of their period ; and a little reflection will shew that they are generally 
not the class of incidents which might seem to have the strongest claim to be 
remembered. It is true, that the impression of some one moment may be so 
strong as to remain unparalleled through life. But this is not the description of 
the greater part of our recollections: there may be an impression of greater power, 
but it is because it is peculiar that it is retained, and not because it is strong. 
Some peculiar aspect of daylight, marked even by a passing thought, will come 
back, when pains and pleasures, emotions and affections, have left no trace. 
Some note of a bird, some scent upon the air, will transport the thoughts over 
long, intervening years, to some scene or moment left far behind in our course. 
This leads me to notice another strong cause of permanence in the recollec- 
tions of early life. I mean the peculiar states of thought which are the result of 
ignorance. From this alone countless impressions are made which must never 
again be known, because they are the offspring of a passing moment's illusion ; 
they have no existence but in the breast. A line of horizon that bounded our 
prospect was a mystery; every stranger came from some strange world; the 
woods and the mountains were haunted by the things of imagination. I will 
take one class of recollections for illustration. Many must have felt how a verse 
of poetry, learned in early years, acquires a degree of expression quite peculiar. 
But it may not occur, how often it happens that the greater part of the charm 
consists in associations wholly supplied by the circumstances and the time, and 
having existence solely in his own imagination. The case is well worth especial 
notice : the tritest common-place has happened to touch the key-note of the fancy, 
and a whole atmosphere of bright illusions mingles with the instant: the language 
has acquired an expression of which no analysis can divest it. But how strange 
and complex will often be the recollection: it will bring back the moments, the 
actual scenes, the bound of the youthful breast, all in that same fictitious colouring. 
The scene that was present will be lighted with a fancied sunshine, and affected 
by states of feeling that cannot be effaced, because they cannot be felt again. 
It would be, indeed, a deep error to ascribe these effects to any degree of 
