Rey. James WILLs on accidental Association. 99 
immediately tends to the external world of sense. We have few ideas unassociated 
with sound, and taste, and scent, and sight, and those of sight are a thousand-fold 
more than all the rest. To any of these, however, the application of the theory 
is the same. Mere abstractions, it is true, are not so easily combined; nor so 
easy to recollect ; they mostly require some system of signs. There is, however, 
no reason why they should not be forced similarly to cohere under the influences 
of habit and peculiar genius. 
Some illustration of this theory may be derived from a few special applications. 
The common effect of time in diminishing the coherence of our accidental asso- 
ciations may be briefly explained. I do not, of course, here mean to include the 
more decided lapse of memory which occurs in advanced years, and which is attri- 
butable to physical decay; but that diminution of the powers of retention, 
which is very generally noticed in persons of mature age, and which is implied 
when we hear the freshness of youthful memory spoken of. As years advance, 
and habits, places, pursuits, and other circumstances, pass through many changes, 
it is plain that the sum of most men’s ideas, limited in amount, has passed into 
numerous combinations, with a variety almost unlimited. Consequently, after a 
time, there will remain few associations of the accidental class, of which ali the 
components must not have become so variously involved as to have lost all exclu- 
sive appropriation ; and thus there must follow a diminution in the coherence of 
our accidental associations. This, it ought to be observed, implies no real inconve- 
nience or disadvantage ; there is, on the contrary, a beautiful adaptation to the 
actual uses of the intellect, in a system ofadjusments, by which at each period of life 
the memory is modified precisely to meet its real purposes. In early years our 
knowledge is mainly derived from the world of sensation ; the senses themselves 
are first disciplined by habit, and those habitual intuitions are acquired by which 
we rightly see and hear. Observation next begins to note the similarities and dis- 
similarities of things, to classify and accumulate the facts which are to be the mate- 
rials of reflection, and the foundation of knowledge: but as reason advances in 
this course, there is an increase of the efficiency of the habitual processes and 
associations, the expertness of inference, the discriminating power, the special 
attainments of profession and the formularies of thought and language which these 
involve. The more complex ends of reason are to be attained by more appropriate 
processes. Thus there is a compensation adequate to the change of circumstances 
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