CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



the higher combinations of Industry and Busi- 

 ness. 



The persistence and recovery, by purely mental 

 influence, of the various feelings and sensations, 

 being the most essential peculiarity of the think- 

 ing portion of the mind, the exposition necessarily 

 turns upon the laws that regulate that persistence 

 and recoverability. These are termed Laws of 

 Mental Association, Suggestion, or Reproduction ; 

 and the first explicit statement of any of them is 

 due to Aristotle. We shall treat them as four in 

 number two being simple and fundamental, and 

 two complex. 



LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 



This associating principle is the basis of 

 Memory, Habit, and the Acquired powers in 

 general. We might also name it the law of 

 Adhesion, Mental Adhesiveness, or Acquisition. 

 The statement of it is as follows : 



Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occur- 

 ring together, or in close succession, tend to grow 

 together, or cohere in such a way that when any 

 one of them is afterwards presented to the mind, 

 the others are apt to be brought up in idea, 



In presenting a series of examples of the work- 

 ing of this law, we commence with Actions, or 

 muscular activity, including movements, attitudes, 

 and efforts of resistance. We have a certain 

 stock of movements to begin with, and these are 

 rendered easy by repetition, and linked together 

 into successions, which come at last to be so 

 firmly connected that the first of the series in- 

 fallibly brings on all the rest. The power of 

 walking is based upon an original tendency to alter- 

 nate the limbs ; but there must be incorporated 

 with this a number of actions for maintaining the 

 balance, especially in the human subject, and this 

 incorporation has to be groped upon by trials, and 

 finally effected by the adhesiveness of system. 

 We require, along with the movements of the 

 limbs, to execute coinciding movements of the 

 head, arms, and trunk, in order that the body may 

 never depart from a balanced posture j which 

 remoter movements become at last so fused with 

 the main action as to be inseparable from it. 

 This is an example of the agglutination of coin- 

 ciding acts. The fixing of successive acts is 

 exemplified in the child learning to feed itself, 

 and is repeated in the innumerable combina- 

 tions of handicraft processes of every descrip- 

 tion. 



The Feelings of Movement may likewise be 

 associated into an ideal train, through the opera- 

 tion of the same plastic property. Whatever 

 mechanical action we can execute, we can think 

 of, or go over the steps mentally, without the 

 actual performance ; and this is the idea of the 

 act. Thus, in reading to one's self, the vocal pro- 

 nunciation is suppressed to something even less 

 than a whisper, a mere ideal or mental opera- 

 tion ; but the steps of this come at last to cohere, 

 the same as what has been repeatedly spoken 

 aloud. 



The Sensations of the Senses cohere into aggre- 

 gate or complex wholes by contiguous association. 

 But in the first place there is an effect produced 

 upon single sensations by repetition namely, that 

 their ideal persistence comes to be rendered more 

 perfect. Thus, having smelt a rose a thousand 



times, we are more able to retain the idea of the 

 smell after the original is gone. When two or 

 more sensations, whether of the same sense or 

 of different senses, have been often experienced 

 together, a mental aggregate is formed such that 

 the presence of one can bring up all the rest. A 

 blind man discriminates objects, and knows his 

 whereabouts by Touch ; and in his mind numerous 

 touches are joined together in successions ; and 

 when he encounters the first of a series, all the 

 rest are recalled to his mind by anticipation. 

 Seizing the handle of a certain door, he knows 

 what will be the next touch that he is to encounter, 

 and so on. Successions of sounds make great 

 part of our education in language. The aggre- 

 gation of sensations of sight is the groundwork 

 of our recollection of the whole outer world as 

 revealed to the eye. 



The association of Movements with sensations 

 includes the acting under direction, guidance, or 

 control. We connect language or signals with 

 our actions, and fall into the movement the 

 moment that the ear or eye is touched with the 

 indicating impression. Any taste, smell, touch, 

 sound, or sight may have an action associated 

 with it, which shall succeed with certainty to the 

 occurrence of the sensation. The sensations of 

 one sense may be linked with those of any other. 

 The sight of objects is connected in the mind with 

 their touch, as rough or smooth, hot or cold, and 

 with their sound on being struck The appear- 

 ance of every one of our acquaintances is suggested 

 by the sound of their voice. The connecting of 

 names with things is the mental union of sounds 

 with appearances, &c. 



It is by the same mental process that we 

 Localise our own Sensations, and form a concep- 

 tion of our corporeal outline. Originally, the 

 child can know no difference between a prick on 

 the leg and one on the arm, or between the exer- 

 tion of the two hands ; but the use of the other 

 senses shews that there is a difference, and we 

 connect the special pinch or movement with our 

 sight of the locality affected. 



Our various Emotions come into alliance with 

 objects as pictured by the senses, and these have, 

 by this means, the power of recalling past feelings 

 whose real occasion does not exist. The sight of 

 food will provoke hunger, which would otherwise 

 be unfelt. Love is associated with things that are 

 not its proper stimulant, but which have been 

 often present to the mind in moments of warm 

 emotion ; as with the objects and scenes of one's 

 early years. In like manner, we acquire artificial 

 hatreds and terrors. Things that are the instru- 

 ments of pleasure come to inspire all the attach- 

 ment we feel towards the end, as in the remark- 

 able case of the love of money. 



The Objects of Nature, as realised by the mind, 

 are aggregates of sensible qualities and feelings 

 joined by the force of contiguity. An orange has 

 for its idea a compound of taste, smell, touch, 

 sight ; and the frequent experience of all these 

 effects in conjunction, binds together the several 

 impressions into one enduring whole, which we 

 call our knowledge of the thing. If the distinct 

 sensations could not be joined in this way, we 

 should never have any recognition of things as 

 possessing many properties, nor could we, from 

 the sight alone, or smell alone, realise all the 

 others. Everything that comes within the sphere 



