PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 



the piano-forte, the motions of the hands 

 and feet in weaving 1 and in spinning 1 , and 

 various other muscular actions which will 

 readily suggest themselves to the reader, 

 may be slaved as instances of synchronous 

 associations of muscular actions. The 

 motions of the organs of speech in read- 

 ing or speaking, of the feet in walking, 

 and of the fingers in writing or speaking, 

 are instances of successive associations of 

 muscular actions. 



30. These nine cases of the association 

 of sensorial changes are comprehended 

 by Hartley in the following general theo- 

 rem : " If any sensation, A, idea, B, or 

 muscular motion, C, be associated for a 

 sufficient number of times with another 

 sensation, D, idea, E, or muscular action, 

 F, it will at last excite, d, the simple idea 

 belonging to the sensation, U, the very 

 idea, E, or the very muscular action, F." 

 The sensation itself cannot of course be 

 re-excited, because that depends upon 

 the presence of the object of the sense ; 

 but sometimes, as in an instance stated 

 in 21, the simple idea belonging to a 

 sensation is so vivid, that it equals, if not 

 surpasses the original sensation ; and it 

 should be observed, that the sensorial 

 change corresponding to the sensation is 

 the same in kind as that corresponding to 

 the simple idea left by that sensation ; 

 that is, any sensible change and its sim- 

 ple ideal change are the same in kind, 

 differing only in vividness, and sometimes 

 equal in that respect. It may also be 

 well to observe here, that when Hartley 

 and his disciples speak of muscular ac- 

 tions clinging together, they obviously 

 mean that the motory changes of the sen- 

 sorium become connected together, and 

 not as some seem to have supposed, and 

 indeed as their words imply, that the 

 motions of muscles are connected with- 

 out any intervention of the mind (taking 

 the term in the popular sense). It is 

 true they suppose that volition has no- 

 thing to do in the association when com- 

 plete, though originally perhaps concern- 

 ed in the formation of the association ; 

 and also that it may go cm without even 

 exciting the consciousness ; but we know 

 of none who suppose that the mental or- 

 gans (the mind in the popular sense) are 

 less concerned in the connections among 

 muscular actions, than in those among 

 sensations and ideas. All the sensorial 

 changes mav and do become connected 

 together, and the one may produce the 

 other, and so on, without the conscious- 

 ness being excited ; but no external im- 

 pression, which does not act by stimulat- 



ing or impelling the moving muscle, can 

 produce muscular action without the ac- 

 tion of the mental organs ; and, in like 

 manner, no muscular action can produce 

 another muscular action (except what 

 may be termed mere physical motion, 

 such as might be produced by any foreign 

 body mechanically acting upon the mus- 

 cular system), without the action of the 

 mental organs. The whole of the con- 

 nection is mental, and we think that if 

 this idea be kept in view, and employed 

 in the explanation of the Hartleyan phra- 

 seology respecting connections among 

 muscular actions, that it will remove some 

 of the difficulties which are felt respect- 

 ing this part of the Hartleyan system, 

 and show that the objections which have 

 been urged against it arose from an in- 

 complete idea of that system. 



LAWS OP CONNECTIONS. 



We now proceed to our second object 

 ( 18), 'viz. to point out and illustrate 

 some of the leading laws of that class of 

 associations which we term connections ; 

 premising that many of the observations 

 which follow are, as the reader will rea- 

 dily perceive, equally applicable to that 

 class which we term compositions. 

 These laws regard, 1. The strength of 

 connections; 2. The disunion of connec- 

 tions ; 3. The formation of connections 

 by means of intermediate links (which 

 we may call the law of transference) ; 

 and 4. Habitual biases to particular kind* 

 of connections. 



1 . The Strength of Connections. 



31. The strength and durability of con- 

 nections depend partly upon the degree of 

 attention with which the connected senso- 

 rial changes have been attended, and part- 

 ly upon the frequency with which they 

 have recurred in connection ; less gene- 

 rally, partly upon the vividness of the con- 

 nected ideas ; and partly upon the fre- 

 quency with which the connected ideas, 

 or muscular actions, have recurred in con- 

 nection. We may adduce, as an illustra- 

 tion of the former cause of strength and 

 durability, that circumstances of a light 

 and trivial nature, which have occurred 

 while our minds were occupied with sub- 

 jects of a strongly pleasing nature, form 

 no connection with the concurring train of 

 ideas, even if the attention were drawn oft 

 by them. For instance, suppose we were 

 attending 1 to an interesting discourse, if 



