THE STREAM OF THOUGHT. 261 



other, — the visual images can have no such affinity as tJiat. 

 But qua thoughts, qua sensations understood, the words have 

 contracted by long association fringes of mutual repugnance 

 or affinity with each other and with the conclusion, which 

 run exactly parallel with like fringes in the visual, tactile 

 and other ideas. The most important element of these 

 fringes is, I repeat, the mere feeling of harmony or discord, 

 of a right or wrong direction in the thought. Dr. Camp- 

 bell has, so far as I know, made the best anal^'sis of this 

 fact, and his words, often quoted, deserve to be quoted again. 

 The chapter is entitled "AVhat is the cause that nonsense 

 so often escapes being detected, both by the writer and by 

 the reader ?" The author, in answering this question, makes 

 {iider alia) the following remarks : * 



"That connection [he says] or relation which comes gradually to sub- 

 sist among the different words of a language, in the minds of those who 

 speak it, ... is merely consequent on this, that those words are 

 employed as signs of connected or related things. It is an axiom in 

 geometry that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. 

 It may, in like manner, be admitted as an axiom in psychology that 

 ideas associated by the same idea will associate one another. Hence it 

 will happen that if, from experiencing the connection of two things, 

 there results, as infallibly there will result, an association between the 

 ideas or notions annexed to them, as each idea will moreover be asso- 

 ciated by its sign, there will likewise be an association between the ideas 

 of the signs. Hence the sounds considered as signs will be conceived to 

 have a connection analogous to that which subsisteth among the things 

 signified; I say, the sounds considered as signs; for this way of consid- 

 ering them constantly attends us in speaking, writing, hearing, and 

 reading. When we purposely abstract from it, and regard them merely 

 as sounds, we are instantly sensible that they are quite unconnected, and 

 have no other relation than what ariseth from similitude of tone or 

 accent. But to consider them in this manner commonly results from 

 previous design, and requires a kind of effort which is not exerted in the 

 ordinary use of speech. In ordinary use they are regarded solely as 

 signs, or, rather, they are confounded with the things they signify; the 

 consequence of which is that, in the manner just now explained, we come 

 insensibly to conceive a connection among them of a very different sort 

 from that of which sounds are naturally susceptible. 



"Now this conception, habit, or tendency of the mind, call it which 

 you please, is considerably strengthened by the frequent use of language 

 and by the structure of it. Language is the sole channel through which 



* George Campbell: Philosophy of Rlietoric, book ir. chap. vii. 



