CHAPTEE XrV.* 



ASSOCIATION. 



After discrimination, association ! Already in the last 

 chapter I have had to invoke, in order to exjDlain the im- 

 provement of certain discriminations bj practice, the * as- 

 sociation ' of the objects to be distinguished, with other more 

 widely differing ones. It is obvious that the advance of our 

 knowledge must consist of both operations ; for objects at 

 first appearing as wholes are analyzed into parts, and 

 objects appearing separately are brought together and ap- 

 pear as new compound wholes to the mind. Analysis and 

 synthesis are thus the incessantly alternating mental 

 acti%'ities, a stroke of the one preparing the way for a stroke 

 of the other, much as, in walking, a man's two legs are 

 alternately brought into use, both being indispensable for 

 any orderly advance. 



The manner in which trains of imagery and consideration 

 follow each other through our thinking, the restless flight 

 of one idea before the next, the transitions our minds make 

 between things wide as the poles asunder, transitions which 

 at first sight startle us by their abruptness, but which, 

 when scrutinized closely, often reveal intermediating links 

 of perfect naturalness and propriety — all this magical, im- 

 ponderable streaming has from time immemorial excited 

 the admiration of all whose attention happened to be caught 

 by its omnipresent mystery. And it has furthermore 

 challenged the race of philosophers to banish something 

 of the mystery by formulating the process in simpler 

 terms The problem which the philosophers have set 

 themselves is that of ascertaining principles of connection 

 between the thoughts which thus appear to sprout one out 



*The theory propounded in this chapter, and a good many pages of 

 the text, were originally published in the Popular Science Monthly for 

 March. 1880. 



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